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That’s Not Very Ladylike is the podcast for every woman who was told to be polite, stay calm, or stop being so dramatic, meanwhile her hormones, boundaries, and sanity were quietly falling apart.
Hosted by Tracey Willingham, licensed social worker and the voice behind That Hormone Girl™, each episode starts with one rule: Ladies don’t…and then they do it anyway.
Together, we unpack the unspoken expectations, the emotional labor, the generational BS, and the hormone chaos modern women are carrying and we get honest about what it actually takes to feel like yourself again.
If you’re ready to question the rules, trust your body, and stop shrinking to make everyone else comfortable, you’re in the right place.
You're listening to That's Not Very Ladylike, the show where every week, we start with one rule, ladies don't, and then we do it anyway. Welcome back to another episode of That's Not Very Ladylike. This week, this week, ladies, we are going in, and we've all been there. So, we don't even going to pretend like this doesn't happen but we're going to look a little bit about, can we change it? Can we change our path?
Tracey:And several weeks ago, I did an episode where I talked about my women's circle group and I think the answer, if you listen to that one is, yes, yes, we can. That, if I think that was in the episode about pleasure. So, if you're like, I gotta hear more about this. Check out that episode but let's jump into today's. Ladies don't support other women.
Tracey:They compete with them. And let's start by naming the rule that lives. So ladies, we are not to cheer too loud. We are to compare. We are to measure, and we are to calculate.
Tracey:Who's thinner? Who's smarter? Who's further along? Who's making more? Who's prettier without even trying?
Tracey:And if another woman wins, we smile. But inside, it is full on rage and war. Because somewhere along the way, we have learned that there's only room for one woman, one leader, one favorite, one promotion, one spotlight. And if she gets it, you don't. And that's the rule.
Tracey:So let's get into a story. This is a story I don't tell very often but it actually is pretty impactful and I probably should talk about it more. So, when I was 13 or 14, my mom put me in a beauty pageant and listen, y'all. I am not a beauty pageant girl. I'm not the hairspray clouds, sparkle eyelids, practice your wave in the mirror, girl, and I'm not making fun of it for those who are in it.
Tracey:Like, it's after experiencing it, it is a commitment and it's real but that just was not my jam. Now, if you follow me on my on my Instagram at That Hormone Girl, if you've listened to some of my podcast or if you've even like received some of my Emails, there, I do mention sometimes that I do have a real life crown. That was for something that was was campy, meant to be fun. I'll eventually talk about it on here but just in case some of you are like, now, hold on. I saw you as an adult with a crown on your head.
Tracey:Not not a beauty pageant. That was a camp pageant and I'll tell you about that someday. But in this instance, I was in a beauty pageant and any man that I've ever dated would say, hopefully, would would probably say, yeah, she's a pretty girl. You know, I mean, I'm not like a supermodel but I don't think I'm like hiding the dark shadows ugly. So, I think I'm pretty but it was always my personality that has pulled men in and it has always been placed around my humor, my energy, my mouth.
Tracey:I got myself into so many circumstances because I had to run my mouth and I had to push at men but then I found those men that are like, I like her. She's sassy. So, it's always been based on those things, not my ability to glide across the stage in five inch heels pretending that I was born in lip gloss because here I was in a beauty pageant backstage. I'm in a dress that really did not look like me at all. If y'all could've seen my permed hair, that hair, it was so high.
Tracey:I mean, it was, you know, it was high to the sky and it was curled and I I remember I couldn't even go swimming like because, you know, my hair was done. So, you know, here we are at a hotel with a pool but everybody else have fun but this girl can't swim. And I'm trying to remember like how to stand, how to smile, how I'm supposed to do this because I also, like, mom didn't put me in like a coaching program. She was just like, we should try this and really for like all of you that are like, why? What was this about?
Tracey:Yeah, was right at that age of like 13 or 14. So, my mom was trying to like build my confidence, try something different and new and so, you know, it wasn't one of those things where my mom's like, she is gorgeous and we're going to win thousands of dollars. She was just like, hey, let's build her confidence a little bit. Let's get her into something that's different and it did help. I mean, I was speaking in front of a crowd at 13, 14.
