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I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about the ways women treat other women. About the acrimony that sometimes exists between us. The competition. The judgment. The ease with which we diminish another woman’s accomplishments, question her motives, or decide who she is based on someone else’s account. And I’ve been thinking about a question that I suspect many women in leadership have asked themselves:

If I were a man, would my directness be interpreted as confidence rather than arrogance? Would my experience be respected rather than dismissed? Would my willingness to correct misinformation be considered leadership rather than condescension?

I don’t know the answer in every circumstance. But I do know that research on women in leadership suggests these double standards are very real. And after nearly two decades of owning and operating a mental health practice, I’ve experienced enough to believe they’re worth talking about.

When Did Confidence Become Arrogance?

I’ve been described as direct, outspoken, opinionated, and matter-of-fact. I’ve also been described as rude, condescending, controlling, greedy, and someone who apparently thinks she knows everything.

I find the contrast fascinating. When did sharing knowledge become an assertion of superiority? When did acknowledging one’s accomplishments become arrogance? When did correcting inaccurate information become an act of disrespect? And perhaps most importantly, when did we become so comfortable assigning motives to people we barely know?

I certainly don’t know everything. Far from it. I’ve made mistakes. Some significant ones. I’ve learned painful lessons about leadership, business, trust, and human relationships. I’ve made decisions I would make differently today. I’ve communicated in ways I wish I hadn’t. And I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time and money learning how to do things better.

When I share what I’ve learned, particularly the mistakes, it isn’t because I believe I’m better than anyone else. It’s because I believe knowledge is meant to be shared. Experience isn’t superiority. And sharing experience isn’t condescension.

In many cultures and traditions, elders and those with lived experience are valued as sources of wisdom. Their knowledge is sought, their stories are heard, and their mistakes become lessons for the next generation. This doesn’t mean age or experience makes someone infallible. It means there is value in what people have lived through.

I wonder when we began confusing respect for experience with submission to authority. We can learn from someone without placing them on a pedestal. We can disagree with someone without diminishing them. And we can recognize another woman’s accomplishments without feeling that they somehow diminish our own.

The Uncomfortable Relationship Between Women and Power

Women have fought for generations to have a voice. To own businesses. To lead organizations. To make decisions. To become financially independent. To speak with authority. Yet I sometimes wonder whether we’ve fully made peace with women actually exercising that power.

We celebrate female empowerment in theory. But what happens when a woman is unapologetically successful? When she’s financially independent? When she speaks confidently about something she knows? When she refuses to soften every statement with an apology, a disclaimer, or a reassurance that she might be wrong? Do we celebrate her? Or do we begin searching for reasons to bring her down?

There is a well-documented psychological phenomenon sometimes referred to as the double bind of female leadership. Women are expected to demonstrate the assertiveness and decisiveness associated with leadership while simultaneously remaining warm, accommodating, and agreeable.

Too soft, and we’re ineffective.

Too assertive, and we’re difficult.

Too confident, and we’re arrogant.

Too successful, and we’re greedy.

Of course, not every criticism of a woman is rooted in sexism. Women can be rude, arrogant, exploitative, and unethical, just as men can. But I think we owe it to ourselves to examine whether we apply the same standards to both.

Would we describe a man with twenty years of business experience as a know-it-all for sharing what he’s learned? Or would we call him a mentor?

The Shadow Side of Sisterhood

Jung wrote about the shadow: the parts of ourselves we would rather not see, qualities we may disown even as we recognize them readily in others. I wonder what happens when we bring that lens to our relationships with other women. Can another woman’s confidence stir something in us about our own voice? Can her visibility or success touch an old fear of not being enough? Can we mistake our discomfort for evidence that she has done something wrong?

I ask these questions of myself, too. I know that I have a shadow. I can become guarded, impatient, and defensive, particularly when an interaction reminds me of painful experiences. I am responsible for noticing that and for repairing harm when I cause it. But I hope we can extend the same curiosity to one another rather than turning a difficult moment into a permanent verdict on someone’s character.

