Why Women’s Confidence Is So Often Misread

A recent conversation with my mother stopped me short, one of those moments that land and linger. She told me I can come across as harsh, and then, almost in the same breath, added that I’m often emotionally ahead of the room. It wasn’t criticism so much as confusion, and I recognized it instantly. When clarity moves faster than others are ready to follow, confidence can feel confrontational… even when it isn’t.

That paradox stayed with me. It sharpened after reading Muse by Dr. Amanda Hanson, which gave language to something I’ve lived with for years: how women’s agency is so often misread when one person’s clarity outpaces others’ comfort. In a culture that still rewards women for softness over self-trust and likability over truth, confidence is too easily mistaken for confrontation.

One of the great misnomers about confident women is that confidence is mistaken for arrogance.

It isn’t.

Arrogance needs comparison, but confidence doesn’t. What I’ve learned…sometimes painfully… is that confidence in women often makes people uncomfortable not because it is loud, but because it is unapologetic. It interrupts the narratives others rely on to stay safe, small, or unquestioned.

Most women are raised to be agreeable, keep the peace, soften their edges, and never ruffle feathers. We’re taught not to question authority, not to disrupt inherited scripts, and not to trust our own knowing. Confidence breaks that conditioning.

I didn’t wake up confident. I earned it by doing hard things while afraid, by living at the edge of discomfort and refusing to let fear decide for me, and by choosing agency again and again when retreat would have been easier. That’s not arrogance; to me, it’s ownership.

Ownership unsettles people who’ve learned to outsource their worth, safety, or validation. I’ll be honest: this is where I sometimes struggle.

When I’ve already done the internal work and I’m watching someone circle the same story without questioning it, impatience can surface. When clarity meets avoidance, the pacing feels misaligned, and I feel it in my body before I name it with words.

This is the edge I’m still learning to carry with grace. Not because the truth isn’t clear, but because not everyone is ready to hear it at the speed or pace I’ve lived it.

I’ve noticed how often confidence is misread by those who haven’t yet learned to self-soothe…how often insecurity seeks a mirror and projects outward. Especially among women (and men) who’ve survived by seeking approval, martyrdom, or emotional performance.

I don’t perform to be liked. I don’t distort reality to stay comfortable or impressive, and I definitely don’t want to compete in the martyr Olympics. I speak honestly and take responsibility for my actions. I question narratives that are repeated but never examined and call out what doesn’t make sense, even when it costs me social ease.

Yes, that can make me impatient.

Not because I lack compassion, but because I’ve learned what it takes to move forward. I sometimes forget that not everyone has chosen that yet, or may never. Maybe this is a kind of midlife magic… not reinvention, but a reckoning. The moment when you stop bemoaning problems and start cultivating critical thought by turning inward, not to blame, but to understand.

It may be prudent for more people to look in the mirror and see their best friend looking back at them. Begin there, because if you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else fully.

You’ll only barter, borrow, or bleed.

We must continue to claim who we are. We must claim our voices and explore how to break the legacy of silence and suffering we have all inherited, and we must stop blaming others for choices we now have the power to change.

The alternate reality built to stay comfortable isn’t protecting you; it’s shrinking you. Excavate for the truth within. Learned helplessness doesn’t look noble. It doesn’t look deep, and it doesn’t look good on you. Hard conversations aren’t cruel. They’re courageous.

When a woman stops abandoning herself, as Dr. Amanda Hanson so precisely articulates in her newest self-help book, Muse, she doesn’t become arrogant. She becomes undeniable.

A friendly reminder to both you and me that clarity isn’t coldness. It’s simply what happens when you’ve already done the work.