The real reason women use the word 'just' 100 times in every email

Sexy, confident. So intelligent. She is heaven sent. So soft. So strong.” 

I initially assumed that Katy Perry’s recent single, Woman’s World, was a hilarious parody; artfully mimicking the basic tropes of white feminism. Playfully sending up Instagram culture and its useless cliches.

“She's a winner, champion. Superhuman, number one She's a sister, she's a mother. Open your eyes, just look around and you'll discover…” 

I initially assumed that Katy Perry’s recent single, Woman’s World, was a hilarious parody.

This was made for a skit on SNL, surely? Or at the very least concocted by ChatGPT after being asked for a templated pink sugary simplistic novelty B-Side.

Above: Katy Perry's recent track, Woman's World, was, surely, a hilarious parody. 

And then I read that she’d worked with Dr Luke on the track; the same Dr Luke accused of drugging and sexually assaulting pop star Kesha. That Dr Luke. The irony of releasing a pro-woman ‘anthem’ whilst supporting someone allegedly responsible for a very anti-woman act wasn’t lost on the internet population. Woman’s World tumbled clumsily into the charts at number 53. Perry’s hastily released follow-up, Lifetimes, debuted at number 198 on the Spotify chart. 

But what I’ll now refer to as the 'Perry Paradox' and its jarring vibe is perhaps the perfect metaphor for modern female-to-female relations. Confusing. Hypocritical. Cliched. A bit of a mess. And relentlessly male-centric, even now. Do we really live in a 'woman’s world?' And what kind of woman does the world cater for? Because it certainly isn’t all of them. 

The 'Perry Paradox' and its jarring vibe is perhaps the perfect metaphor for modern female-to-female relations. Confusing. Hypocritical. Cliched.

I work with a lot of women. It’s not uncommon for me to sit opposite a crying woman during my working day. If you need reassurance, it’s not me making them cry, it’s… society. They don’t know it’s society making them cry. But it is. 

Women cry to me, often, because I talk to them about their voices. It’s my job, after all: I run an L&D company that helps people find their voice, and that normally means interrogating your history. There’s some commonalities: baggage from feeling unheard over the years in toxic male cultures, or shame about accents (I hate this) or knocked confidence from being interrupted too many times in meetings. But there’s a growing trend I’ve noticed that worries me a great deal. In most group sessions, at least one woman will announce: “I’ve been told I’m too direct.”

Above: What happens when you’re told that your tone of voice is ‘incorrect’ in the eyes and ears of another?

The directness! That handy little stick we like to beat women with. You’re too direct, too blunt, too cold, too sharp, too honest. It’s not behaviour, work or dedication that’s the issue, apparently. Just tone. In short: you’re not nice enough. But… according to who? We’ll come back to that. 

Our voices are incredibly personal and difficult to change. So, what happens, then, when you’re told that your tone of voice - which you’ve probably had since you were a kid - is ‘incorrect’ in the eyes and ears of another? It’s an existential crisis in the making. I’ve worked with women desperately trying to seek autism diagnoses, to either understand if that’s the cause or just to get everyone off their back for a minute. 

What happens, then, when you’re told that your tone of voice is ‘incorrect’ in the eyes and ears of another? It’s an existential crisis in the making.

I’ve worked with women who stopped speaking entirely because they didn’t know how else to be. I worked with a Black woman who was told that she was too direct and aggressive in her tone. In order to soften herself, she laughed at the end of every single sentence. To sound nicer. 

It’s a universal joke that women soften themselves in emails. “No worries if not!” we wink at the end of a long note, littered with “just checking…” and “if that’s ok...” and “it would be amazing if...”, and numerous smilies and exclamation marks!!!!!!! Lest we be seen as *not nice*. At the end of every email I conduct the ‘just check': an edit of all the times I write ‘just’ instead of immediately diving into what I want or need. Depending on the email length it could be up to ten each time.

Above: Too often it's women who are judging other women. 

But what are we all so afraid of? Well, when women say to me, “I’ve been told I’m too direct”, I always ask, “by whom?”.

Brace yourself. At least 50% of the time they’ll respond with “a woman”. It’s a woman. Making judgments. Telling them they’re not being nice enough. It’s a woman telling them to change, and become more palatable. Turns out the tone police uniform is a gorgeous Herve Leger dress from Net a Porter and kitten heels from Russell and Bromley. 

I try to bite my tongue. I’ve been told off by women my whole life; telling me I’m too loud, too slutty, too much of an attention seeker. Too fat, too ambitious, too geeky, too sociable, too confident, not confident enough, too nervous, too awkward, too weird, and yep… too direct. They didn’t like my tone. I wasn’t nice enough, in the way they were. 