Tracey:I mean, that's not typically what happens. So, there I am and I don't know what I'm doing but I'm next to this girl and I start talking to her and she was delightful. I thought like I had found a new best friend. We were giggling. We were having fun.
Tracey:We were just these two teenage girls standing in uncomfortable shoes, you know, kind of talking about what's happening and we were really becoming friends. At least I thought we were and I think she thought we were too and then her mom saw us And I'm not kidding when I say the air shifted. I can still remember this. She stormed over like I had just tried to steal a crown that wasn't even on her daughter's head yet. And she cut her daughter off mid sentence, looked at my mom and said loudly to keep me back.
Tracey:Keep me away from her daughter. Like, I was contagious like friendliness was like some kind of strategy. I'm going to befriend you and then I'm going to take the crown and like, you know, the connection that I was just trying to have as a young teenage girl, I'm I'm here to sabotage the system and I remember sitting there thinking like, wait, we're not even allowed to talk to each other back here. We're not allowed like, it's the weekend. I'm not here just to like have some fun.
Tracey:We're not allowed to just be girls backstage because in that moment, I realized realized something that I didn't have language for yet at that time because this wasn't about doing my best. It wasn't about confidence and growth. It was about winning at all costs and if that cost was isolating another 13, 14 year old girl, so be it. So, here's a fun twist in the story. She won and it was like her twentieth crown because she was seasoned, polished, trained.
Tracey:She knew what to do but here's here's where I'm proud y'all. Guess what's your girl? Guess what's your girl did? I won Miss Congeniality. Yep, that's right.
Tracey:Which honestly feels like foreshadowing for my entire early dating life. I was always the nice one. Always one of the guys. Always the personality pick. But I wasn't always the chosen one.
Tracey:Like, that that chick's hot. But the lesson I absorbed in that glitter coated battlefield, you are not there to make friends. You are not here to celebrate other girls. You are not here to clap for anyone but yourself. I was there to compete, to measure, to compare, to calculate, and to smile sweetly while internally ranking everybody in that room.
Tracey:At 13 in rhinestones. And that's when I learned that women are not always teammates. We're threats. And if you don't protect your edge, someone else is going to take it. And that lesson did not start in corporate America.
Tracey:It sure lives there. But it didn't start there. And it didn't start in marriage. It started backstage under fluorescent lights with curling irons plugged in to extension cords and a mom who knew the rules. So let's look at the emotional cost of this, of women not supporting each other but competing.
Tracey:Because here's what competition between women actually costs us. It keeps our nervous systems activated long term, which is not what it's supposed to do. So comparison, it's gonna spike your cortisol. The scarcity thinking keeps adrenaline just at a constant humming. And a constant measuring creates low grade stress.
Tracey:And think about it. We've all done this. You're on your phone. You're on a social media platform. You scroll.
Tracey:You see her post. Your stomach drops. You don't even dislike her. But your brain goes, well, she already did it. Well, guess that market saturated.
Tracey:Wow. Looks like I am super behind in the game of being a mom, being a 40 year old woman, being a homesteader, whatever or boy, I should be a lot further along in my life. I am really, I am really messing this one life up. And now your body's in this fight or flight over an Instagram post. And that's conditioning, my friends, because when women operate from scarcity, we isolate.
Tracey:So, we are biologically wired for co regulation. Connection actually lowers stress chemistry. Belonging stabilizes the nervous system. And competition just keeps your body constantly braced. And a braced body is never going to be able to fully thrive.
Tracey:So let's look at the historical context behind this. So for most of history, women didn't have unlimited seats at the table. I know. Shock. What?
Tracey:There wasn't room for 10 women leaders. There was room if you're lucky for one. In corporate spaces, in politics, in academia, it was only one token woman. And when there's only one chair, you're going to guard it because you fought really hard to get it. So let's look at some of the the different things that were happening for women of different races.
Tracey:White women fought to enter professional spaces in large numbers in the twentieth century. And to be honest, we're the ones that had the most success in it. Like, sorry, 100% fact. Black women were navigating not only sexism, but racism at the same time, often excluded from white feminist spaces and from male dominated institutions. Latina, Asian, and indigenous women were organizing in labor movements, community health, and grassroots leadership long before mainstream recognition even caught up with that.
