Control the Perception, Control the Frame, Control the Reality: Women, Power and Agency Across a Lifetime
Introduction
‘Control the perception, control the frame, control the reality.’
This idea is often used to describe political power, media narratives, or leadership influence. It also offers a useful lens for understanding women’s working lives across the lifespan.
For many women - especially Gen X women now navigating mid-life - career dissatisfaction is not simply about confidence, clarity, or direction. It is about power: who gets to define what is normal, reasonable, possible, or desirable - and who does not.
This article explores how control operates in women’s lives across work, health, and identity; how agency is shaped, constrained, and sometimes taken; and what it can look like to reclaim meaningful control without bypassing reality or pretending systems do not exist.
What You’ll Learn in This Article
In this piece, we explore:
what ‘control’ really means in the context of women’s lives and careers
how perception and framing shape women’s options long before decisions are made
where women’s agency is constrained by systems, not personal failure
how modern forces like AI, social media, and medicalisation affect control
practical ways women can reclaim agency within real-world limits
Control Is Rarely Obvious - It Is Framed as Normal
Control rarely appears as force. It appears as norms.
It shows up in:
what is considered ‘realistic’ work for women
how women are described and judged when they do not comply with expectations
which career paths are labelled sensible, flexible, or risky
how ambition is interpreted depending on who expresses it
how women are not financially protected during vulnerable life stages such as having children
narratives like ‘having a man is a good plan’ or ‘men are the family breadwinners’
what kinds of exhaustion are medicalised rather than contextualised
When perception is shaped early - by families, schools, workplaces, and culture - women often internalise passively imposed limits long before they consciously encounter barriers.
By the time a woman reaches mid-life, many of her career decisions have already been framed for her:
around caregiving
around availability
around accommodation rather than entitlement
This is not accidental. It is how power operates quietly.
Historical Subjugation and the Legacy Women Carry
Women’s subjugation has historically been economic, bodily, and social.
Control over women’s labour, reproduction, sexuality, and movement has been central to patriarchal systems across cultures. While the forms have evolved, the legacy remains embedded in modern institutions - including work, healthcare, and education.
Women were expected to:
provide unpaid or underpaid labour - and still do the majority of unpaid labour today
centre others’ needs over their own
accept dependence as security because it felt safer than poverty or homelessness - until it was not
internalise responsibility for relational harmony because harmony meant safety
These expectations did not disappear when women entered the workforce. They followed them in.
For Gen X women in particular, this legacy is acute. Many were raised with messages of opportunity and equality while still absorbing deeply gendered expectations about care, responsibility, and self-sacrifice. The contradiction often becomes visible later, when capacity shifts and pushing through no longer works. And women still have not learned, or been allowed, to say no.
How Control Plays Out Across a Woman’s Life
Career and Economic Control
Women remain overrepresented in feminised, lower-paid, and more precarious work. Even when equally qualified, women are more likely to:
accept initial employment offers without negotiation
prioritise flexibility over pay or progression
take career paths that accommodate systems rather than challenge them
Women undertaking vocational training - particularly in male-dominated trades - have lower completion rates, often due to entrenched bias and exclusion. Gendered workplace cultures can shut women down before they fully begin.
At the same time, women are more likely than men to hold higher education qualifications, yet still earn less across the board.
The recent Gender Economic Equality reports from Jobs and Skills Australia show:
gender segregation in the workforce has remained largely unchanged for over 15 years
skills shortages are highest in industries with the greatest gender segregation
segregation in training pathways remains entrenched
men out-earn women in the vast majority of occupations, including like-for-like comparisons
over 100 occupations have pay gaps exceeding 25 per cent
women are more likely to be ‘skills matched’ below their level of qualification
These patterns are often framed as ‘preference’. In reality, they reflect constrained choice in the absence of viable alternatives or meaningful structural reform.
Economic dependence - whether on partners, employers, or systems - quietly reduces agency. It shapes what risks feel possible and what futures feel available.
Bodily and Medical Control
Women’s bodies have long been sites of control.
This is not ‘hysteria’.
From reproductive health to chronic illness, women are more likely to have symptoms minimised, psychologised, or medicalised without adequate investigation. Emotional responses to structural stress are frequently reframed as anxiety, depression, or fragility.
