What happens when we finally name the system?

In this powerful conversation, I’m joined by award-winning journalist, activist, and author Soraya Chemaly, whose latest book All We Want Is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy, is one of the most important books on gender and power published in recent years.

Soraya has spent decades researching and writing about gender, culture, and power — and in this conversation, we explore the structural forces shaping women’s lives, from the subtle ways society centers men to the political backlash against women’s independence happening right now.

We talk about why the language of “gender equality” often fails to capture the reality of the system we live in — and why naming male supremacy matters.

This episode is a deep dive into the cultural, political, and psychological forces shaping women’s lives today — and what it means to step outside those systems and choose ourselves.

In This Episode We Discuss

• Why Soraya chose to name the system male supremacy
• What it means to decenter men
• Why women are socialized to prioritize pleasing over knowing
• The hidden ways institutions are structured around men
• Why the backlash against women’s freedom is happening now
• The cultural forces shaping women’s confidence and ambition
• Why male flight from “feminized spaces” is reshaping politics
• The myth of meritocracy in elite education
• Why progress has happened — and why backlash follows it
• How everyday choices contribute to cultural change
• Why Gen Z women give Soraya hope for the future

A Powerful Moment

One of the most striking ideas Soraya shares is that feminism is fundamentally about decentering men — not out of hatred, but to enable women to live lives rooted in dignity, agency, and autonomy.

As Soraya explains:

About Soraya Chemaly

Soraya Chemaly is an award-winning journalist, activist, and author whose work focuses on gender, politics, and power.

She is the author of All We Want Is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy and Rage Becomes Her, and writes widely about the cultural forces shaping women’s lives.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Time, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, and she writes the Substack newsletter Unmanned, exploring gender, power, and resistance in everyday life.

Buy All We Want Is Everything and discover more from Soraya: https://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Soraya-Chemaly/100698080

Connect With Soraya

Substack: Unmanned: https://substack.com/@sorayachemaly
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorayachemaly/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ragebecomesher/

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💻 Website: eimearzone.com 📧

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Subscribe to Girl, Choose Yourself on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

© 2025 Eimear Zone Coaching. All rights reserved.

We live in a world where stress, anxiety, and burnout have become normal. According to the World Health Organization, workplace burnout alone was officially recognized as a legitimate occupational phenomenon — and it continues to rise year after year.¹ In the U.S., multiple studies show that more than 75% of adults report moderate to high stress, and anxiety disorders affect nearly 1 in 5 people annually.²

You don’t need to be “broken” to feel overwhelmed — you just need to be awake in a culture that is wired for distraction, comparison, and urgency.

In today’s milestone episode — Episode 50 — I’m not interviewing a guest. Instead, I want to insert a breath into your life.

You may not know this about me, but I’m a certified mindfulness meditation teacher. I trained in mindfulness because I was tired of the “drama department” in my own head, and because I saw again and again how inner tension was undermining confidence, performance, connection, and joy — especially for women who do so much, give so much, and expect so much of themselves.

In this episode, we explore:

What Mindfulness Really Is

Mindfulness isn’t emptying your mind or escaping life — it’s paying attention, on purpose, to the present moment, without judgment.³ At its core, it’s a practice that trains your nervous system to notice what’s happening before you react to it — and that is profound.

Why It Matters Right Now

The research on the benefits of mindfulness is robust. Studies show that regular mindfulness meditation can:

• Reduce stress and anxiety
• Decrease symptoms of depression
• Improve emotional regulation
• Increase focus and cognitive flexibility
• Lower physiological markers of stress
• Enhance a sense of calm and well-being⁴

For people experiencing burnout or overwhelm — the very things many women are trying to manage with productivity, perfectionism, and performance — mindfulness offers a gateway to presence, and presence is the foundation of creative, sustainable, and integrated living.

The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

This episode breaks down the core areas mindfulness cultivates awareness:

1. Mindfulness of the Body
2. Mindfulness of Feeling Tone
3. Mindfulness of Mind
4. Mindfulness of Mental Patterns
   And we use the breath — the most accessible anchor — to begin.

A Short Guided Introduction Practice

No long retreats. No complicated methodology. Just a practical guided breath meditation you can do right now.

Resources & Science Mentioned

¹ World Health Organization — Burnout as an occupational phenomenon
² APA Stress in America Survey
³ Jon Kabat-Zinn — definition of mindfulness
⁴ Multiple peer-reviewed studies showing the benefits of mindfulness practice

Share Your Thoughts

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Free Resources and More: https://stan.store/eimearzone

Explore Working With Eimear:

Book a Call: https://eimearzone.as.me/breakthrough

📱 Instagram: @eimearzonecoach

💻 Website: eimearzone.com 📧

Email: hello@eimearzone.com

Subscribe to Girl, Choose Yourself on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

© 2025 Eimear Zone Coaching. All rights reserved.

Scrolling through social media and feeling that familiar sinking feeling? That's not accidental—it's engineered. But the real cost of comparison goes way beyond just feeling bad for a few minutes. In this solo episode, Eimear reveals three hidden costs of the comparison trap and shares one research-backed protocol that actually works to break free from the cycle.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS [00:00] Introduction: The comparison trap and why it's engineered [02:30] Hidden Cost #1: The opportunity cost of your attention [06:30] Hidden Cost #2: The goal hijacking phenomenon [10:30] Hidden Cost #3: The confidence compound interest you're missing [14:30] Why willpower doesn't work (and what does) [16:30] The Values Clarity & Replacement Protocol - Step 1: The 10-Minute Values Compass [19:00] Step 2: Creating your "Instead Of" list [21:00] Step 3: Implementation intentions that actually work [24:00] Your 7-day challenge

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Every time you switch your attention to scroll, it takes 23 minutes to refocus on your original task fully
• Exposure to others' goals on social media actually changes your own goals without you realizing it—leading to "borrowed dreams"
• Comparison breaks the confidence compound interest cycle—you're gathering evidence of others' success instead of building your own
• You can't just stop comparing—you have to replace it with something that honors your actual values
• Implementation intentions (if-then planning) make you 2-3x more likely to follow through on behavior change

KEY THEMES

• Understanding the hidden costs of social comparison beyond mood
• The neuroscience of attention and distraction
• Values-based decision making vs. comparison-based living
• Building confidence through action rather than observation
• Creating sustainable behavior change through replacement, not restriction

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Free and low-cost confidence-building resources: https://stan.store/eimearzone
• Research cited: Dr. Gloria Mark (UC Irvine) on attention residue
• Dr. Albert Bandura's self-efficacy research
• Leon Festinger's Social Comparison Theory
• Peter Gollwitzer's implementation intention research
• Cal Newport's work on deep work and attention

KEY RESEARCH SOURCES

• Mark, G., et al. (2005). "No task left behind? Examining the nature of fragmented work"
• Festinger, L. (1954). "A theory of social comparison processes"
• Bandura, A. (1997). "Self-efficacy: The exercise of control"
• Vogel, E. A., et al. (2014). "Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem"
• Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). "Implementation intentions and goal achievement"
• Hunt, M. G., et al. (2018). "No more FOMO: Limiting social media decreases loneliness and depression"

Share Your Thoughts

CONNECT WITH EIMEAR

Free Resources and More: https://stan.store/eimearzone

Explore Working With Eimear:

Book a Call: https://eimearzone.as.me/breakthrough

📱 Instagram: @eimearzonecoach

💻 Website: eimearzone.com 📧

Email: hello@eimearzone.com

Subscribe to Girl, Choose Yourself on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

© 2025 Eimear Zone Coaching. All rights reserved.