This week, an article in The Sydney Morning Herald stopped us in our tracks: “Women fought for equality. Instead, we’re exhausted.” It hit a nerve, not because it said anything new, but because it said what so many women already feel.
The conversation around “having it all” keeps coming back, and almost always, it’s directed at women. Somehow, equality has been warped into this expectation that we should not only have it all but do it all: career, caregiving, friendships, financial independence, self-care, and still have the energy to smile through it all.
Most men don’t talk about “having it all.” They’re not asked to balance every sphere of life flawlessly, and they rarely feel the same pressure to be everything to everyone all the time. That pressure has become uniquely feminine. And it’s quietly exhausting us.
This conversation has come up in our community before
Earlier this year, Jemi Jeng (our Founder) wrote a piece for Women’s Agenda piece about the way this very narrative discourages women from pursuing big goals like homeownership. It was sparked by an SBS article profiling a single woman named Jess who, despite earning a good salary, was struggling to buy her first home. The advice from her mortgage broker: “You can’t have it all.”
That phrase, meant to land as wisdom, instead echoed something deeply cultural. It framed her ambition as a choice between love, home, and career, creating a false dichotomy that suggested she had to choose in a way that men simply don’t face. An unfair burden placed on her, and on women like her.
Language matters. When a woman already feels the weight of financial inequality, and research from Fidelity International shows women are statistically more likely to have lower financial confidence than men, hearing “you can’t have it all” chips away at her self-belief. The subtext becomes: you’re asking for too much.
But here’s the thing, it’s not women who need to shrink their dreams. It’s the systems around us that need to evolve.
What we see in the Penny community every day
Women balancing inconsistent work patterns, unpaid caregiving, relationship breakdowns, and rising living costs. Still showing up. Still working toward their goals.
The problem isn’t women wanting too much. It’s that society continues to expect them to carry too much, without nearly enough support in return.
Enter the “Let Them” theory
It comes from author and speaker Mel Robbins, and the idea is beautifully simple.
Let them. Let people think what they want. Let the world expect what it expects. Let go of the need to meet everyone’s standards at once.
What if “having it all” didn’t mean doing it all? What if it meant having peace with our choices, our limits, and our own pace?
As we mark Mental Health Month, we want to invite every woman in our community who has felt like she had to have it all, or has been told she can’t, to stop trying to prove otherwise.
Rest when you need to. Delegate without guilt. Choose what matters most right now. Empowerment isn’t about perfection. It’s about permission to live life on your own terms.
Five ways to practise “let them” this month
1. Let their expectations sit where they belong. If someone thinks you’re slacking because you’re working flexibly or prioritising rest, let them. Their assumption says more about their script than your reality.
2. Replace “balance” with “alignment.” Balance implies an impossible symmetry. Instead ask: what matters most right now? Focus there. There is no perfect spread and there never was.
3. Delegate the mental load. That list running in your head? It can live somewhere else. Delegate, set up shared systems, outsource what you can. Taking the load off doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re strategic.
4. Make good money habits and rest both non-negotiable. Financial stress and exhaustion feed each other. Automate what you can. Budget in your downtime. Treat your energy like the resource it is.
5. Rest like you mean it. You don’t need to earn your rest. Doing nothing isn’t unproductive. It restores you, makes you clearer, and makes every decision that follows sharper.
If you’re feeling under the load, please reach out:
PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia): 1300 726 306
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636
Lifeline: 13 11 14
Sources: Sydney Morning Herald, 21 October 2025, “Women fought for equality. Instead, we’re exhausted.” Women’s Agenda, 2023, “How many women are discouraged from buying a home after being told they can’t have it all?” by Jemi Jeng. Fidelity International, 2022, Women and Money: The Confidence Gap Report.