Special Message from Kym Mcminn IWD2026
- T and K Support Services
- 5 days ago
- 1 min read
In the lead up to IWD and the Leading Ladies Club event this Thursday 🙌
I’m excited to be sitting on a panel with some powerful, tough women 💪
This year’s International Women’s Day theme:
Balance the Scales.
For me, that’s not symbolic.
It’s structural.
In the work I do across mental health, disability and justice systems,
I see where the scales tip.
A woman places herself in a dangerous situation.
The response?
“Well, that was her choice.”
Risk minimised.
Responsibility shifted.
Conversation over.
But trauma-informed care demands a harder question:
Why does that choice make sense in the context of her history?
For some women, danger feels familiar.
Connection feels urgent.
Being wanted feels like survival.
That isn’t recklessness.
Its attachment shaped by trauma.
Choice without context is not empowerment.
Autonomy without safety is not equality.
And then there’s the other side of the room.
The women advocating.
Raising risk.
Feeling the shift.
Sensing something isn’t right.
Women are wired to notice.
To read tone.
To scan for danger.
To protect.
That deep care - that hyper-attunement - isn’t emotion.
It’s intelligence.
Yet too often it’s reframed:
Over emotional.
Overprotective.
Catastrophising.
Insight diluted.
Urgency softened.
Dismissal disguised as professionalism.
Balancing the scales means holding both truths:
Respecting autonomy and refusing to ignore how trauma shapes choice.
Valuing empathy and recognising it as data.
Balancing the scales isn’t about giving women a voice.
It’s about finally listening when we use it. 🎤
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