I did slip once while listening to Charlie. It was when she was talking about dignity. Her definition was not how I had listed the word in my dictionary, so it really, literally, stopped me in my tracks. I wanted to listen more. “Teach me your ways, Charlie,” I thought and stayed around to listen to what she had to say about the topic.

Dignity. To me at least, it has always been such a cumbersome concept, dressed in pretty-sounding syllables. It’s a word I’ve always resisted, mostly because of the version of dignity I grew up around: the behavioural, moralistic kind tied to propriety, class and “proper” conduct.

Charlie spoke about dignity in a completely different way: the inherent positive quality of dignity as presence, accountability and humanity. This piece is my attempt to understand that difference and where my perception came from and how Charlie helped me reclaim the word.

To provide some context, I am a late-90s child, born between late Millennials and early Gen Zs. A large portion of my generation associates “dignity” with behavioural policing rather than inherent worth. For many of us, dignity has felt like a box, not a value.

The behavioural expression of dignity is the “Sit up”, “Don’t chew like that”, “Cover yourself up”.

We live in modern days, with more choice, more freedom of expression and hopefully less shame. We go to therapy to become better versions of ourselves while still maintaining our essence. We learn not to think of ourselves as more special or deserving than others.

The conservative, commercialised version of dignity often feels like the opposite. It becomes a moral scoreboard, a way to criticise what others are not rather than honour what one is.

Take the manosphere, for example. Its narrow worldview regurgitates dignity as domination. Drawn like moths to a flame, insecure men consume content that tells them they are one held-back tear and one side-hustle away from becoming dignified beings with a rightful place in the world, above others.

The resurfacing of the trophy‑wife trope fits neatly into this worldview. It rewards silence over self‑knowledge, aesthetics over integrity and compliance over confidence. In that logic, “dignity” is not a human quality but a performance to keep people small, polished and easy to manage. It’s dignity as choreography, not dignity as humanity.

Growing up, I felt frustrated when, let’s say, after a breakup, a friend of mine would focus on appearance and faking nonchalance in order to “preserve dignity” in the face of humiliation. It seemed like their honest feelings, the broken heart and the authentic, painful nature of human separation had to take the backseat so that nobody would consider them “pathetic” for mourning.

Until now, in my world, dignity has been tightly linked exactly to that: humiliation. Every time the thought of preserving my dignity crossed my mind, I would push it away, because it unsettled me, restricting my decision-making abilities and leaving the impression that I couldn’t move forward without making sure I would be perfect.

Listening to Charlie helped me recognise the other definition, the inherent dignity rooted in presence, accountability and humanity. While chasing lemons in the bathtub with Beth, she spoke about dignity in a way I hadn’t heard in years: as a quiet, daily practice of taking responsibility for your own life.

She doesn’t use dignity to elevate herself above others or pull out a superior moral compass. Charlie stays grounded, accountable and human.

As Beth describes her, Charlie is luminous. She radiates compassion, humanity, respect for self and others. Her every word told me I had been rejecting dignity because I had only witnessed it be misused and co-opted by conservative moralism.

Charlie’s expression of dignity ties in with the ART (the Authentic Relating Training) programme. Its courses teach that standing in our dignity is a strength and a quality, an understanding that you are valuable and have something to offer to the world, without apologising for it or being prideful.

Charlie offers this original and rudimentary concept: I deserve kindness and respect for I give that to others with an open heart.

A background like Charlie’s could have easily snapped any person’s benevolent backbone. While she never embraces the way she was raised, she does not follow the easy path of victimhood like a foot soldier. She rises above it, explores therapies that prove her innate trust that she can break the generational cycle and become the mother that her children need.

The dignity Charlie so softly embodies is about accepting oneself as a flawed human while consistently working on being better for oneself and others, flaw by flaw. It differs from the self-improvement fanaticism of the manosphere in that it lacks paranoia, it lacks cruelty and the ritual of self‑punishment.

Charlie’s dignity is the kind that doesn’t demand perfection: only honesty, repair and the courage to keep trying. To be a better mother, to reclaim her narrative, to share all the practical knowledge she has with those who seek it and to be of service to her community, because she knows she has the values to do that.

I can work with this definition. It doesn’t cloud my mind and hinder my every move with comparison to others. If dignity is about holding the reins of one’s life with honesty, equanimity, reciprocity and generosity, then I’d gladly aim to never lose mine.

‍