Why I Withhold

By Clare P | We Withhold

I didn’t set out to start a movement. I set out to survive a world that kept asking women to give more than we had left.

More of our labor. More of our silence. More of our bodies, our time, our grief, our forgiveness.

I’ve been the “good girl.” The one who followed the rules. The one who kept smiling while bleeding. The one who tried to hold it all together so no one else would fall apart. And at some point, something in me finally said,
Enough.

This isn’t about politics. This is about power.
This is about what happens when women stop cooperating with systems that refuse to protect us.
This is about withholding what has always been expected of us—until we are safe. Until we are heard. Until we are free.

We Withhold was born from a quiet, burning truth:
We’ve begged. We’ve asked nicely. Now we pull back.
Not because we’re weak.
Because we’re done.

My name is Clare, and I created this movement not just as a protest, but as a practice of reclaiming power.

I hold a Master’s Degree in Social Work (MSW). I’ve sat with women and children in crisis. I’ve held space for trauma, for grief, for injustice. And I’ve carried my own. I left the field after being retraumatized inside the very system I once believed I could help change. But what I didn't know then was that my healing, my heartbreak, my rage, and my clarity would become the foundation for something far more personal—and far more powerful.

I believe that truth is sacred. That women's bodies are sacred. That grief is sacred. That rage, when channeled, is sacred too.

We Withhold is a call for women to stop apologizing and start disrupting. Whether you're withholding your labor, your love, your spending, your care, your silence, or your womb—you are not alone. You are not passive. You are powerful.

This blog will be a place where I share what I’ve lived, what I’ve learned, and what I’m still remembering. It will hold truth, grief, questions, fury, hope, and unapologetic reclamation.

We’ll talk about the sacred nature of saying no. About the trauma of being expected to say yes. About the exhaustion of being the one who always absorbs the blow, and the rebirth that happens when you finally decide to step out of harm’s way.

I will not write from a place of perfection. I will write from a place of knowing. I will write from the same edge many of us are walking—where heartbreak and clarity collide, where refusal becomes a sacred act, and where withholding becomes a form of holy return.

If you're here, maybe something in you is saying enough, too.

Welcome to the movement.
Welcome to the refusal.
Welcome to the return of your power.

We Withhold.