You Should Smile More

About this episode

Ally Hamilton reflects on the challenges women face regarding safety and self-expression amidst personal experiences with predatory behavior.

I was going to send the podcast episode with a micro essay as usual, but I have been hit with a blinding migraine so I’m going to keep this short. Side note — once I read that migraines are caused by “too many thoughts” and I suppose that could be true. It makes me very sad and also enraged, that every time I write about the countless experiences I had with predatory men as a little girl and a teenager and a young woman — and continue to have as a grown woman (with the added horror of having to worry about my teenage daughter out in this mess) — there is a deafening chorus of women in the comments saying, Me, too. I wonder who we would all be if we did not have to spend so much energy assessing our surroundings all the time, and wondering whether we are safe — safe in a literal, physical sense — but also safe to express ourselves, to say no, to speak up, to take up space, to not waste so much time questioning our worth, to not have to fight so hard for basic things like respect, dignity and bodily autonomy — while simultaneously being expected to hold up the sky. I wonder who we’d be if we could jog at 5am or 9pm without thinking twice, if we could walk through an empty parking…

People in this episode

Host: Ally Hamilton

Topics covered

• gender safety
• personal experiences
• women's rights
• self-expression
• migraines

Keywords

• migraines
• women's safety
• self-worth
• predatory men
• personal narrative

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• Intersectional Feminism Could Save the World · May 17, 2026 · 1h 25m
• Ally Hamilton and Dina Honour on Misogyny, Patriarchy, and All Men · May 1, 2026 · 1h 23m
• Prince Harming · April 21, 2026 · 1h 1m