The shadow side of sisterhood is not that women are inherently more competitive or cruel than men. It is that cultural expectations, scarcity, comparison, and our own unexamined wounds can turn potential allies into perceived threats. We can admire another woman and still feel envy. We can disagree with her and still respect her. We can hold her accountable without erasing her humanity. Perhaps sisterhood begins not when we deny those uncomfortable feelings, but when we take responsibility for what we do with them.

Why Are We So Quick to Believe the Worst?

Something else troubles me about professional communities. The ease with which narratives about people become accepted truths. Someone has a negative experience with another person. They share their interpretation. Others repeat it. Over time, the interpretation becomes a reputation. And eventually, people who have never even met the individual begin responding to them through the lens of that reputation.

As psychologists and mental health professionals, shouldn’t we be particularly mindful of this? We understand cognitive biases. We understand confirmation bias, attribution errors, projection, group dynamics, and the powerful influence of social belonging. We understand that human beings construct narratives to make sense of their experiences. And we understand that those narratives are not always complete. Yet somehow, in our own professional communities, we can forget these very principles. We can become remarkably comfortable judging people based on stories we’ve heard rather than experiences we’ve had.

I wonder how often we stop to ask:

What might I not know?

Is there another perspective?

Am I evaluating this person’s actual behavior, or am I responding to a story I’ve been told about them?

Would I interpret these same words differently if they came from someone I already liked?

Giving someone the benefit of the doubt isn’t naivety. It’s intellectual humility. And surely, as mental health professionals, that’s something we should be practicing.

The Psychological Cost of Building a Business

There’s another conversation I believe we need to have, particularly among practice owners. Business-related trauma. We talk extensively about burnout, compassion fatigue, and secondary traumatic stress in the helping professions. We talk far less about the psychological injuries that can accompany entrepreneurship and organizational leadership. The betrayals. The financial vulnerability. The responsibility for employees and their families. The experience of building something over many years and watching relationships, systems, or entire teams unravel. The personal attacks. The loneliness of making decisions that affect dozens of people while knowing that whatever you decide, someone may be unhappy.

I have experienced these challenges firsthand. I don’t share that to invite sympathy or to suggest that my experiences are more difficult than anyone else’s. I share it because I believe we need to acknowledge that business ownership can carry a profound psychological burden, particularly when the business is also an extension of one’s values, identity, and life’s work.

And trauma can change the way we communicate. It can make us more guarded, more vigilant and less patient with ambiguity, misinformation, or perceived manipulation. Sometimes what looks like defensiveness is, in fact, a protective adaptation developed through years of difficult experiences.

That doesn’t excuse unkind behavior. But perhaps it invites a little curiosity before judgment. I have certainly wondered whether some of my own directness has been shaped by what I’ve experienced. Perhaps I’ve become less willing to tolerate things I once overlooked. Perhaps I’ve grown tired of having my intentions misrepresented. Perhaps I’ve become more protective of what I’ve spent so many years building. And perhaps there are times when that protection comes through in my communication. I’m willing to examine that. But I also believe we can hold people accountable for how they communicate without dismissing the experiences that shaped them.

Directness Is Not the Opposite of Kindness

I sometimes wonder whether we’ve confused kindness with agreeableness. Must every correction be softened? Must every disagreement be accompanied by an apology? Must we constantly reassure one another that we’re wonderful, knowledgeable, and well-intentioned before we can say that something is factually incorrect?

I don’t believe so. Especially in healthcare. Our work carries ethical, clinical, and legal responsibilities. Misinformation can have real consequences for clinicians, organizations, and the people we serve. We should be able to say, “That information is not accurate,” without it becoming a personal attack. We should also be able to receive that correction without interpreting it as an assault on our competence or worth. And yes, tone matters. Context matters. Relationships matter.

I know I haven’t always communicated perfectly. There are times I could have been gentler. Times I could have listened longer. Times I could have approached a disagreement with more curiosity. I’m still learning. But I don’t believe the answer is to abandon directness. I believe the answer is to cultivate communication that is both honest and compassionate. We can be kind without being agreeable. We can be direct without being cruel. And we can disagree without becoming enemies.

Why Is It So Difficult to Celebrate Another Woman’s Accomplishments?

This question has been sitting with me for some time. I’ve spent twenty years building a mental health organization in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Over those years, I’ve helped create employment opportunities for clinicians, expanded access to mental health services, advocated for changes within our profession, and contributed to the development of our local behavioral health community.