The ubiquitous sisterhood is a myth. The sisterhood is inconsistent. It’s conditional. 

It’s an issue so uncomfortable that no one really wants to talk about it. When I released The Little Girl Who Gave Zero Fucks (bestselling literary banger) I tried to discuss one of its themes on the press tour: how women regulate the behaviour of other women far more than men do to each other, and how it hurts our mental health. It was a message that journalists and bloggers never picked up on. Why would they, when we’re a sisterhood, and men are the bigger problem? 

But let’s go there. Female versus female beef is a sociological phenomena as old as the patriarchy itself. I believe experts refer to this as 'internalised misogyny'. During the time of witch hunts, women were doing the hunting too. In the 2016 US election 52% of white women voted for Donald Trump, even though he was caught on tape bragging about grabbing unsuspecting ladies “by the pussy”. The ubiquitous sisterhood is a myth. The sisterhood is inconsistent. It’s conditional. 

Above: Kean's book, The Little Girl Who Gave Zero Fucks.

The feminist Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie said, in her iconic 'We should all be feminists...' speech, “We raise girls to see each other as competitors… for the attention of men.” And it does begin in girlhood. The book The Anxious Generation, by Jonathan Haidt, discusses the differences between girls and boys and their relationship with social media. Boys, he says, are much more aggressive; in childhood and throughout life. There’s no question. 

Girls, however, at the age of 13, begin to over-index on something called ‘indirect aggression’. This means behind-the-scenes stuff: ruining reputations, spreading rumours and damaging social relationships, rather than punching each other in the face. And if, as a young girl, you're too loud, too slutty, too much of an attention seeker, too fat, too ambitious, too geeky, too sociable, too confident, not confident enough, too nervous, too awkward, too weird, and yep… too direct, it’s hard out there. The damage young girls can do to each other’s self-esteem is significant, and social media makes it worse. 

We’re told from day one that niceness is the norm and the route to acceptance and approval, a route which keeps us submissive.

The way to navigate all this is to play the game. Play nice. In 1977 the sociologist Greer Litton Fox described ‘nice’ for women as “normative restriction through value constructs”; in short, we’re told from day one that niceness is the norm and the route to acceptance and approval, a route which keeps us submissive. It’s about smiles. It's about never overstepping the mark. Never speaking your mind. Never raising your voice. Never getting angry. It's about always putting other people first. Always tiptoeing around issues. Playing games. Being dishonest to keep the peace. Bitching, instead of confronting. At its most extreme, socialising becomes a strategy, an act. And, in an absolute win for dudes, it means making sure other women do the same. 

So, when another woman loses the pleasantries at work, doesn’t put kisses at the end of her emails, or acts in exactly the same way a man would, she’s not being nice, and is therefore breaking the rules. We’ve also been socially groomed to become furious when someone else breaks the rules we diligently follow (Exhibit A: British people and queuing). 

Above: The superficiality of women 'playing nice' is like something from the film The Stepford Wives.  

However, being nice doesn’t actually feel that good. It can feel like a prison. Those nice women deriding you for your too-direct tone are the same ones who complain about being “recovering people pleasers”, because it causes them mental anguish. These women are so constrained by how they think they need to be that, in order to retain their sense of self and reality, they impose behavioural rules upon other women, because that makes it better, somehow. 

If only men propped up the patriarchy, it’d be a lot weaker than it is today. 

And that’s where we land today. With a bunch of women superficially playing nice, and another bunch of women hating themselves because apparently they’re not nice enough. It’s emails with a hundred 'justs', covered in glitter and kisses, just in case Susan decides you didn’t ask for that PDF in a lovely enough way. It’s Stepford Wives-esque. Sugary and sweet, like Katy Perry’s aesthetic, whilst behind the mask is something darker and more competitive. It’s our version of toxic masculinity. And yes, whilst this isn’t all about race, the issue tends to be led by white women. White, rich, middle class women setting the tone for everybody else.

It would be foolish of me to say that 'women are the problem'. Dear God. Men are the ones killing us. Violence against women has reached a boiling point, and extreme misogyny has thankfully been classed as terrorism in the UK. But numerous issues are able to co-exist, and we shouldn’t just focus on the biggest problem and ignore all others. We’re all battling the patriarchy’s demons in some way, even if we refuse to admit it. So, the first step is to understand the coping mechanisms we’ve each developed, and decide whether they’re harmful or not. Because if only men propped up the patriarchy, it’d be a lot weaker than it is today.