One of the fairly consistent exercises that I give to both my women’s studies students — and to the girls in my high school youth group — is to begin to monitor how often that they say “yes” when they would rather say “no.” (I’ve posted about this before, but jeepers, I can’t find my own stuff in my archives any more.)
I’m not talking about learning to say no to drugs, or sexual pressure, though I’m fully aware that many young women do struggle in those areas. I’m talking about the difficulty of saying “no” to parents and other family members, to good friends, to coaches and teachers and mentors. As I’ve written before (most recently here), far too many of our little sisters and daughters have been raised since birth to be dutiful people-pleasers. Even in the early 21st century, after decades of feminist gains, an extraordinary number of young (and not-so-young) women feel intensely guilty when they say “no” to someone they love.
In the past, I’ve asked my students and youth groupers to keep a “log” of how often they say “yes” when they’d rather say “no” over the course of the week. Some of them actually have developed spread sheets, with columns! (People-pleasing taken to the platinum level!) They list to whom they said yes when they’d rather have said no; they list the request itself; they are encouraged to journal about why they said “yes”, and to speculate what the consequences would have been (both for themselves and the other person) if they had said “no.”
I don’t usually ask them to start practicing saying “no” right away. I find it’s often more effective to get young women to see just how often — and to how many people, and in how many varied circumstances — they say “yes.” Saying “yes” to things we would rather not do is of course part of living in community. But we raise women to find “no” a much more difficult word to say.
Later on, I ask the women to practice turning the “yes” into a “no.” Not to a necessary request (e.g.: “Can you drive me to the hospital?”), but to one that is redolent with another’s sense of entitlement and expectation (like a lazy brother asking to borrow $10, again.) The “no” needs to be said to someone with whom they are in relationship (parent, boyfriend, friend, close co-worker). And the real work begins after the no. The real effort, which is what I want written about, is to work through the guilt that so often accompanies a firm and final “no.”
One old criticism of feminism is that it makes women selfish. One feminist criticism of patriarchal culture is that it demands that women be selfless, endlessly self-sacrificing. Authentic feminism does not seek to sever women from their emotional ties to others, nor does feminism (despite the fantasies of some of its critics) want women to be so radically independent that they live outside of meaningful, mutual relationships. Feminism is not anti-family. Feminism is, however, opposed to a culture of compulsory sacrifice and endless self-denial.
And we start extricating young women from that hateful culture by teaching them to say what was probably their first word. The feminist journey often begins with a soft, firm “no.”
What happens if a woman looks at you and says, “Interesting. I’ll start right now. You want me to keep track of when I say yes and no? No, I won’t do that.”
;)
It’s probably easier to do this with other women rather than one’s own daughter, but that’s where I am now. I don’t think that I’ve raised my daughter to be any more a “people-pleaser” than her brothers (I tend to emphasize the feminist side), but she’ll notice things that need to be done when the guys are totally oblivious (or even when my husband’s totally oblivious). I have to stop her from doing more and helping out too much or from being *too* patient with her brothers.
I want to encourage her in saying “no,” though, because I’m still struggling with it in my 40’s - and I was far less helpful as a teenager than she is.
It’s hardest, of course, when whatever she’s about to do really would help me out. Sometimes, I just have to catch her in that moment of brief hesitation and say that she should just not do whatever if she doesn’t want to. It means I have to be doubly conscious of what’s going on underneath.
Do you encourage your youth groupers to tell you “no?” (I suppose the students don’t really have a choice.)
Yes, I do encourage a “no” directed towards me! But the kind of things I want them to focus on saying “no” to are things that invlove caretaking other people, not working on themselves. Most of them can spot that difference!
Hugo, this is a very interesting post. Learning to say no is extremely important, not only in one’s personal life, but in the workplace as well, and I have found my need to say yes in my personal life has bled into the workplace and hurt me professionally.
Too often, I’ve found myself taking on tasks at work because I felt pressured to say yes when I really should have said no. I think a lot of this has to do with the guilt and pressure I felt as a woman. Saying no in one’s personal life is not allowed; when you do say no, usually your parents or someone else in charge will say or do things to make you feel guilty, telling you you are selfish, self-centered, etc. You learn to say yes, if only to avoid the endless guilt trip from parents or other people who are overworked and who are depending on you. *Nice* girls are helpful and always put others first and herself last. For example, my mother expected me to drive hundreds of miles out of my way host guests from out of the country. When I said no, it’s too far out of my way, she pulled the guilt trip on me, telling me how I *should* do it, that it’s such a little thing to ask, how selfish I am, etc. But I’m getting better at saying no, and when I absolutely refused and hung up the phone (I admit I foolishly raised my voice when she just wouldn’t listen and kept saying all sorts of crap to pressure me by telling me how terrible I was), I realize, hey, why didn’t she ask my brothers to host the guests, when they’re just five miles away? Unfortunately, I have found it is women who oppress me the most in this way. In this case, it was my own mother trying to hoist extra familial duties on me and giving me the guilt trip when I don’t, all because I’m the only girl in the family. (”Oh, I can’t ask your brothers. They’re too busy.”)
