The Exploitation of Female Kindness

Men, women and children all see women as sacrificial lambs

This past week, Baby Nigga decided to message me out of the blue. Clearly, he was either bored or felt like wasting my time. I did what any woman who's learned from past experiences with male behavior does: I completely ignored him.

Women often find themselves in a perverse situation—one where our kindness is exploited. There's nothing inherently wrong with someone reaching out unprovoked; in fact, with the endless demands of adulthood, I'd love for one of my friends to message me randomly, whether I'm in the middle of grocery shopping or at a spin class. But when it comes to men, the intentions are rarely pure. I hate that I can’t say this without being labeled as bitter or accused of painting all men with the same broad brush. However, I’ve come to accept the world for what it is, not how I wish it could be.

So, Baby Nigga’s DM got me thinking: why would he reach out again, just to waste my time? The last time this happened was with Math Nigga, and giving him a second chance didn’t make him treat me any better. It didn’t make him respect me. The moment I responded to his message, it was as though I’d given him permission to waste my time all over again. Like many others before him, he exploited my kindness. And I don’t mean exploit like a child worker in a Congolese mine—I mean it in the subtle, insidious way we encounter every day.

By ignoring him, I threw his bullshit back in his face in the way men hate most: silence. We live in a society that constantly takes advantage of female kindness. It’s the mothers who outsource raising their younger children to their eldest daughters. It’s the male "friends" who are waiting for their female friends to be vulnerable. It’s hairstylists, makeup artists, and women’s service providers exploiting their female clients. So much of society is built on women being silent, compliant, and, most importantly, kind.

Take Mia Khalifa, for example. She was essentially forced into the porn industry—a situation rooted in exploiting her vulnerability and societal expectations of women. Or the girl in my building who’s always saddled with her younger brother. Her older sister knows better than to become the default parent. She’s the more disagreeable one, unafraid of being yelled at by their parents, so the responsibility falls to the younger, kinder, more gentle sister. This isn’t limited to men; women, too, place this heavy burden of familial obligation on each other. That’s why women often hate the mistress more than the cheating husband, why when men fail, they run back to other women for support.

Even as children, little girls learn how to manage their fathers’ and brothers’ emotions. They learn how to manipulate family dynamics to maintain peace in the household, often by overextending themselves emotionally. This dynamic teaches them to become the keepers of harmony, and their kindness becomes the tool used to keep the chaos at bay.

This exploitation extends into friendships, too. For those unfamiliar, the Black hair salon experience has declined faster than Biden’s cognition. In the past, the salon was a sanctuary for Black women, and stylists were like high priestesses. They had the power to transform our hair—something deeply political—into something we could wear confidently into the world. But now? The Black beauty experience is dominated by unlicensed “stylists” who double as veneer techs and eyelash specialists—the three horsemen of the Black beauty apocalypse.

Take my friend, for example. She moved to Atlanta and was looking for a new stylist. She found one on an app, confirmed the price, paid a deposit, and showed up at the appointment. The salon was in a less-than-desirable location, but when you’ve got a resident’s salary, you make do. They hit it off immediately, chatting away, until the stylist claimed the treatment my friend wanted would require an additional $185. Despite the rapport they’d built, my friend declined the “extra treatment”—something that should have been included in the initial service. The stylist had heard my friend was a doctor and saw her as a meal ticket.

This type of exploitation is rampant, especially when it comes to ambitious women. We expect women who strive for success to also be kind, humble, and agreeable. I've never seen a kind person make it to the top, yet we demand that women soften their ambition so they won’t be seen as "bitches" or "mean." We expect women to play emotional monopoly, to keep the peace, and not rock the boat. Meanwhile, no one expects kindness from powerful men—in fact, we anticipate the opposite. Think of Steve Jobs: he was celebrated for his demanding, often abusive behavior.

Men especially exploit women’s kindness by operating in the grey area. There’s always that "friend" waiting for your relationship to fail, ready to swoop in. Romantically, they waste your time, stringing you along with love they’ll never reciprocate. They take advantage of the affection you have for them, knowing full well they’ll never return it. We see this on a larger scale when wealthy men violate women, confident they’ll never face the consequences because the power dynamics are so heavily stacked in their favor.

The truth is, men—and society as a whole—count on women’s kindness to maintain the status quo. They operate in that grey area, knowing women are conditioned to give second chances, to make excuses, to extend grace where it’s undeserved. Whether it’s the friend waiting in the wings, the colleague expecting you to do the emotional labor at work, or the stylist exploiting your trust, they all take advantage of one simple fact: women have been taught to be kind, often at their own expense.

Part of this kindness is biological. As women, we are the smaller, more vulnerable sex, which comes with certain survival instincts. Even a teenage boy can physically overpower a grown woman if he wanted to, and so, being agreeable often feels like a way to protect ourselves. It’s hardwired. And then there’s the fact that we’re the ones responsible for raising vulnerable babies—tiny, helpless beings who scream like they're competing with Mariah Carey. If we weren’t wired to be kind, nurturing, and patient, we'd probably have tossed them in the trash the moment they started wailing. Our kindness ensures the survival of not just ourselves, but also the next generation. But what serves us biologically doesn’t always serve us emotionally, socially, or economically in today’s world.

But what if we stopped? What if, instead of being kind, we chose the greatest act of self-preservation—being disagreeable. Not in the sense of being rude or mean, but by refusing to engage, to give our time, energy, or attention to those who seek to exploit us. Sometimes, the most powerful thing a woman can do is exit the conversation, the relationship, or the situation entirely. To ignore. To not respond. To recognize when he’s just not that into you and, more importantly, to know when to stop being into him.

And this is what we should be teaching our daughters. Even well-meaning mothers sometimes take advantage of their daughters' kindness, by failing to prepare them for the world outside. Because, let’s be honest, a kind daughter is easier to raise. But we must teach our daughters early that self-betrayal is the greatest form of high treason. By prioritizing their own well-being, setting boundaries, and recognizing their own worth, they learn to protect themselves from a world that too often expects them to sacrifice everything for others. Mothers must show their daughters what it means to be bold, to act madly, and to disrupt the world in pursuit of their goals. You can’t teach courage but model cowardice. By boldly pursuing your own desires, and unapologetically disrupting the status quo, you free the giant within your daughter.

In the end, the most radical thing we can do is raise daughters who understand that their kindness should never be weaponized against them and that walking away is not a failure—it’s freedom. It's about teaching them that their worth isn't measured by how much they can give to others, but by how true they stay to themselves. In a world that constantly demands women's kindness, the most revolutionary act is to be kind to ourselves first, even if that upsets others.

Best,

Coffy.