Hello beautiful soul
I haven't drunk alcohol in over fourteen years this year.
For a long time I told myself it was a healthy life choice. And it was. It still is. It was one of the first steps on what has become a lifelong quest for true wellness. The clarity alone was worth it. The aliveness. The full presence in every room I have ever walked into since.
But it is only in the last few years that I have gotten honest about another reason that sat webbed within it.
A year before I stopped drinking I was sexually assaulted by a man whilst under the influence of alcohol.
And I IMMEDIATELY feel like I need to tell you all the ways that wasn't my fault. And the fact that that sentence even formed in my head before I could write the next one — that instinct to pre-emptively defend myself to you before I have even told you what happened — is exactly what this newsletter is about.
So I am NOT going to tell you all the ways that it wasn't my fault. I am just here to stand before you. Openhearted. And say: it happened. And that was just one of a number of times men have assaulted me in my life.
I have been watching the Cornell 7 story in my feed this week. A young woman. A fraternity house. Seven men. And the rallying cry that has started appearing everywhere in response: I am Jane Doe.
The hard truth is that many of us are Jane Doe. In one way or another. To one degree or another.
25% of women have experienced sexual harassment at work alone. Only 12% of those incidents are ever formally reported. 71% stay silent because they fear what happens if they don't.
Those are not edge case numbers. That is not a minority experience. That is the majority of women. Doing the calculation. Quietly reorganising their lives around a threat that nobody names for them.
And the calculation starts long before work. Long before the boardroom or the performance review or the salary negotiation. It starts in the body. In childhood. Passed from mother to daughter before either of them has words for it.
What to wear. Where to walk. Who to look at. Whether the room is safe. Whether you are safe.
Women of the Global Majority feel this even more keenly. And I carry a particular grief for Black women — who have always had to run this calculation not just for themselves but for their children. Who have to teach their sons how to survive an encounter with a police officer. Who have to prepare their daughters for a world that will demand even more from them and protect them even less. On top of everything else. All the time. Without rest.
This hypervigilance — and that is what it is, it has a name, it is a physiological state your nervous system moves into when it has learned that threat is everywhere and unpredictable — does not start at the office door. It runs underneath everything. It runs into every meeting. Every ask. Every moment we soften a sentence before we have finished saying it. Because somewhere in us we learned that taking up space comes with consequences.
That is not a confidence problem. That is a conditioning problem. An ancient. Very deliberate. Conditioning problem.
And here is what I know changes it.
Sovereignty.
Not the word people throw around. The actual thing.
Sovereignty in its original meaning is the full authority of a state over itself. Subject to no outside power. Requiring no permission. Not contingent on whether the room approves.
When I talk about women becoming sovereign I mean exactly that. Full authority over yourself. Your choices. Your body. Your voice. Your no. Your number. Your truth.
When a woman becomes sovereign in the workplace she becomes sovereign in every place.
The two are not separate. The woman who can say her number and hold the silence. Who can disagree with the most powerful person in the room and stay in her seat. Who can ask for what she needs without the apology attached — she is the same woman who moves through the world differently. Who passes something different down.
Men have told me in my comments sections this isn't relevant to workplace performance. Some women have too. And I understand why. Because when you have been inside the conditioning your whole life it is very hard to see it as conditioning rather than just how things are.
But here is what Deloitte found last year. 33% of women feel very or extremely concerned about their personal safety at work. At work. In the buildings they show up to every day and perform excellence inside of. The safety problem doesn't stop at the building door. We bring it in with us.
My anger about this has got stronger every year. Not weaker. And for a long time I didn't know what to do with it. I came back last week from one of the most intense trainings I have ever done with my brilliant friend Jack Villiers and Human Work. Days in a room — men and women together — getting underneath the anger. Not performing it. Not managing it into something more comfortable. Metabolising it. Letting it move through. Speaking through it. Being witnessed in it. Letting it tell me and the whole room what it knows.
What it knows is this.
Becoming a splinter cell is not the answer. A world where women are actually free requires all of us. Which is why I still make it my business to be in shared spaces with men. To keep building programs that bring men in alongside women. Because the future of this has to be built together.
But I am not pretending. And I am not available to manage my anger down to a size that is easier for someone else to be around.
Because here is the truth I keep coming back to.
We have never been free. Not really. Not fully. Not yet.
And that is what all of this is for. Every session. Every newsletter. Every conversation. My life's work.
The real freedom. Not the word. The actual thing.
Rooting for you AND YOUR FREEDOM always
Ruth x
Ps. I am hosting another Ask for More session on October 20th at 11am EST. Come and be in the room with me, my sweet soul sister.
What we cover really IS the beginning of it all. See you there.
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