Undoing Toxic: The Women Who Hold the World Together
Today we recognize International Women's Day, a moment to celebrate the strength, achievements, and contributions of women across the world. It also arrives during Social Work Month, a time dedicated to honoring a profession grounded in advocacy, care, and community support.
If you know me, I love the month of March and celebrate it proudly. Celebrating International Women’s Day and Social Work Appreciation month together feels meaningful to me. Both reflect something I see every day in my work and in my life: women are often at the center of the work of holding people together.
Women continue to navigate systems that present real challenges. Despite decades of progress, many of us still face discrimination in workplaces, racism, unequal pay, and expectations around caregiving and emotional labor. There are still narratives that attempt to define who women should be, what they should prioritize, and how much space they are allowed to take up. Can you believe in 2026 we are still being asked, “So, what do you bring to the table?”
A LOT.
Yet despite these realities and how we show up in very tangible and intangible ways for all, men included, women continue to be questioned in this way, and we still show up.
Women show up daily for their families, their friends, their communities, and often for complete strangers. They show up during moments of celebration and during moments of crisis. They advocate, nurture, support, protect, and guide. Many times, they do this work quietly and without recognition, yet the impact is immeasurable.
Women as the Glue
In many families and communities, women serve as the glue that holds everything together.
Women remember the birthdays and the milestones. They check in when someone has been quiet. They organize gatherings and maintain connections across generations. They are often the ones making sure relationships remain intact even when life becomes complicated.
Women carry stories and profound wisdom. They hold family histories and pass down traditions. They hold grief and joy at the same time, often absorbing emotional weight so that others can continue moving forward. This kind of relational labor is rarely acknowledged for the powerful work that it is. But it is the work that sustains communities.
Women are often the keepers of connection.
Mothering Beyond Motherhood
One of the things I have come to deeply appreciate is that mothering exists far beyond the biological role of motherhood. We can also experience elements of nurturing and motherly love in our own mother-daughter relationships and in others as well.
Society often limits nurturing to women who raise children, but the truth is that many women embody nurturing in ways that extend far beyond that role. Some women raise children. Others mentor young people who are searching for guidance. Some serve as the aunt who always offers wisdom, the friend who creates a safe place to land during difficult seasons, the teacher who believes in a student before they believe in themselves, or the therapist who holds space for someone’s healing.
Women mother in so many ways. Mothering is not only about giving birth. It is about nurturing growth. It is about offering protection, wisdom, and compassion. It is about guiding others through uncertainty and reminding them that they are not alone.
So many women offer this kind of care every day, whether or not they have children of their own.
To The Women Standing in the Gap
Women stand in the gap for fairness when systems overlook them. They stand in the gap for their families when challenges arise. They stand in the gap for friends navigating heartbreak, illness, uncertainty, or loss. When someone’s voice is dismissed or ignored, women are often the ones who step forward and advocate, insisting that the person in front of them be seen and heard.
Standing in the gap is often an act of love and courageousness. Using your voice for another when you did not have to, but chose to anyways? I think about how we love and care for others and how each calls us to perform these tasks.
In All About Love: New Visions, bell hooks writes about love not as a fleeting feeling but as a practice, one rooted in care, responsibility, respect, and commitment. Love, in this sense, is not passive. It is something we do.
And women do this kind of love every day. Sometimes the work is loud and visible. It looks like organizing communities, leading movements, and advocating for justice. It looks like women raising their voices in spaces that would rather silence them, insisting that dignity and fairness matter.
But other times, standing in the gap is quiet.
It looks like sitting beside someone during a difficult moment and refusing to let them face it alone. It looks like answering the late-night phone call, offering reassurance when someone feels uncertain, or simply being present when words are not enough. These acts may seem small, but they carry profound meaning. They communicate something powerful: you are not alone.
Much of this work happens behind the scenes in living rooms, in text messages and voice notes, in whispered encouragements, and in everyday gestures of care that rarely receive public recognition. Yet these moments matter deeply.
For the person receiving that care, they can mean the difference between isolation and connection, despair and hope. Standing in the gap is not always easy work. It requires emotional presence, patience, and compassion. It often requires women to hold space for others while still navigating their own struggles.
But again and again, women show up.
Because love, real love, the kind bell hooks describes, is not only about what we feel. It is about how we care for one another. Both forms of care, the loud advocacy and the quiet presence, matter. We need to remember both forms of care change lives.