Historically, psychiatry pathologised women’s distress rather than interrogating the conditions that produced it.
This has consequences for work.
When exhaustion is treated as pathology rather than context, women are encouraged to adapt themselves rather than question systems. Medication, therapy, and resilience training become substitutes for structural change.
It does not work.
Women burn out. Relationships fracture. For women aged 40-50, suicide risk increases significantly. Reclaiming agency should not require crisis.
Psychological Control and Internalised Limits
Over time, external limitations become internalised narratives about career, worth, and identity.
Many women develop:
chronic self-doubt despite competence
loss of identity beyond roles
reluctance to claim authority or visibility
discomfort with conflict or negotiation
a tendency to question themselves before questioning structures
This is not a lack of confidence. It is learned self-regulation in environments where asserting too much carries social or professional risk.
Modern Forces That Shape Control Today
AI and Standardisation
AI tools have made job searching faster - and flatter. Resourceful women have embraced these tools to manage overload.
However, when automation becomes the primary strategy for coping with time scarcity, applications can become indistinguishable. Nuance, lived experience, and contextual skill are diluted. Women may be overlooked for roles they are well suited for simply because they submitted a ‘vanilla’ application - the only version they had time to produce. And chances are their application will get ‘ghosted’.
Over time, this can erode confidence and reinforce internalised narratives of being ‘less than’ or never good enough for the ‘dream’ role.
Social Media and Narrative Control
Social media shapes perception at scale.
Career success is often framed as personal branding, visibility, mindset, or optimisation. Structural barriers disappear behind curated stories of individual triumph. Newsfeeds rarely reflect reality, yet they influence expectations in ways that are both unachievable and unreasonable.
Women are encouraged to endlessly self-correct rather than interrogate the systems they are navigating.
Spiritual and Self-Help Narratives
At moments of exhaustion and uncertainty, spiritual or self-help narratives can feel deeply appealing. They offer certainty, belonging, and meaning.
But when these systems encourage surrender without discernment, or acceptance without agency, they risk reinforcing the very power imbalances women are trying to escape.
Meaning without material agency is not liberation.
Where Agency Still Exists - Even if Limited
None of this means women are powerless.
Agency is not about total control. It is about meaningful influence within reality.
Women reclaim agency when they:
understand how perception and framing have shaped their choices
separate personal responsibility from systemic constraint
identify where accommodation is strategic and where it is costly
build economic, psychological, and relational leverage over time
This is not about becoming harder, louder, or more aggressive. It is not buying into ‘resilience’ narratives that will burn you out even faster.
It is about becoming more discerning.
Understanding this distinction has profound implications for mental health, identity, and career planning.
Practical Ways to Reclaim Agency
Reclaiming agency often begins with different questions:
Who benefits from this framing?
What am I being asked to absorb or normalise?
What would change if I took my capacity seriously?
Where do I still have influence, even if I do not have full control?
Where am I at really?
Career development work can support this process by:
You don’t need to be at the point of burnout to benefit from career development and planning a better and more sustainable future for yourself. It can help with:
making power and context visible
translating experience into agency, not just skills
supporting negotiation and boundary-setting
reconnecting women with their instincts around fit and sustainability
Why This Matters for Organisations Too
For organisational leaders, understanding control and framing matters.
Retention, engagement, and wellbeing are not improved by resilience programs alone. They improve when organisations:
recognise structural inequities and address them meaningfully
design work that accounts for capacity across life stages - not just ‘wellness days’
reward contribution without demanding self-erasure
acknowledge that contribution may look different across genders
Organisations that understand how control operates are better placed to create ethical, sustainable workplaces - and to retain experienced women rather than losing them to burnout, disengagement, or quieter forms of exit.
Reframing the Conversation
Control over perception shapes what feels possible.
Control over framing shapes what feels reasonable.
Together, they shape reality.
For many women, especially in mid-life, the task is not to reinvent themselves - but to reclaim agency that has been gradually eroded by systems that normalised accommodation and endurance.
This work is not quick. It is not ideological. And it is not easy.
It is practical, relational, and deeply human.
If you are ready to slow the conversation down and explore where agency can be reclaimed - without denying reality - career counselling offers a grounded place to begin.