These Olympians Are Saying What We're All Thinking

Can we talk about what's happening at the Olympics? Because something exciting is happening OFF the ice, halfpipes, and skis.   

The women aren't just competing. They're owning their ambition and their accomplishments. Loudly. Unapologetically. Without a single qualifier. 

And as someone who has spent ten years as a professor sitting in rooms where old white guys interrupted my amazing presentations with “questions” that were actually 10-minute+ lectures and I smiled tightly and screamed internally, before saying "you know what, excellent point"…

(when what I actually wanted to say was absolutely unprintable)

 I am HERE for these women. 

 Madeline Schizas, 22, won her fourth consecutive Canadian figure skating title earlier this year, securing Canada's women's singles spot for these Games. When asked about a rival who unexpectedly returned to the sport and eyed the Olympic spot, she didn't hedge. She didn't soften. She said: 

"Over my dead body is someone else going to the Olympics." 

Then there's Eileen Gu. Who this week, after winning her fifth Olympic medal, a silver in big air, a reporter asked whether she viewed her Games so far as two silver medals gained, or two golds lost. Gu laughed. And then she said, plainly and without flinching: 

"I'm the most decorated female freeskier in history. I think that's an answer in and of itself... The two medals lost situation, to be quite frank with you, I think it's kind of a ridiculous perspective to take." 

Two women. Two moments. One unmistakable message: 

we are done contorting ourselves to make you comfortable.

Why This Is Landing So Hard 

I think most of us who saw those moments felt something visceral. A sharp intake of breath, maybe an audible YASSS YOU TELL EM, GIRL, maybe that particular sting of recognition you get when someone says the thing you've been swallowing for years. 

Because we know this tightrope. We know it far too well.  

The one where you have to be ambitious but not threatening. Confident but not arrogant. Assertive but still warm. Badass but palatable. You want it badly and you have to somehow pretend you don't want it too much. And you do this every single day in meetings, in emails, in how you frame an idea so it lands without ruffling feathers, in the mental energy you spend before you speak deciding how to say the thing rather than just saying it. 

That last part is what I want to sit with for a second. Because it's not just exhausting in the moment. It's the cumulative weight of thousands of those calculations, made so automatically and for so long that most of us don't even notice we're doing it anymore. It's the pre-editing. The self-monitoring. The constant quiet management of how you're being perceived. It takes up space,  real cognitive and emotional space,  that could go somewhere else entirely.

These women aren't spending that energy. They're just saying the thing.

And the Research? It Tracks…

Researchers call it the double bind. The irreconcilable demand to be both warm (agreeable, nurturing, approachable) AND competent (assertive, direct, confident),  two things that seemingly pull in completely opposite directions. Fail to perform either one and there's a cost. There's no clean path through. Just a constant, exhausting negotiation of the space between them.  

But I don't need to bang on about that because I know you live it. Walking that tightrope isn't just an Olympic phenomenon. It's your Tuesday!! 

The real question is what do we do about it? Until we get rid of this ridiculous double bind all together, what can you actually do to navigate it? 

In a 2023 study, researchers interviewed 43 women on corporate boards and found they had developed approaches to be heard while navigating the double bind. Three modes emerged depending on what they needed to accomplish in the moment.

What Gu is doing, citing her record, refusing the premise of the question, is what the researchers call a competence-based tactic. It works when your expertise is unambiguous and undeniable. When you have five Olympic medals, you can do that. When you're delivering results without question, you can do that. When you're the person in the room whose track record speaks so loudly nobody would dare question it, you can do that. 

But many of us are still building that track record. Still earning that trust. Still in rooms where our credibility isn't yet assumed, it's being assessed. And in those rooms, going full competence-based can backfire.

The women in the study described two other approaches that were effective in different contexts. When pushing back on a prevailing view, phrasing the challenge in a question  makes it more likely to be heard. And when still earning trust in a room, listening first and testing ideas in smaller conversations before going on record builds the credibility that makes the direct approach possible later. 

None of this is fair. One participant in the study said it plainly: women "get away with nothing." Several described carrying the quiet fear that their individual performance represented every woman who might come after them. That is an extraordinary weight to carry into a room you were INVITED INTO!!! *waves arms in the air*

What Schizas and Gu are doing hits so hard  because they are saying the internal monologue out loud, something not all of us feel we can do. 

For the rest of us who aren't quite Olympians (YET!), we still have to carefully navigate the system. But when we reach our metaphorical podiums (and we will!!!) we can start making space for women to show up differently.

Because every time someone like Gu or Schizas says it out loud, the norm shifts a little. It's not fast enough. But it's real.

You have won things. You have done hard things. You have walked into rooms where you weren't expected and delivered things that blew people's minds. You've had the insight, the skill, and I'd bet you've undersold most, if not all, of those things in the retelling.

We are so trained to treat our wins like they're a little embarrassing. Like the gracious move is to say "oh, it was really a team effort" or "I just got lucky" or "I'm still learning so much." And sometimes that's true. But sometimes it's just armor. Preemptive protection against the accusation of being too much.

 Eileen Gu won five Olympic medals and just said so. Madeline Schizas wanted the spot she had earned and said so out loud. What would it look like if you did the same? 

We've all walked that tightrope. We know how much it takes out of you. 

So here's to the women who are saying F it and to all of us learning to do the same. 

Let's go girls, 

xoxo 

Kels

This Week's Thing

Take 10 minutes with these three questions. Write the answers down, like actually. Because writing things out helps us feel them and see them as real.

1. What is something you are genuinely, undeniably good at? 

2. Think of a recent win. What was the part that was actually you? Not the team, not the timing, not luck. You. (This isn't about denying the importance of collaboration but recognizing and celebrating your specific impact) 

3. Looking at your answers to 1 and 2, if you were talking about yourself and these accomplishments in the way you'd talk about a colleague you genuinely admire, what would you say? Take a minute to be your own hype girl.