It seems to me that as feminists we often shy away from any suggestions of what women can do to improve our circumstances, as though conversations of that nature are tantamount to victim blaming. Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is dismissed as “faux feminism”, and even beloved Jennifer Lawrence caught heat for acknowledging the role she feels she played in the wage gap between herself and her male counterparts.  

I get where this resistance comes from, and I know it’s ultimately a good place. As women we’ve spent so much of our lives being defined as an ‘other’ and told that the injustices of the world stem from our inherent inferiority, rather than the flawed world we live in. The suggestion that we are holding ourselves back is uncomfortable, to say the least, but I think it is important to consider.