Who am I?

Photo by Artem Bryzgalov on Unsplash

Hi, I’m Dan Only.

I’m a feminist.

For most of my life, I thought I was simply seeing the world as it was. I believed many of the things people treat as facts.

That women should cover up

That women serve.

That women support.

That men are better leaders.

That women should behave, dress, and live in certain ways.

Things many of you can probably relate to hearing as well — things already chosen for you without you having a say, deciding how your life should be and who you are in this world.”

None of these felt like beliefs.

They felt like reality.

I didn’t question them because they seemed obvious. They were everywhere around me — in conversations, traditions, religion, culture, and everyday life.

I absorbed these ideas and started adjusting myself to them, living by them, without even realizing it. There were so many things I was capable of, so many dreams I admired in other people, so many things I genuinely felt drawn to — but I couldn’t do them because ‘it’s not for a girl.’

And that’s how I was limited. I was boxed in without even realizing I was inside a box — a belief that felt like fact.

Many of the things I thought were facts were actually beliefs I had inherited — not my own. Things created by others to serve them, not things I ever chose to live by

That realization changed the way I see the world.

We can believe something for years and still be wrong. We can inherit an idea, repeat it, and build our lives around it. But that doesn’t make it true. And that’s the scary part of beliefs. We can spend our whole life living inside an idea that can limit us or limit other people.

A lot of what shapes how women live their lives and how people perceive women comes from beliefs that have been passed down for generations. Beliefs repeated so often that they start to feel like reality.

That is what led me to my work.

Today, I write about the beliefs that shape women’s lives. The beliefs we inherit about ourselves, about other women, and about what it means to be a woman.

I believe the core problems we are going through are based on internal beliefs we live by. And beliefs don’t just stay as beliefs — they shape how we think, behave, and treat other people.

They can justify expectations, discrimination, harassment, and even violence.

And when millions of people share the same beliefs, those beliefs can affect the lives of millions of women.

That’s why many women around the world face problems simply because they are women.

This is what interests me most, and what I teach — the beliefs behind these problems. My work is about making those invisible beliefs visible. Because once you see them clearly, you can start questioning them, and slowly shift them into more empowered beliefs.

Beliefs that support equality, change how we see ourselves and others, and open more space instead of limiting it.

I hope my writing helps you see something you hadn’t seen before. More importantly, I hope it helps you question something that once felt like reality.