The Highly Competent Woman
An Archive of Power, Burnout, and Becoming
She’s the one you call when shit hits the fan. The fixer. The knower. The one who already anticipated this exact scenario three steps ago and quietly set a contingency plan in motion while you were still yelling about logistics.
She doesn’t just get it done. She gets it done right.
She doesn’t just get it done. She gets it done right. She makes it look easy. She never drops the ball. And if she does, she picks it up so fast you’re not even sure you saw it fall.
You know her. You’ve leaned on her. You might be her.
You can feel it in the body. The tight jaw. The constant alertness. The to-do list written on the inside of her skull. She cries in the car, stares at her phone while everyone else sleeps, swallows her own needs until they sour into resentment. She’s the coach who keeps the team from falling apart even when her knee is wrecked. She’s the Final Girl who survives the masked killer while bleeding out. She’s the Black mom in the zombie apocalypse who’s already fortified the house, packed a go-bag, and is soothing a child who doesn’t know the world is ending. Competence becomes a shell. A strategy. A second skin that leaves no room to breathe.
Competence becomes a shell. A strategy. A second skin that leaves no room to breathe.
This is the start of a series I’ve been thinking about for years. One part homage, one part cautionary tale, one part elegant fuck-you to every system that told us our competence was our worth.
We’re calling her the Highly Competent Woman.
This won’t be a regular column. Think of it as a slow-build dossier. A living archive, unfolding when the moment and the character call for it.
She’s a trope. An archetype. A weapon. A container. A spell. She’s the mother who holds the whole damn household together. The manager who remembers everyone’s birthday and saves the grant from falling apart. The sci-fi heroine who survives the apocalypse with nothing but a flamethrower, a nicotine patch, and a well-earned sense of emotional detachment.
She’s Ripley. She’s Tracy Flick. She's Jackie Brown. She’s Lisa Simpson. She’s Buffy. She’s probably your auntie, your boss, your best friend, and your damn self.
This series is about her. Not just the ones we’ve watched on screen, but the ones we’ve become.
I don’t know if I’m a Highly Competent Woman — which might be the most Highly Competent Woman thing you could say. But I want to be. I’ve built myself from a constellation of mentors and fictional women — the ones who carried too much and made it look easy. These are the models I measure myself against. How I know that failure isn’t an option, and success is rarely celebrated — because no one sees what it takes to make sure nothing ever goes wrong.
How I know that failure isn’t an option, and success is rarely celebrated — because no one sees what it takes to make sure nothing ever goes wrong.
So, I’m mapping the territory I’ve been stumbling around in. These are the masks I’ve worn, the scripts I’ve memorized, the traps I’ve mistaken for truths.
We’re going to look at the recurring figures — The Warrior Woman, The Cold Genius, The Perfectionist, The Puppet Mistress, The Quiet Strategist, The HBIC, The Final Girl, among others — and what each one tells us about power, desirability, survival, rage, and cost.
Because competence, in this world, isn’t neutral. It’s gendered. It’s racialized. It’s eroticized — or very specifically not eroticized — and punished and demanded and resented all at once.
Black women know this better than anyone. So do fat women, queer women, immigrant women... Women whose marginality forces them to carry more than their share. You learn to be twice as good to get half as far, and you become so good they forget you’re a person.
You become a tool. A support pillar. An institution.
Until you burn out. Or disappear. Or get rewritten into a supporting character in your own story.
The Highly Competent Woman is a mirror and an echo of the Strong Black Woman. A sister, a container, and a daughter. Not the same, but intimately connected — shaped by her, indebted to her, sometimes haunted by her. She walks in her footsteps without always knowing it. Inherited silence. Inherited strength. Inherited performance.
You learn to be twice as good to get half as far, and you become so good they forget you’re a person.
A few months ago, a colleague of mine — a Black, queer, disabled woman — moved across the country. She did it mostly alone. No safety net, no entourage of helpers, no soft landing waiting on the other side, only a sister managing the lively household she would soon be joining. She didn’t feel like she could ask for more support because she wasn’t sure anyone would show up. She made it work. Because that’s what we do. But now she’s in Michigan, rebuilding her life in a new place, still carrying the weight of how hard it was just to get there. I think about her as I write about this.
Her story isn’t rare. It multiplies across kitchens and classrooms and crisis lines — women navigating a world that extracts competence and offers no softness in return.
