The “Holy, Not Whore” Series Pt. 7: Shame Was The Strategy

How they used guilt to silence women’s bodies, voices, and power.

Shame is one of the oldest tools used to keep women disconnected from their power. And I don’t mean just sexual shame.

I’m talking about the kind of shame that starts early, quietly, and touches everything: how you speak, how you dress, how you feel about your own body, your desires, your success, your voice, your confidence.

It doesn’t scream. It creeps in. It whispers things like: “Don’t be too much.” “That’s not ladylike.” “That’s not what good women do.”

By the time a girl reaches womanhood, she doesn’t even realize she’s internalized a lifelong curriculum of self-doubt. The rules were never written down, but they were enforced everywhere, from family members and church leaders to school dress codes and double standards in dating.

That’s what makes shame such a powerful strategy. When it works, you don’t need to police women. They’ll police themselves.

It Starts Before You Even Understand What It Means

You don’t need to experience overt trauma to be shaped by shame. Most girls are introduced to it gradually, often under the mask of love or protection.

A mother tugging at her daughter’s shirt to cover her chest. A teacher pulling her aside to say her shorts are a “distraction.” An auntie warning her not to sit on a man’s lap or walk a certain way or dance too freely.

And the explanation is always the same:
We’re just looking out for you.

But what no one says is that this kind of “looking out” comes with a cost. When girls are constantly told to be careful about how they show up, how they speak, how they move through the world, they start to assume that their very existence is dangerous or inappropriate unless constantly managed.

They don’t feel protected.
They feel watched.

How It Gets Reinforced Through Systems We’re Taught To Trust

The church plays a massive role in this conditioning. Not all churches, but many.

In these spaces, a woman’s worth is still often tied to her ability to repress, deny, and apologize for being a sexual or sensual being.

Her body is treated like a temptation. Her desire is portrayed as a liability. Her purity becomes a bargaining chip for love or belonging.

And let’s be honest, school isn’t much better.

Girls are sent home for what they wear, while boys are rarely taught to manage their behavior. From a young age, girls are held responsible for how others respond to their bodies.

It’s not about what’s “right” or “wrong”, it’s about who society thinks should be punished when attraction is involved.

This isn’t just outdated thinking. It’s a carefully constructed system designed to teach women not to trust themselves.

Because if you can make a woman distrust her instincts, second guess her confidence, and feel embarrassed by her sensuality, you don’t need to control her.

She’ll do it for you.

Mothers Pass It Down, But Not Out of Malice

This is where it gets personal. Because most of us didn’t just learn shame from institutions, we learned it in our homes.

From mothers, grandmothers, aunties, and other women who believed they were protecting us by teaching us to tone it down.

And we have to hold space for this truth: they weren’t trying to hurt us. They were passing down what they had to learn in order to survive. For many of them, being quiet, modest, agreeable, and invisible was the only way to stay safe, loved, or respected.

They had to adapt. So they tried to prepare us to do the same.

But the effect is generational. A girl raised by a shamed woman becomes a woman who either repeats the cycle or tries to break it, usually both. And the breaking isn’t easy.

Because it means not just challenging your mother’s rules, but also unlearning the love that came with those rules.

It takes courage to say: I know you meant well, but I don’t need to be ashamed of who I am to stay safe anymore.

How Shame Shows Up In Grown Women

Most women don’t walk around saying “I feel ashamed.” Instead, they say things like:

• “I don’t want to come off too full of myself.”

• “I don’t know if I’m doing too much.”

• “I just don’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

Or they over explain their boundaries. They downplay their goals. They sabotage their pleasure. They shrink in rooms where they should be leading.

And this isn’t because they’re insecure. It’s because they were trained to associate visibility with danger. Power with punishment. Sensuality with disrespect.

Even in relationships, you’ll see shame play out silently. Women staying quiet during sex, afraid to speak up about what they want. Or worse, afraid to even admit to themselves that they want more.

Because deep down, they’ve been taught that a “good” woman doesn’t ask for too much.

Shame doesn’t just affect how you feel. It affects what you allow. And over time, what you tolerate becomes what you believe you deserve.

Why This Strategy Was So Effective, And Why It’s Crumbling Now

Shame was a shortcut. Instead of building a world where men respected women, systems decided to make women responsible for men's actions.

Instead of teaching mutual respect, they taught women to fear the consequences of being seen.

But here’s the truth: shame doesn’t actually protect women. It silences them. It confuses them. It convinces them that their pain is their fault, their pleasure is a problem, and their truth should be hidden.

That’s not empowerment. That’s erasure. And more women are waking up to it every day.

Because once you name the shame, you stop feeding it. Once you see it as a tool that was used against you, it loses its grip. And from that point on, everything starts to shift.

Let’s Be Clear About What Shame Is, And What It’s Not

Shame is not the same as self awareness. It’s not humility. It’s not discernment. It’s not moral guidance.

Shame is the internalized belief that something is wrong with you for simply being yourself.

And when you carry that belief long enough, it doesn’t just dim your light. It distorts your relationships, your choices, your intimacy, and your identity.

Healing shame is not about doing more. It’s about unlearning what was never true in the first place.

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💖 Need To Vent? Get Advice?

My 1:1 girl chat sessions are for women who are done repeating patterns and ready to reclaim their voice, their power, and their peace.

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• The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk
  (A foundational book on how trauma, including shame, lives in the body.)

• Healing The Shame That Binds You by John Bradshaw
  (One of the most referenced books on toxic shame and how it shows up in adulthood.)

• I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brené Brown
  (Explores how shame thrives in silence and how women can develop resilience to it.)

• Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
  (A science-backed and deeply liberating book about female sexuality and the myths that breed shame.)

• Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
  (A deep, myth-based dive into feminine power, intuition, and how women lose and reclaim their wild selves.)

• The Dance Of Intimacy by Harriet Lerner
  (Helps women understand the connection between shame, emotional withdrawal, and relationships.

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