Hey,

We’re usually more tender towards the women we know by name – When our daughter is overwhelmed, when our sister cancels plans, when a friend leaves work early. 

We give context to the women we love, and context makes it easier to be kind towards them. But other women can carry the same exhaustion, and somehow appear entirely different to us. And, that difference sits at the heart of #Edition74 – the invisible boundaries around our empathy, and the women who fall just outside them. 

Inside this Edition:
👉 The Boundaries of Our Empathy
🥗 What she’s watching, reflecting, doing
📰 5 headlines worth her time
✨ Her Spotlight
🤍 Note to Her

Why are we usually most generous only with women whose stories we already know?

People do not change their values as often as they change who those values apply to.

A mother may worry about her married daughter. She hopes someone in that home notices when her daughter is tired, supports her dreams, and never makes her feel like an outsider. Yet under another roof, another woman may be hoping for those exact same things.
A senior professional wants her daughter to find patient mentors, yet feels frustrated when a younger employee needs more guidance than expected.
A woman comforts her friend through an unforgiving workplace, but then questions the colleague who leaves early to care for her child.

We encourage our sisters to dream bigger.
But we expect other women to adjust.

Most of this is not deliberate.
And it rarely looks like cruelty.
But all of this lives in smaller, almost invisible differences like whose mistakes receive an explanation, whose exhaustion feels valid, whose ambition appears admirable, and whose needs begin to feel inconvenient.

I have noticed this in conversations – in families, in workplaces, and sometimes, if I am honest, in myself.

The women closest to us – We know their history in detail. We remember what they have survived. We know that one bad day does not make them difficult, that needing help does not make them incapable, and that choosing themselves does not automatically make them selfish.

But, a woman who we do not know that well, becomes easier for us to label as: 
That difficult employee
That demanding daughter-in-law.
That careless mother.
That woman online who should have commented differently.

Familiarity actually does a lot more than create affection.
It grants complexity. It allows us to see a whole person where we might otherwise see only a role, a reaction, or the inconvenience she has caused us.

Psychology explains this as – empathy often becomes more generous towards people we recognise as our own, while distance makes it easier to mistake someone’s circumstances for their character.

Ask this to yourself:
If this were someone I deeply loved, would I still believe this was fair?

This answer may reveal where your patience changes. Where you assume. Where a woman stops being a whole person and becomes only the role she plays in our lives.

The goal is not to love our daughters, sisters, friends, or the people closest to us any less fiercely. It is to simply widen the circle until no woman has to earn the empathy we give so freely to the people we call our own.

💬 Ideas to tune into when the world’s too loud.

🎬 WATCH: The Lost Daughter
This is a deeply human portrait of motherhood, regrets, desires and all the contradictions women are rarely allowed to hold at once – What changes when we stop deciding whether a woman is “good” or “bad” and simply allow her to be complicated.
📝 REFLECT: Give Her More Context
Think of a woman you recently found difficult, distant or frustrating. What might you not know about what she was carrying that day? This is not to rewrite the moment but only to remember that a visible reaction is rarely the whole story.
☕ DO: Step Outside Your Usual Circle
Start a conversation with a woman you usually know only through a role – a colleague from another team, a neighbour you briefly greet or someone you regularly see but rarely know. Ask something beyond the usual small talk, and stay curious about the answer.

🌍 5 stories shaping the week for women everywhere.

🏀 Paige Bueckers Calls Out WNBA Coaching Gap: With no Black women currently serving as WNBA head coaches, Bueckers is calling for more equal opportunity in the league’s leadership ranks
⚖️ E. Jean Carroll Finally Receives Trump Damages: Carroll has received the $5.63 million owed after a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, with interest included in the payment.
🏛️ South Carolina Gets Its First Woman Senator: Darline Graham has been appointed to complete her late brother Lindsey Graham’s term, becoming the first woman to represent South Carolina in the U.S. Senate.
💊 South Korea Moves Toward Safer Abortion-Pill Access: President Lee Jae Myung has instructed officials to explore safe access to mifepristone, aiming to reduce reliance on unregulated overseas purchases.
🎥 New Camera Rules Protect Women Athletes: European Athletics and the EBU have issued guidance against body-focused angles and unnecessary replays, keeping coverage centred on women’s performance. 

Found her. Loved her. Needed you to see her.

Paris Mwendwa (@paris.mwenda) writes about womanhood with honesty, curiosity and emotional precision. Through essays on girlhood, beauty, shame, desire, power and female relationships, she gives language to feelings many women carry quietly but rarely know how to name. Her work resists easy labels. 

By staying curious about what lies beneath a woman’s choices, reactions and silences, Paris reminds us that understanding often begins when we stop deciding who someone is from a single visible moment.

She is also hosting an upcoming girls’ trip to San José del Cabo, inviting like-minded women to connect through culture, community and shared experience.

Her Weekly Download lands every Tuesday and Friday—with a Sunday news special for the women-first stories worth knowing.

✨ P.S. Send this to a woman who makes your circle feel a little wider—because the best kind of wisdom travels from woman to woman. 💚