Built for someone else

"Women are not small men."

I heard that sentence recently and, for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Not because it was revolutionary. In fact, it's almost painfully obvious. Women are not small men. Yet the more I sat with those five words, the more I realised how much of our world has quietly been built as though we are.

For much of modern history, the male body has been treated as the default. Men have historically been overrepresented in clinical research, their physiology has shaped many of our assumptions about health and performance, and many of the systems we move through each day were developed around relatively stable daily hormonal patterns. Women were never expected to become men, but we have often been expected to function inside systems that weren't originally designed with our biology in mind.

You don't have to look very far to see it.

We praise consistency as though every person should wake up with the same energy every morning. We admire the ability to perform at the same level every day, every week, every month. Productivity is often measured by how consistently we can show up, push through and produce, despite the fact that many women naturally experience fluctuations in energy, mood, concentration, appetite and recovery throughout the month as hormone levels rise and fall.

The same can be said for the advice we're given. Training programmes, nutrition recommendations, productivity hacks and morning routines are often presented as universal solutions. Sometimes they are incredibly helpful. Sometimes they genuinely improve people's lives. But they're frequently delivered as though there is one ideal way for every body to function.

When that advice doesn't work for us, our first instinct is rarely to question the advice.

We question ourselves.

We decide we're lazy.

Undisciplined.

Unmotivated.

We convince ourselves we're somehow getting it wrong.

But perhaps we've simply been measuring ourselves against the wrong blueprint.

For many women, that blueprint has historically been male. More recently, it has become the perfectly cycle-synced woman on the infographic, the influencer with the flawless morning routine, or the creator whose body seems to follow every textbook description. Neither of those blueprints was ever supposed to become yours.

A few weeks ago, someone in the Phase & Flow community wrote to me asking why she didn't feel energised during her follicular phase.

Everything she had read told her this was supposed to be the week she felt her best. Every infographic suggested she should be motivated, productive and full of energy. So when that wasn't her experience, she reached the conclusion so many women reach.

"Is something wrong with me?"

That message stayed with me because it perfectly captured what happens when we spend long enough believing there is one "correct" way for a body to behave.

For years, women have compared themselves to men.

Now, many women find themselves comparing themselves to other women.

The woman whose cycle follows the textbook.

The woman who loves high-intensity workouts before ovulation.

The woman who feels unstoppable during her follicular phase.

The problem isn't that we have a better understanding of female physiology than we once did. That's something worth celebrating.

The problem is when understanding quietly becomes expectation.

Because no two women are the same.

Your cycle is not mine.

My body is not yours.

The goal was never to replace the male blueprint with a female one.

The goal was to stop searching for a universal blueprint altogether and begin creating one that is uniquely your own.

I often think about something entrepreneur Emma Grede once said. She explained that she doesn't have time to sit around waiting for equality. She's going to make it.

I love that perspective.

Of course there are bigger conversations that need to happen. We need more research centred on women's bodies. We need healthcare systems that continue moving away from treating the male body as the default. We need workplaces that better understand that not every employee experiences their body in the same way.

But while those conversations continue, there is still something incredibly powerful we can do today.

We can stop waiting for permission to build lives that work better for us.

There's a Japanese philosophy called Kaizen, popularised by Toyota, that focuses on making small, consistent improvements rather than chasing dramatic overnight transformation.

I know... it probably seems strange that I'm talking about a car company in an article about women's health.

Bear with me.

What I love about Kaizen is that it reminds us that meaningful change is rarely built in one giant leap. It's built through hundreds of small decisions that gradually create a better system.

I think there's something really beautiful about applying that philosophy to the way we move through our lives as women.

If the training programme you've been following leaves you feeling exhausted every month, perhaps you adapt it instead of forcing yourself through it.

If you've noticed that going out for drinks after work during your luteal phase leaves you feeling worse the next day, perhaps you order the mocktail instead.

If you know your concentration is naturally sharper during one part of your cycle than another, perhaps you schedule your most demanding work for those days rather than fighting your body every month.

None of those decisions are dramatic.

But together, they begin to create a life that feels less like it was designed around somebody else's blueprint and more like it was intentionally designed around your own.

Before I leave you this month, I'd like to offer you an invitation.

Over the coming weeks, pay attention to the routines, habits and expectations that shape your everyday life.

When you notice something that feels as though it was designed with somebody else in mind, whether that's a routine better suited to men or advice that simply works better for another woman than it does for you, I invite you to make one small adjustment.

Not because you're trying to optimise every part of your life.

Not because your body needs fixing.

Simply because your life should feel like it was built with you in mind.

The change itself doesn't matter nearly as much as the question behind it.

Is this working for me?

If the answer is no, perhaps this is the month you give yourself permission to make one small shift.

Because our goal shouldn't be to structure our lives the way men would.

Nor should it be to structure our lives exactly the way another woman would.

Our goal should be to build a life around the one blueprint that has always mattered.

Our own.

Love,

Ava