I’m proud of that. Not because I did it alone. I absolutely did not. Many extraordinary clinicians, administrators, colleagues, and mentors have contributed to what we’ve built. And not because everything I’ve done has been successful or beyond criticism. It hasn’t. But why should acknowledging those accomplishments be interpreted as believing I’m better than someone else? Why does sharing my advocacy work sometimes seem to invite accusations that I’m taking credit for everything? I can be proud of my contributions while recognizing the contributions of others. I can acknowledge my experience without dismissing someone else’s. I can celebrate another practice owner’s success without feeling threatened by it. And I can share what I’ve learned without expecting anyone to agree with me.

Another woman’s success is not evidence of my inadequacy. Her knowledge does not diminish mine. Her accomplishments do not erase my own.

I wish we could embrace that more fully. Imagine what our professional communities might look like if we spent less time questioning one another’s motives and more time learning from one another’s experiences.

The Stories We Tell About One Another

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned, both personally and professionally, is that there are almost always multiple perspectives on a conflict. I have my own stories. Stories about experiences that hurt me deeply. Stories about people whose actions I experienced as betrayals. Stories about situations in which I felt misunderstood, misrepresented, or unfairly judged. And I recognize that the people involved may tell those stories very differently.

That doesn’t mean all accounts are equally accurate. It means human relationships are complicated. It means memory, emotion, personal history, and perspective shape how we understand what happened. And it means we should be cautious about believing we know an entire person based on someone else’s experience of them.

I have been on the receiving end of narratives about who I supposedly am, what motivates me, and what I believe. Some have persisted for years. And for a long time, I chose not to respond. Perhaps I believed my work would speak for itself. Perhaps I didn’t want to engage in conflict. Perhaps I simply didn’t know how to tell my story without becoming defensive.

But I’ve come to realize something. Remaining silent doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with the stories other people tell about you. And speaking up doesn’t necessarily mean you’re trying to control the narrative. Sometimes it simply means you’re ready to reclaim your own voice.

I’m not interested in publicly revisiting old conflicts or identifying people I believe have wronged me. I am interested in encouraging all of us to question how easily we form judgments about people we don’t know. Because behind every reputation is a human being. And behind every human being is a story far more complicated than the one being told.

Maybe It’s Time for a Different Kind of Sisterhood

I believe deeply in women supporting women. But I don’t believe sisterhood means unquestioning agreement. I don’t believe empowerment means protecting one another from constructive criticism. And I don’t believe compassion requires us to abandon truth.

Real support includes accountability. It includes honest conversations. It includes the willingness to recognize another woman’s strengths, even when we don’t particularly like her. And it includes the humility to acknowledge that we may have misunderstood someone.

Perhaps the most powerful thing we can do for one another is stop treating differences in communication, personality, experience, and professional philosophy as evidence of moral deficiency. We don’t all need to communicate the same way. We don’t all need to lead the same way. We don’t all need to like one another.

But surely we can disagree without dehumanizing. Surely we can recognize expertise without feeling inferior. Surely we can celebrate accomplishments without assuming arrogance. And surely we can extend the same curiosity and compassion to our colleagues that we encourage in our clients.

I’ve spent much of my life learning how to stand in my own power. Sometimes I’ve done it gracefully. Sometimes I’ve done it defensively. Sometimes I’ve gotten it wrong. I’m still learning. But I no longer believe that standing in my power requires diminishing myself to make other people comfortable. Nor does it require diminishing anyone else.

There is room for all of us. Room for the experienced clinician and the new graduate. Room for the solo practitioner and the group practice owner. Room for the quiet leader and the outspoken advocate. Room for different perspectives, different personalities, and different ways of contributing to our profession. And perhaps most importantly, room for people to grow beyond the versions of themselves we remember.

So the next time we find ourselves ready to judge another woman, particularly one we’ve never met, perhaps we could pause long enough to ask:

Whose story am I believing?

What might I not know?

And would I be making the same judgment if she were a man?

Because if we genuinely want to empower women, we have to be willing to examine the ways we sometimes participate in diminishing them. Including one another. We don’t have to make another woman smaller to stand fully in our own power.