‘Swiped’ puts a spotlight on the microaggressions women are taught to ignore

There’s a line in Disney+’s new film Swiped that doesn’t get said out loud, but you feel it in every scene — the weight of being “the only woman in the room”, and the unspoken rule that you should feel grateful just to be there.

Directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, Swiped tells the story of Whitney Wolfe, the co-founder of Tinder and founder of Bumble. But the film is not just another tech-biopic about innovation and success. It’s a quiet, simmering portrayal of something most women know too well: the microaggressions we’re expected to swallow, the tone-policing we’re told to accept, and the way we slowly learn to take up less space, just to keep the peace.

And maybe that’s why this story lingers long after the credits roll. Not because it’s about an app. But because it’s about that familiar knot in your throat.

The small things that don’t feel small when you’re a woman

When I interviewed Rachel, she said something that stayed with me: “A lot of what Whitney went through wasn’t just the big moments. It was the small cultural things that most women will recognise.”

She was talking about those everyday experiences that are not dramatic enough to make headlines, but enough to make you question yourself.

And I knew exactly what she meant.

I’ve been lucky to work in a mostly female space, so I don’t face this as much in the workplace. But in my personal life? It shows up more than I’d like to admit. Friends who talk over me. Men who over-explain things I already know, just because they assume I don’t. Times when I express how I feel, only to be told I’m “too sensitive”, “overreacting”, “making things bigger than they are.” You get the drift. 

After a while, you start to doubt yourself. You start thinking, Maybe I am being dramatic. Maybe I should just let it go. Maybe speaking up will only make things awkward. So you stay silent. You keep the peace. You learn, like many women do, to shrink yourself in the name of harmony.

And that’s exactly what Swiped gets right.

Whitney’s story isn’t just about dating apps

In the film, Whitney enters the tech world bright-eyed and brilliant, but also eager to fit in. She laughs off rude jokes that some of her male colleagues make. She stays quiet when ideas are dismissed. She convinces herself that this is the price of belonging.

Rachel told me she felt the same way when she first started in film. “I wanted to be part of the boys’ club. I wanted to fit in. It felt easier than constantly fighting the system,” she said.

And I get that. I’ve felt it too — that pull to stay quiet instead of creating conflict. Because sometimes, it feels easier to blend in than to speak up and be seen as “difficult,” “emotional,” or “too much.”

But what happens when silence starts to cost you more than speaking up?

For Whitney, that moment comes when the microaggressions turn into full-blown betrayal. And suddenly, she’s faced with a choice: stay in a system that harms her, or build something better.

She chooses the latter.

That’s how Bumble was born. It wasn’t just from ambition alone, but from exhaustion. From grief. From being tired of a dating world, and a workplace — built by men, for men.

The power of saying: “Actually, this isn’t okay”

One of the most quietly powerful parts of Swiped is that it doesn’t make Whitney a flawless heroine. She makes mistakes. She compromises. She tries to belong. She stays silent, until she can’t anymore. And that is what makes her human.

To me, this story isn’t shouting for revolution. It’s whispering something softer, more personal: You’re not overreacting. You’re not imagining it. You’re not alone.

Because the truth is, microaggressions don’t always look like grand sexist speeches. Sometimes, they look like:

• A man interrupting you mid-sentence.
• Someone repeating your idea louder and suddenly, everyone listens.
• Being told you’re emotional when you’re simply being honest.
• Hearing “just let it go”, when you know you shouldn’t have to.

Swiped reminds us that these things are not “small”. They’re signals. And if you change nothing, nothing changes.

Why stories like this matter to women here in Singapore

We may not all be building billion-dollar apps, but we’ve all been in rooms where our voices didn’t feel welcome.

We’ve all had moments where we said less than what we really meant, because we didn’t want to seem “too much.” We’ve all written and rewritten messages, softened our tone, and added smiley faces to sound gentler. And maybe that’s why Swiped feels important.

Not because it gives us a happy ending, but because it gives us permission to question. To speak. To walk away from spaces that ask us to be smaller just to fit in.

So why should you watch Swiped? Not because it’s about tech or dating apps. But because it holds a mirror to the quieter struggles most women never talk about out loud — the eye rolls, the stolen ideas, the “you’re too emotional” comments we’ve all internalised at some point.

Swiped doesn’t scream empowerment. It doesn’t romanticise resilience. Instead, it gently asks: What if we stopped brushing off the little things? What if we believed ourselves the first time something didn’t feel right?

Swiped is now on Disney+