{"id":1895,"date":"2026-03-05T13:57:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T19:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mbnovels.com\/?p=1895"},"modified":"2026-04-14T19:25:56","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T01:25:56","slug":"shes-not-your-mother-your-lover-or-your-therapist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mbnovels.com\/es\/2026\/03\/05\/shes-not-your-mother-your-lover-or-your-therapist\/","title":{"rendered":"She’s not your mother, your lover, or your therapist"},"content":{"rendered":"
2 – 3 minutos<\/div>\n\n\n

Let me introduce you to my favorite kind of woman. She’s the one who says the wrong thing at a dinner party. Who holds a grudge like it’s a beloved pet. Who wants things and doesn’t perform enough remorse about it. She’s complicated in a culture that keeps begging women to be simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They call her unlikable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The cage called “likeability”<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

From the moment girls learn to string sentences together, we’re handed a manual. “Chapter One:\u00a0Be Pleasant.<\/em>”\u00a0“Chapter Two:\u00a0Don’t Make People Uncomfortable.<\/em>”\u00a0“Chapter Three:\u00a0Your Worth is Directly Proportional to How Easy You Are to Be Around.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we’ve baked this into our stories. For decades, heroines were measured against a gentle, warm, fundamentally\u00a0accommodating\u00a0standard. Even when they rebelled, they did it prettily. Even when they struggled, they remained fundamentally\u00a0sympathetic.<\/em>\u00a0Easy to root for. Easy to digest. Easy to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve weaponized “unlikable” to keep women contained. To remind them that their job, even in fiction, is to be\u00a0palatable.\u00a0And every time a heroine shrugs off that expectation, she’s not just being “difficult.”\u00a0She’s being free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Why I write her<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I write unlikable heroines because they’re the only ones who feel\u00a0real.<\/em>\u00a0Because the women I love most in this world aren’t always easy. They’re prickly and protective, and they’ve learned, through years of being told to shrink, that taking up space is a radical act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She gives permission.\u00a0To the reader who’s been told she’s “too much.” To the woman exhausted by performing softness. To the girl who needs to see that complicated people still deserve love, still get stories, still\u00a0matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She’s unpredictable.\u00a0A heroine trying to be liked is a heroine I can map. But one who doesn’t care? She could do\u00a0anything.<\/em> She could walk away. She could stay and make everyone uncomfortable. That’s tension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She’s the truth.\u00a0We are not always kind. We are not always generous. We are not always the warm, wise, effortlessly good women we’re supposed to be. Sometimes we’re petty. Sometimes we’re selfish. Sometimes we’re cold for no good reason. And pretending otherwise is the real fiction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

The revolutionary act<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

To write an unlikable heroine \u2014 to center her, to love her, to refuse to apologize for her \u2014 is a small act of rebellion. It’s saying that women don’t exist to be consumed comfortably. That our stories don’t need to be palatable to be valid. That\u00a0a woman’s complexity is not a flaw in the narrative; it is the entire point of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here’s to the heroines who won’t behave. Who make bad choices. Who remind us that the opposite of “likable” isn’t “unworthy.” It’s\u00a0real.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2014 Montse<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We must champion unlikable heroines, celebrating their complexity and rejecting societal norms that demand women’s likability and simplicity.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":134972872,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20562775,782781792],"tags":[7223,7758714,178,1747,8053601,3330,349],"class_list":["post-1895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-heart-of-the-story","category-writing-beyond-comfort","tag-author","tag-bookish-thoughts","tag-books","tag-fiction","tag-indie-author","tag-publishing","tag-writing"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfZGWd-uz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":799,"url":"https:\/\/mbnovels.com\/es\/2025\/08\/07\/the-male-gaze-could-never-survive-my-pen\/","url_meta":{"origin":1895,"position":0},"title":"The male gaze could never survive my pen","author":"Montse \"M.B\" Benavides","date":"agosto 7, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The male gaze never stood a chance. Not in my books. Not in my characters. Not in a single sentence I've written for as long as I've been conscious of my existence. Because I don't write women to be admired. I write them to be understood. 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