Born into the sweet embrace of a policing ideology of femininity, destined to live a life of dolling up and putting on a captivating show. Not enough unless she adheres to a narrow standard of physical perfection and tugs at the feet of whoever gets there before her. Beauty is currency; she is nothing if not her output, nothing if not her appeal—an appeal her achievements will never outshine. Her value is in how she makes others feel, nothing but an eternally outgoing resource. Injected with the constant need for more, an endless strive coursing through her veins.

She breathes in air silently unforgiving of all discomfort, anger or a yearn for more. The rules are clear: to be feminine is to be pleasing, to smile, to say ‘yes’ even when it feels wrong. Politeness is no longer courtesy but a contract, a mask created to protect her from the sharp edges of the world. The more she pleases, the more she is expected to please. Her thoughts, her feelings become irrelevant; secondary to the demands of those around her. The very act of asserting herself is considered a violation, an interruption to the delicate balance of ongoing control.

The world houses no place for a woman with a loud voice, one who asks for too much. Her rebellion is impolite, her needs; ‘selfish’. So, she learns to shrink herself, to smooth over her edges, to accept that her worth lies not in her desires but in her sacrifice. The trap is well beyond set, and she plays her part- her part too plays her like a fiddle- knowing the price for anything more than compliance is too high.

Her strength, her ambition are threats to the very fabric of a society that demands docility. The world has no tolerance for a woman who knows her worth, who refuses to shrink, who refuses to bow. She is branded ‘difficult’, ‘hysterical’, ‘ungrateful’. Her voice is silenced not just by others but by her own fear—the fear of being too much, too loud, too visible. For a woman who refuses to conform is not merely an individual; she is a symbol of what the world fears: change, evolution, disruption. To be anything other than compliant is to be punished, pushed aside, or erased. And in this punishment, she is forced to reckon with the hollow emptiness of a life lived in the shadow of others’ expectations. Every act of defiance strips away pieces of her soul, leaving behind a woman who is no longer sure of her place, of her value, of her very self.

What becomes of the woman who has spent her entire life catering to an image of perfection that was never hers to begin with? Her sense of self is a ghost, haunting the hollow spaces between what she has been told to be and what she truly is. Running on empty, endlessly striving for an approval that can never be attained, constantly fuelling the machine of society with her labor, her sacrifice, and her pain. Eventually—bound from the start—she will break. The weight of expectation will be too much to bear, and she will crumble under the pressure of having to maintain an impossible standard. It was the initiative all along: to break her spirit so that she never questions, never challenges, never demands. And in that silence, she will finally be forgotten—not for being too much, but for never being a challenge worth remembering. Her final breaths will be those of an appendage, as were of those before her, her death all but merciful. Her sacrifices all but memorable.