A Therapist's Take on TOXIC FEMININITY: Female Power Games

We’ve heard about toxic masculinity until we’re blue in the face. But what about TOXIC FEMININITY? In this episode, I’m turning the lens toward us women and asking what happens when the very qualities that make femininity powerful become tools for gaining power over other people. I explore the natural flexibility, responsiveness, creativity, and nurturing capacity of the feminine—and how those strengths can become distorted when we move from responding to reality to trying to control it. Using the Karpman Drama Triangle, I look at three dysfunctional roles we can move between: victim, rescuer, and persecutor. Each one may look different, but all three can become strategies for gaining power in relationships. And women can move between them remarkably quickly: helpless in one moment, morally superior in another, and rescuing someone else... all before lunch! This isn’t an argument against femininity. Quite the opposite. I want women to recover what is genuinely powerful about being female without turning our vulnerability, nurture, emotionality, or adaptability into weapons. Face reality. Embrace humanity. This is The Work of Being Human.