“You know what you are doing? You are thinking like a girl.” Mr. Attorney said, in his accusatory court room voice, as we slogged through the rainy day NYC traffic.
“Yo Einstein—I AM a girl.” I informed my passenger.
“No, no, no…that is not what I meant. It is that you are waiting for something to be presented to you at work when you should just be asking for it.”
As much as Mr. Attorney and I fight like cats and dogs about politics, religion, child rearing practices etc…he is someone who I have talked to almost every day for way too many years—so we know one another fairly well. We have been together SO LONG that we can really push emotional buttons….like adult siblings at a holiday get together.
Yet the man is right—I DO think like a girl and I am trying to stop. I am trying to ask for things I want and need….not just in my career, but also at home. And I don’t think I alone am missing this skill. Women at work are ALWAYS the “team players” aka the suckers. Women volunteer to take the kids, volunteer to take on the extra work projects…we volunteer our lives away. Even if we don’t volunteer because…as you know…I am not one for volunteering—we do have a tendency to passively accept rather than actively seek out and demand what we want.
The Beast and her friends seem comfortable and confident in asking for what they want. I hope this new generation of women will maintain this ability to speak-up for themselves as their mothers learn how to.
3 comments:
I agree that we girls need to speak up more and be more assertive, but I think the world would be a better place if boys thought more like girls.
Don't stop being a girl, just start acting like us girls deserve what the boys are getting. It's just a bigger sandbox, and we need to get our fair share of the sand. I agree tho', and am guilty as charged. Afraid to ask for my just due, when my male counterparts just assume it. Kills me to say it, but we need to man up in a man's world. ugh.
I love the book ASK FOR IT. You can see it in Lazy Mom's Book Picks. I am surprised at how often women don't ask and assume instead that things will be offered to them. But Ms. Seize-the-Day pointed out (in an e-mail to me because god forbid she write on my site) that often when women do ask--they are seen as a bitch or too pushy or...my personal favorite--a Pushy Bitch--my ultimate goal.
It is tough call...the women who wrote ASK FOR IT suggest that women need to be "pleasantly persistent" to get what they want without being labeled something nasty.
It is SO annoying!
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