The Power of Sisterhood
Another powerful force among women is sisterhood. Women have long relied on each other for support, wisdom, and solidarity. Sisterhood reminds us that we do not have to navigate life in isolation. Women gather to celebrate victories, process heartbreak, and remind each other of their worth when the world attempts to diminish it. In those spaces, women laugh freely, grieve honestly, and heal collectively. There is something sacred about women creating spaces where other women can exist fully. Resilience is often built in those moments of connection.
From Pushing Through to Moving Through
For many women, strength has historically been defined by endurance. African American women carry a legacy shaped by centuries of enslavement, systemic oppression, and generational trauma. Women who have migrated often face the weight of leaving home, navigating new cultural and social landscapes, and holding families together amid uncertainty and sacrifice. These experiences, though different in context, share a common thread: women have often been expected to bear burdens that were never theirs to carry alone.
We are taught to “push through”—push through exhaustion, push through pain, push through disappointment, push through responsibilities that feel overwhelming. Pushing through has been necessary for many women, especially those whose survival and the survival of their families depended on their ability to persevere no matter what. For generations, pushing through was an act of resilience, a form of survival.
But pushing through comes at a cost.
When we only push through, we often ignore our own needs, our own grief, and our own healing. We learn to suppress emotions instead of processing them. We carry burdens silently, sometimes for decades, believing that strength is measured by how much we can endure rather than how deeply we can heal.
One of the most important shifts women are beginning to embrace is moving from simply pushing through to moving through.
Moving through means allowing ourselves to feel what we feel. It means acknowledging pain instead of burying it. It means seeking support instead of believing we must carry everything alone. Moving through is not a sign of weakness; it is an act of courage. It is a deliberate choice to confront, process, and release what no longer serves us.
Moving through is what the beginning of healing can look like. It is how women break cycles of trauma and toxic patterns that have been passed down for generations. It is how we reclaim our power and redefine what it means to be strong.
In my work as a therapist, I witness this shift every day. Women reflect on the patterns they inherited, confront the relational and cultural wounds they carry, and begin to set boundaries they never thought possible. Women are redefining what love, respect, and reciprocity look like in their relationships, learning that self-care is not selfish and that emotional honesty is transformative.
This is the work of undoing toxic cycles. It is courageous work, and it is generational work. By moving through instead of merely pushing through, women honor their histories, nurture their healing, and create the possibility for healthier relationships for themselves and those who come after them.
Personal Reflection
In my own life, I have been fortunate to witness the strength of women in many forms.
As a first-generation college graduate from a Jamaican family, I grew up surrounded by women who understood resilience in very real ways. Women who carried responsibility early in life. Women who worked hard, sacrificed deeply, and remained committed to ensuring that the next generation had opportunities they did not always have themselves.
I watched women who held their households together during difficult seasons. Women who navigated challenges with determination and faith. Women who pushed through circumstances that many people never saw.
Those examples shaped how I understand strength today.
But they also remind me that strength does not always have to mean silent endurance.
Strength can also mean reflection. It can mean asking hard questions about what we inherited and what we want to do differently moving forward.
Honoring the Women Around Us
On International Women’s Day, we often celebrate well-known leaders and trailblazers. And their accomplishments deserve recognition. But today I am also thinking about the women whose contributions may never make headlines.
The friend who checks in when something feels off.
The coworker who quietly encourages others.
The sister who shows up without being asked.
The grandmother whose wisdom anchors the family.
These women shape the emotional fabric of families and communities.
Their care, their presence, and their commitment to others leave lasting impact.
Today is a moment to celebrate women. To celebrate the ways women nurture, advocate, guide, and support the people around them. To celebrate the resilience women carry and the communities they help sustain.
And if you are a woman reading this, take a moment to honor yourself as well.
Honor the ways you show up for others.
Honor the love you give.
Honor the strength it takes to continue growing and healing.
The world continues to move forward in countless ways because women choose, every day, to stand in the gap.
And that kind of strength is always worth celebrating.
A Personal Thank You
As I close this reflection, I want to offer a personal thank you.
To all the women I love and know dearly, those who have walked with me through many seasons of life, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to the women who have supported me as family, friends, mentors, colleagues, and community. Thank you to the women who have offered encouragement during difficult moments and shared joy during the good ones.
And thank you to the women I may not know well, or even at all- the strangers who have shown kindness, offered wisdom, extended grace, or simply shared a moment of care when it was needed most.
So much of who we become is shaped by the women who cross our paths.
Your presence, your care, and your strength matter more than you may ever realize.
Today, and every day, I am grateful.
Happy International Women’s Day and Happy Social Work Appreciation Month!
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