And she’s not alone. The world is unraveling — politically, economically, ecologically — and yet the HCW is still expected to keep it together. They want her to be brilliant — but effortless. Devoted — but never needy. Impeccable, unshaken, and light. Sprezzatura — that’s the word. The ideal. The curse. The double-bind of the Highly Competent Woman. To show up sharp. To make miracles on no sleep and no budget. To survive the moment and strategize what’s next. She’s holding collapsing systems with a calm voice and a packed calendar. And it’s killing her slowly.
So we’re naming her. And we’re writing her back into the center. Not to flatter her — but to witness her. Maybe to offer a mirror. Maybe to let her put it down.
And maybe, just maybe — she wants out. Not to collapse, but to stop holding the scaffolding. To be useful on her own terms, or not at all. To rest without guilt. To not have to save everyone. Some of us have never let that dream speak its full name. But it’s there. Behind the spreadsheets. Beneath the go-bags. Flickering in the moment before sleep.
This isn’t about #girlbosses. This isn’t corporate empowerment cosplay. This is about the women who make the world function and never get to fall apart. The ones who’ve been called intimidating when they were prepared. Who’ve been called unfeeling when they were focused. Whose righteous anger was called hormonal. Who’ve never been loved without being needed.
And we’re doing it in style. Some of these essays will be free. Some will be behind the paywall. Not as a gate — but as a gesture. A redistribution. A small act of spiritual reparation for every late-night email, every perfectly wrapped gift, every saved deadline, every swallowed scream.
The next piece in the series is the first paid one. An Ode to Ripley. She’s not just the prototype. She’s the ghost in the machine. The woman who survives and saves. The blueprint and the warning.
Look for that piece in early August.
Until then: if this series has named you, haunted you, held you — stay close. We’re building something here. An archive. An altar. A lifeline. A map for holding on — or letting go — when the systems we served start to collapse.
For the ones who always get it done. And the ones who are learning to stop.
Who’s your favorite Highly Competent Woman?
Drop her name in the comments — maybe she’s waiting for a future essay.
Under This Moon
New Moon in Leo — July 24, 2025
Candle: Gold or bright orange
Stone to Hold: Citrine — for radiance, courage, and clear intention
This Leo new moon opens a doorway. The sun and moon meet opposite Pluto, and the night before, Venus squares Mars. Translation? Power is in the air — but so is tension. Desire may not match your current direction. Wanting more isn’t the problem. Staying silent about it might be.
Leo rules the heart and the spine. It invites a return to self-led purpose — not spectacle, but clarity. This is a moon for the ones who hold it all together. The ones who perform competence even when they’re burning out inside.
This lunation asks: Is this really mine to carry? Or just the role I was trained to play?
What would it mean to want without apology?
Ritual
This is a moon for bold seeds. For setting intentions that feel risky not because they’re unrealistic — but because they’re real.
Write down one desire you’ve been afraid to name aloud. (Not a strategy. A want.)
Light a candle and speak it once with full voice. Then fold the paper and place it under something radiant: a mirror, a jar of honey, a gold ring.
Return to it next full moon. Watch what shifts when you stop hiding your hunger.
Worth Your Time
Aliens (1986) Ripley is the original HCW (my original HCW anyway): competent to the point of fear, tenderness hidden beneath armor, survival turned strategy. We first meet Ripley in Alien, but she fully comes into her own in Aliens. After that, well… Watch this one again — she’s the one we’re starting with.
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)Evelyn is fractured, exhausted, and still holding the multiverse together. A cautionary tale of what happens when competence consumes possibility.
✴︎ Word of the Day
The Mask Slips
This week, one of my favorite clothing brands sent an email with the subject line:“Wardrobe Overachievers, Reporting for Duty.”
We’re selling competence now. Folded, pressed, and 30% off. Late-stage capitalism strikes again.
What’s in Motion
INTERSECT will be on break the second half of August — reach out soon if you want to connect before our fall calendar fills.
The Body Trust Podcast just wrapped a two-part conversation with Ilya Parker and have a new episode coming soon with Aaron Flores — a powerful arc on body trust, movement, masculinity, and care.
The Center for Body Trust is hosting The Menopause Summit this November. Keep your eyes open for that. 👀
Freedom & Desire now has a paid tier.
Thank you for being part of this — a living archive at the edge of collapse and dreaming. Coaching, readings, and collaboration are open now for those building futures or burning systems. Collapse Strategist offerings are taking shape. Let’s talk.
Further Reflection
What part of you disappears when things go right?
🙃🙃🙃 holy shit, Sirius. You fucking nailed this.