Controlling Capital, Crying in Public, & Burning it Down
Last week we talked about career math — making clear-eyed decisions between full-time and entrepreneurial work based on what actually serves your life. And we talked about the relief people feel when a freelancer “lands” somewhere full-time.
As we enter Women’s History Month, let’s talk about where that corporate = safe reflex comes from — and why it’s applied more rigorously to womxn.
The patriarchy has many tools. Sometimes it says we can’t do something. Sometimes it says we shouldn’t.
But one of its most effective strategies is protection.
Not “you’re incapable.”
Just: “That’s not safe for you.”
It’s not safe to walk alone.
It’s not safe to take risks.
It’s not safe to control your own capital.
It rarely sounds like oppression. It sounds like care.
And that framing sticks.
So when a woman leaves entrepreneurship for a full-time job, people feel relieved.
“She’s stable now.”
“She’s taken care of.”
“She’s safe.”
That relief isn’t about employment. It’s about containment.
It’s what happens when the dominant model of “real success” was never designed to include the kind of businesses women actually build.
Because work, capital, and entrepreneurship were not built with us in mind. Women controlling money at scale is historically new.
And when women control their own time and revenue streams, power shifts.
Which is why women’s entrepreneurship gets framed as unstable, while a 19-year-old man dropping out of Harvard to build a glorified Hot-or-Not is framed as visionary.
73% of women-owned businesses are solopreneurships. We disproportionately build in healthcare, education, and services. We’re less likely to pursue venture capital (and way less likely to be offered it). We tend to run revenue-positive, lifestyle-aligned companies.
That’s not instability. That’s a different model.
But the dominant story of “success” was written by people who benefit from defining it narrowly — and from leaving us out of it.
Womxn making our own money — on our own terms — isn’t just career preference.
It’s economic independence.
And women’s economic independence has always made systems uncomfortable.
Because the more control we have over our time and income, the less control institutions have over us.
So yes — autonomy gets framed as risky.
Yes — people feel relief when we move inside institutions.
Yes — the system nudges us toward “safety.”
That doesn’t mean you’re reckless.
It means you’re operating outside a script that wasn’t written for you.
This Women’s History Month, don’t just celebrate milestones. Celebrate the radical act of controlling your own capital.
You’re not unstable.
You’re historically unprecedented.
And the system doesn’t quite know what to do with that.
But we do, so pull up a chair.
🪢 Laura & Lauren
Things We Loved This Week
LaurA’s Things
🛍️ Putting this store on my LA itinerary. (And if you’ve been getting this newsletter for a long time, you may remember that I desperately want something from this collection.)
😭 Did this yesterday.
🤝 Marc Jacobs and I are aligned.
Lauren’s Things
❤️🩹 This incredible woman telling her story and taking a stand for all of us.
🍆 Current status: rethinking my bathroom decor.
🛀 I already know what her best shot would be at panel.