Tracey:So, we gotta look at some like powerhouses too. So, you had women like Sojourner Truth and the thing that people get wrong about her is that she was not just fighting for gender equality but it gets left out a lot. She was demanding that race and womanhood be seen together and they always leave off that part about race. Yes, she was a powerhouse in the the women's movement but boy, she was she was calling out what was known which was, you know, sure, women, white women, and black women can stand together back then but there's still a place for the white woman versus the black woman. Leaders like Dolores Huerta organized thousands of women farm workers.
Tracey:I've mentioned her before because she's awesome because she came from a we're not going to compete with each other. We're going to stand shoulder to shoulder and yet, even within feminist waves, access wasn't equal. So some women were fighting for corporate seats while some are just fighting for basic safety. So, scarcity has been real. But we're no longer limited to one seat.
Tracey:There is not one microphone. There's not just one podcast, my friends. There's not one lane. There is not a one definition of success anymore. But our nervous systems are still acting like there is.
Tracey:Because we've inherited that scarcity mindset. But we don't have to keep performing to it. So, another woman's success does not threaten your biology. It doesn't steal your timeline and it is not going to cancel your calling. And where women actually show up and like move move things forward and like make things magnetic.
Tracey:It's in things like collaboration, shared resources, community, mentorship, honest conversations. Because when women support each other, not only do our stress hormones drop. And when we celebrate each other, our dopamine, the dopamine rises. And when women collaborate, watch out. Capacity expands.
Tracey:When we stand side by side and makes, I mean, some of the biggest movements we have seen in the world have been because women stood side by side and said, no more. This changes. We're doing this. So, this is the physiology. And it's not bad.
Tracey:It's not bad for wanting to win. Competition is, I mean, kind of part of biology, friends. It's, you know, we need to talk about the survival of the fittest. There's a reason that's around in science. But you don't have to make someone else lose in order to win.
Tracey:And that's the difference between ambition and insecurity. Because ambition builds. You build what you need to build, queen. I'm going to build what I need to build. Insecurity is when we have to start competing.
Tracey:So, if this were allowed to be said the way it should, it would sound like this. I feel jealous. There is a part of me that feels threatened. I'm afraid there won't be enough for me when I arrive. And listen, that doesn't make you petty.
Tracey:That's just human. But here's what we need to upgrade to saying. I can feel that and still choose support. I can be inspired instead of intimidated. And I can build a bigger table instead of guarding that one chair.
Tracey:Because we don't have to inherit that rivalry as our default setting. So here's some reflection. I want you to be honest with yourself. Who triggers comparison in you? And what story do you immediately tell when she succeeds?
Tracey:And what I mean by that is it like, she's ahead or are you saying instead like, maybe it's possible. And where are you acting like there's only one seat? And what would shift in your body if you believed there was room at the table? Because there is. There is room for your voice, your method, your story, your pace.
Tracey:You're not late, you're not copying, you're not, you know, in a field that's just too much, you're not redundant, but most of all my friends, you are not replaceable. Your unique perspective is like a fingerprint and it's what makes it possible for, I mean, let's take a look at me. My job is in the women's health and hormone health field right now, okay? There's like 2,000,000 of us out there trying to hit it. But you know what?
Tracey:I'm different than all the others because of my life experience, my personality, how I present things. So, there's room. So in closing, ladies don't support other women. They compete with them. But competition built on scarcity keeps us small.
Tracey:So you do not have to make yourself less than another woman to stand tall. You do not have to measure yourself against every room you walk into. You do not have to live in quiet comparison. You can celebrate. You can collaborate.
Tracey:You can say there's space for both of us. And that shift, when you shift from being a rival to I am regulated in who I am and what I'm here to do, when we move from that scarcity mindset to sisterhood, to when I do when you do well, I do well. When they succeed, I succeed. And when you move from guarded to a generous spirit of there's room for all of us sisters, that is the most unladylike thing of Thanks for joining me today for That's Not Very Ladylike. If today's episode lit a fire, pushed your buttons, or called a little BS on the stories we've been sold, share it with another woman who's tired of being told to tone it down, smile more, or play nice.
Tracey:And help a girl out by making sure you subscribe, leave a quick review, and catch me on Instagram at that hormone girl. And until next time, keep getting loud, messy, and raising hell because being ladylike is overrated.