I think a lot of women were raised to be polite or demure. We aren’t supposed to make a lot of trouble for people and try to go with the flow. We are called bossy if we do speak up and that’s used as an insult. Men are called assertive and that’s a good thing, but women are bossy and it’s bad. I wasn’t raised to not speak up for myself, but I was raised to be kind and polite. And sometimes being kind and polite means being quiet because speaking up could cause issues. And this is a mindset that I’ve had for a long time even when I wanted to fight it.
A big place this has been a problem for me in the past has been in jobs. I know that having a job isn’t always a given. There are a lot of times that I know I’m lucky to have a job or opportunity and I don’t want to lose it. But this also means that I’ve tolerated a lot of bad workplaces in the past. There’s one job where I was harrassed by my manager, but I never spoke up because I was worried about being fired. I did speak to HR, but they didn’t seem to take it seriously. My manager would call me fat or make fun of my personal life in front of others and I just stayed quiet. There was another job where my boss was verbally abusive to all the employees. I was a receptionist and when I asked for a raise (which was a part of my contract) he screamed at me saying that I was an awful person for not appreciating what I had. The one time that I did speak up a bit was at one job that wanted me to take some continuing education classes and then I found out the only places I could take them that they would be ok with would be through their religious headquarters. But even then, I didn’t speak up that much. I just said that the job wasn’t a good fit for me and not that it was illegal for them to require me to pay for classes from a religious group.
And I think from my posts on here it’s clear that another place I have struggled with speaking up is with dating. I don’t think this one is as gendered, but I do think a lot of women want to be the cool girl who doesn’t push too hard. You don’t want to be the one to bring up where your relationship is going because you don’t want to seem like you are pushing for marriage and scare the guy off. I’m slowly starting to learn that if the guy is the right guy, discussing the tough stuff won’t scare them off. But I still am always worried that I will scare a guy off and for some reason they are the last person who will ever be interested in me. It doesn’t help that I have had some relationships end when I had the “what are we” conversation and another relationship end because a guy claimed he didn’t believe me enough when I said I wasn’t pushing for us to be in a relationship. But I also can look back at those past relationships and realize that even if I didn’t have that conversation, the relationship wouldn’t have lasted for other reasons.
But I’m noticing that I am getting better at speaking up lately.
I’ve spoken up at all of my jobs now to make sure that things are working out for me. I’ve spoken up about asking for a raise when it was in the job offer that one would be coming. I’ve spoken up about my schedule and what would work best for me. And I’ve spoken up about job responsibilities and what seems reasonable.
And with dating, even though it’s still tough to date during the pandemic, it is getting easier as things get safer. And that means I have more chances to speak up and advocate for myself. I’m not pushing hard for anything that feels unreasonable, but I am setting boundaries and expectations. For example, someone from my past reached out to me and I had some hesitation about trying things again with them. They had some issues with being reliable and being an infrequent texter. So I told them that if they wanted to start talking again, it had to be on the phone and not over text. And I’m holding them to that. They still are texting, but I am not responding most of the time. And when I do respond, I say the same thing again about how if they want to talk to me they need to call. I don’t have to just go with what they want when it’s not what I want. And if there is someone that I have talked to that I want to see again, I am getting more comfortable with being very upfront and asking them out again. I’m not waiting on them to ask me out. If I want to see them again, I am clear about that so they know where I stand.
I do still worry that sometimes I seem bossy or demanding, but I’m working through that more and more. And the more that I do speak up for myself and see the positive response I get in return, the more comfortable I feel doing this. I know that it’s not always going to work out for me and I do have stories of where it didn’t work, but more often it either works or opens up the conversation to discuss things more so I can make sure that I’m getting what I want out of life, work, and relationships.
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