Have you ever been told to sit properly?
A personal essay on the small ways we were taught to shrink — and the much bigger lesson nobody talks about.
I was seven years old the first time I was told to sit properly.
I was sitting cross-legged on the floor, elbows on my knees, head thrown back, laughing at something my cousin said. Completely free. Completely myself.
My aunt looked at me and said — not unkindly, mind you —
"Legs together. Sit like a girl."
And just like that, I pulled my legs together. I straightened my back. I made myself smaller.
I was seven. And I was already learning that my body — my presence — needed to be managed.
We have all heard some version of this, haven't we?
"Don't laugh so loudly."
"Don't eat so fast."
"Don't speak before elders."
"Be adjusting."
We grew up thinking these were lessons about being a good girl. About manners. About culture.
But I want you to pause here for a moment.
Because there was almost always someone else in that room when those words were said to us.
A brother. A cousin. A neighbour's son.
And nobody said a single word to him.
He Was Watching. And Nobody Told Him Why.
The boy in the room heard everything.
He watched her get corrected. He watched the adults nod. He watched her pull her legs together and make herself smaller.
And nobody explained anything to him.
Nobody said — "We are asking her to do this because of safety."
Nobody said — "This is a social rule, not a natural one."
Nobody said — "Her body belongs to her, and these are just our family's expectations."
Nothing.
So he drew his own conclusions. The way children always do.
He concluded that her body has rules. He concluded that when she follows the rules, she is a good girl — respectable, worth protecting. He concluded that when she breaks the rules — sits how she wants, laughs how she wants, dresses how she wants, says no when she wants — something is wrong. Something needs to be corrected.
He didn't decide this consciously. He didn't sit down and think it through.
He just absorbed it. The way children absorb everything — quietly, completely, permanently.
We teach girls to sit properly. We teach boys, in that same silence, that girls are meant to be corrected.
The Lesson That Nobody Taught — But Everyone Learned
He grew up. And the lesson grew with him.
As a little boy he didn't fully understand what he was seeing. But the imprint was already there. Women have rules about their bodies. And when they forget those rules — someone is supposed to remind them.
He doesn't call it control. He doesn't even see it as control.
He calls it how things should be.
So when the girl — now a woman — sits how she wants, speaks her mind, wears what she chooses, says no clearly and without apology —
He feels something he cannot name. Not anger exactly. Something more like confusion. Like disorder. Like something is out of place and needs to be fixed.
And some men — not all, but some — reach for the most extreme tool available to fix it.
Power. Force. Sex used as punishment. Violence used as control.
Rape culture does not begin in dark alleys. It begins in living rooms. At dining tables. In the words said to little girls while little boys are watching.
It begins the moment we teach a girl that her body must be managed — and say absolutely nothing to the boy standing right there.
We Laughed It Off. That Was Also Part of the Training.
Remember those husband-wife jokes that still circulate on WhatsApp?
Wife talks too much, husband goes deaf.
Wives are like weather — unpredictable and impossible to control.
Ha ha ha. Everyone laughs. Even the women laugh.
Because we were also trained to find it funny. To be a good sport. To not be too sensitive.
But here is what those jokes are actually doing — they are rehearsing the idea that women are something to be endured, managed, and when necessary, silenced. Dressed up as humour so nobody has to take responsibility for saying it out loud.
And the boy who grew up watching a girl get told to sit properly — he laughs too. And the lesson gets reinforced one more time.
So What Do We Do With This?
I am not writing this to make you angry. I am writing this because I believe that awareness is where everything begins.
If you are a woman reading this — know that the shrinking you do every single day is not your personality. It was not something you were born with. It was installed in you, piece by piece, word by word, correction by correction. You were never too much. You were just in a world that found you inconvenient.
If there is a mother reading this — the next time you correct your daughter in front of your son, pause. And say something to him too. Tell him her body is hers. Tell him the rules you are sharing are social, not permanent. Tell him she is a full human being, not a problem to be managed. That one conversation — one you probably never had growing up — can interrupt decades of silent conditioning.
If there is a man reading this — and I genuinely hope some are — I am not asking you to feel guilty for what you absorbed as a child. None of us chose what we were taught. But we do choose what we carry forward.
You don't have to roar to take up space. You just have to stop disappearing.
The Girl Who Sat Properly
I still think about that seven-year-old sometimes.
The one laughing with her head thrown back, completely free, completely herself.
She didn't need to be fixed.
She needed to be seen.
And the boy who was watching — he needed someone to tell him: she is not a rule to be followed. She is a person. Just like you.
We are still — decades later — cleaning up the mess of that silence.
But we can start talking now.
If this post found you at the right moment:
I have built a complete guide to help you work through the people-pleasing, the guilt around saying no, and the version of yourself that was trained to shrink.
It is called The No Playbook. It is my most honest work.
Read more about The No Playbook →
Or start with the free Confidence Reset Worksheet — no sign-up needed.
"The woman who knows her worth doesn't fight for a seat at the table. She builds her own." — Shyamala Prabhakar
Shyamala Prabhakar is a certified NLP coach, entrepreneur, women's empowerment advocate, and the founder and editor of Fashion Drift magazine. She is the author of Dear Sister, Dear Brother: Letters of Freedom and The Love You Deserve — and through her writing, coaching, and speaking, she has worked with over a thousand women on identity, boundaries, and self-worth.