Excellent, But Difficult
“…The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behaviour and not appearance.”
— Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth
In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf observes that as women approached greater social and professional power, overt barriers gave way to softer instruments of discipline, standards that presented themselves as natural, even helpful, while requiring constant self-surveillance. Beauty, Wolf argued, was never merely aesthetic. It functioned as a system of control, a way of keeping women busy correcting themselves.
Rereading the book from the workplace communication lens, I was struck by how precisely this logic operates in contemporary offices. Instead of waistlines and wrinkles, we speak of performance and professional development. The promise is growth but in practice, for many women, the intent is control.
Take feedback, for example. What is meant to concern work, objectives, skills, results, often drifts into the murkier waters of personality and presence. It is precisely here that gender quietly enters the room. Women who fit expectations of pleasantness and docility tend to receive feedback that keeps the balance. Those who take the lead directly, speak firmly, or resist shrinking are more likely to encounter a different vocabulary: difficult, intense, not quite the right fit.
I have seen this shift not through theory but through the experience of a woman like me. For several years, her evaluations consistently exceeded expectations, praised strong performance and branded her “a real team-player.” Gradually, however, the language changed within the arch of eight months. Her confidence was recast as arrogance, decisiveness as a mental issue, independence as “not a team-player.”
The performance review that reflected this new framing was an assessment of several months’ and more the culmination of a story that had been quietly woven by the mob. What could not be attacked in performance had been relocated to personality. She was not underperforming; she was merely not wanted by the woman-boss.
This pattern is far from rare. Many accomplished women encounter a moment when excellence ceases to protect them. When removal cannot be justified through numbers, it is accomplished through perception. The question becomes not what they do, but how they make others feel.
Often, the most intense scrutiny comes from women in positions of power themselves, particularly those who have learned to secure belonging through conformity rather than freedom. In societies where womanhood is still closely tethered to male approval, some women leaders reproduce the very hierarchies that constrained them.
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Behind their authority there is sometimes a fragile self-esteem, defended through control. A woman who is visibly independent, unafraid of male disapproval, and uninterested in performing likability can feel not merely different but destabilizing. What follows is rarely overt hostility. It is more often surveillance, reinterpretation, and the quiet construction of a problematic narrative.
Here, The Beauty Myth offers its sharpest insight. Systems of evaluation thrive on moving standards. There is always something to fix, soften, refine, or moderate, as if the goal is not improvement but perpetual adjustment.
Feedback in workplace as my friend experienced often functions the same way. Women are encouraged to become more agreeable, less intense, more palatable, more “professional,” a word that frequently masks expectations of docility. The bar keeps shifting, ensuring continuous self-monitoring.
Over time, many women learn to edit themselves constantly. They calculate tone in emails, emotion in meetings, visibility in leadership. They absorb the message that brilliance is acceptable only when carefully muted.
Performance reviews, in this light, become less about development and more about discipline. They reveal whose comfort defines culture and whose presence must be reshaped to preserve it. Wolf wrote that beauty myths intensify as women gain power. The closer women move toward authority, the more energy is devoted to regulating them.
This is not an argument against feedback itself. Clear, specific, skill-based feedback remains essential to growth. The danger arises when feedback becomes a tool for enforcing conformity, when it shifts from evaluating work to managing identity.
Just as the beauty myth persuades women that their bodies are flawed, toxic feedback cultures persuade women that their personalities are the problem. Only later do many recognize that what was framed as a personal deficiency was in fact a systemic discomfort with “otherness.”
Some workplaces do not push women out or pull them down by criticizing their work. They do it by constructing narratives about who those women are allowed to be. Growth should expand a person’s capacity, not compress their identity.
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Each week, I take a book off the page into real life, translating stories and themes into how we work, lead, grow, and connect. These are not book reviews, but reflections: part literature, part lived experience, part observations. Through my passion for literature, I explore the many dimensions of workplace communication. Perhaps you will discover a book that speaks to where you are right now.
Exploring workplace communication through the lens of great books!
