This project draws inspiration from my personal experiences with the societal expectations placed on women. These experiences often left me feeling lost, overwhelmed, and alienated— especially during moments of personal growth and transition from a girl to a woman. Later, I discovered online forums on Reddit and began discussing these feelings with my female friends. I realized that many women share the same struggles, confusion, and anger. These conversations became the foundation for my exploration of my identity as a woman and my engagement with feminist theories.

Fairytales and romantic comedies have long portrayed women as passive figures, objects of pursuit rather than active participants. This narrative conditions women to become passive observers in their own lives, waiting to be loved and validated. Books like Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls highlight how societal expectations for girls to be “nice” suppress their ability to express anger or assertiveness. Girls are often taught to avoid conflict, to make everyone happy, and to maintain superficial harmony—lessons that deeply resonate with my own experience as an Asian woman. In many Asian families, women are expected to defer to men and repress their negative emotions, further compounding the “good girl” ideal.

Visual media, from pornography to film, amplifies this conditioning. Directors often use distinct camera techniques for men and women, shaping women as objects of desire. Literature, too, frequently idealizes women, reducing them to incomplete figures of allure. In Leonard Cohen’s song Alexandra Leaving, for instance, Alexandra exists only as an absence, a vessel for longing, with no mention of her inner life. She is a figure of desire, not a whole person. Through lighting, I emphasized side and backlit effects to create a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere within ordinary interiors. These choices amplify the tension between conformity and defiance, reflecting my own journey as a woman recognizing and breaking free from societal constraints.

This project seeks to expose these seemingly normal yet deeply oppressive societal expectations through a female lens. I aim to help young women recognize these constraints or at least feel seen and understood. This project has helped me understand my role as a photographer: carving out a space of freedom for my generation of women. It is a visual expression of my growth—how I became aware of these structures and how I began to dismantle them.

Initially, I experimented with still life photography but found it lacked the narrative depth I wanted to convey. Inspired by Laurie Simmons, I developed a staged documentary series using symbolic objects to hint at the emotional and psychological states of women. In these images, women appear to be performing mundane activities in domestic spaces—kitchens, living rooms, and bathrooms—which are traditionally associated with the “good girl” ideal. To challenge this narrative, I styled the women as doll-like figures with expressions that simultaneously convey compliance and rebellion. They appear to participate in these daily rituals, but their gazes are detached, questioning, and, at times, confrontational.