Want your brand to be an ally to women? Yes, there are things you can teach them, but much more valuable is what you can un-teach them

Do you ever think about how much agency your customer has in her own life? Beyond her salary bracket and detailed consumer behaviour? I ask because, for the insight we conducted in the lead-up to International Women’s Day, that’s what we thought the most crucial thing was to determine. 

The reason being is this: no matter what subject we talk to women about, no matter their age or background or belief system, or how accomplished or progressive the individual, there’s almost always some recurring themes and behaviours that pop up. It could be decision paralysis, permission seeking or a lack of self-belief… However it decides to show up, the niggle-some throughline we keep seeing is a low agency mindset in high achieving minds. And it’s limiting women big time. 

So how do we help? First, we ask different questions.  

Last month, Think Stylist recruited over 1,000 women and asked them to tell us what they wished they’d been taught when they were younger that would have better equipped them for the lives they lead now. Answers spanned everything from practical (car maintenance) to emotional (assertiveness) to socio-political (how to decentre men).  

Then we asked what they most wanted to learn about now and were unsurprised when the majority told us money. Be it renting, saving, investing, buying a house or how credit scores impact you, financial literacy (THE gateway to autonomy!) remains the number one knowledge gap for women. Think Stylist delved into this in way more detail in last year’s F Word report and a recent study by the Aberdeen Group found that only 18% of women display ‘very good’ financial literacy due to inconsistent or inaccessible support that isn’t designed with life needs in mind. They also noted that in the government’s recently updated Financial Inclusion Strategy, gender was noted as a consideration. 

The second most common of the things that women want and need to learn? DIY skills, with AI and tech development third and women’s health education number four. Thirty-nine percent of women want more help establishing their boundaries, both personally and professionally, while a third need more career development guidance to lessen the effects of what we’re calling ‘pivot paralysis’. Because despite being highly educated and ambitious, a huge barrier for women right now is not knowing how to harness their skills and capabilities to go in the right direction for them – something made even more problematic by the once-in-a-generation shifts happening in the world of work. Anthropic, the creators of AI chatbot Claude, are being transparent about which jobs are being impacted by AI in America, with women-dominated roles cited as being particularly vulnerable as we teeter on the brink of a ‘great recession for white collar workers’.  

The ‘Big Un-learn’   

Yet even more interesting to me than the lessons women need to learn to empower themselves further, are the ones they desperately need to lay down and forget. The things that women cited as having learned in childhood that have proven problematic and unhelpful to them? Body image pressures were named number one, with gendered expectations around behaviours and emotional expression being a close second (75% felt boys were treated differently in their home/school/community and encouraged, supported or prioritised in different ways).

The five that follow those? Perfectionism and fear of failure, pressure to be agreeable, over-emphasis on academic achievements over life skills, being encouraged to make themselves ‘smaller and quieter’, and unrealistic expectations around life milestones or timelines. This list is absolute gold-dust for brands. To know these are the things hindering women and reducing their sense of agency, is to identify how to be their ally in the months and years ahead.  

So, my challenge is this: yes, what can your brand teach women that will allow them to step further into their power, but even more importantly, what can you un-teach them that is currently holding them back?  

Because brands that actively counter what women have learnt about needing to be perfect, to not fail, to have bodies that look a certain way, to shrink themselves and not overstep… These are the brands that will resonate with women and girls as they look to increase their agency in the years ahead. So, let’s encourage them to create their own timelines and to be unagreeable and to get their hands dirty when it comes to DIY and everything else that goes against the grain of years gone by. The lessons about to be learned by the next generation of women depend on it.  

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