You can say no, no, no. But they’ll keep saying, “What? I ask you to help with this one little thing, and you can’t do it?” or “I work so hard every day to support this family, and this is the thanks I get?” or “Stop being so selfish. It’ll only take a minute.” You can continue to say, no, but it’ll keep going on and on, and the only way (it seems) to stop it is to capitulate and say, all right already! I’ll do it! But if you say yes, but later find you are overworked and can’t get it done and try to tell the person you can’t do it after all, they’ll tell you, “But you said yes! You said you could do it! Clearly, you’re not very trustworthy.” And you only have yourself to blame for saying yes in the first place.
But as I’ve said, this bleeds into the workplace. I have always tried my best in everything I do, and this, in the past, has meant taking on any challenge I’ve been asked to do, and doing it super well. I don’t want to agree to do something (even if I agreed under a sense a pressure) and perform. In the past, this has led to many late nights and a growing sense of resentment, as inevitably my superiors somehow come to believe that everything I do comes so easily to me, that I don’t put any extra effort into it (since I make it look so easily and say yes to everything). I never pushed back, and always did well. As a result, my superiors and coworkers actually began to devalue my work (since I made it look so easy and never complained when the requests began to pile up).
But what I finally realized is that in fact, this kind of attitude — agreeing to take on every request and do everything well — is not appreciated nor appropriate at work. In order to survive and do well at work, a person has to prioritize and learn to recognize when to accept a challenge and when to decline one. A person also has to make a big stink every now and then, protest when a demand is too much and say no way, I’m not taking that on; I’ve got such and such on my to-do list and that’s a lower priority. (Then would be a good time to tell a supervisor if they want X done, you’re going to have to remove Y from the to-do list.)
Women who say yes to everything and take on every task and do them well are only setting themselves up for trouble in their personal and professional life. And really, as adults, we have ourselves to blame if we cannot find the strength to say no.
Hugo, I apologize for the lengthy rambling. I’m usually so slow at posting, and I wanted to get my thoughts out there before they passed me by.
Great post Hugo. I think it is paramount to a woman’s self-esteem to have the power to say no. Unfortunately, it doesn’t just stop there, she needs to authoritatively be able to say it. I’m not saying confrontational, but with conviction.
Interesting post. I’ve never stopped to think how often I say yes when I’d rather say no. In fact, I don’t know that I allow myself often to think that I would like to say no. So even getting to the point where you validate your own desire to say no sounds like a challenge.
In fact, I don’t know that I allow myself often to think that I would like to say no. So even getting to the point where you validate your own desire to say no sounds like a challenge.
Yup. That’s why this is long-term work, and a project like the one I endorse only starts the wheels turning.
I know a middle aged woman who rose to a fairly powerful position in her field before switching gears in her career. She was hired out of college, along with a number of other young men and women, in nebulous support-for-senior-staff-but-also-professional-and-possibly-upwardly-mobile positions. While the group she started out with was about 50/50 men and women, she was the only woman who rose to any prominence within the organization. I once asked her to what she attributed her relative success, and she said with certaintly and without hesitation it was her ability to say “no” to senior staff who asked her to do rote typing jobs, which is what most women were doing (while she and many of the men were doing more interesting and attention-getting conceptual work). She says she can’t imagine she would have had the confidence to say no if it weren’t for the convenient fact that she didn’t know how to type. But it was from this forced to say no position that she was able to observe this dynamic fully and draw the appropriate lessons.
Interesting. In my family, it’s an unsaid principle that the worst thing to do is inconvenience other people with your needs (and it applies to both men and women, almost to the point of “oh, don’t mind me, I’ll just bleed to death in this corner here”) so it’s rather novel, for me, to be asked to help with anything family-wise.
On the job, I’m supposed to be giving customers what they want and making things look good even if they arrive as a disaster. The only lines I’ve had to draw was with regards to “Can you come in on Saturday” (to which I can honestly say no, I’m booked already, most of the time).
Another thought experiment, along similar lines, would be to examine how often a person says “I’m sorry.” How often is that said, not because anything that had been done requires an apology, but because the person saying “I’m sorry” thought s/he was not doing what was expected?
I wonder how this expectation we will say “yes” plays out when women are on the receiving end of relationship/sexual advances by men. I’m a modern woman and ask men out when I want to, but as long as we’re discussing gender roles…
My approach to rejecting men—unless I perceive them as overtly invasive, in which case I’ve been known to yell at them and shove them out of my way—generally involves some kind of platitudes about how I’m flattered and don’t feel bad but I’m just not interested. Yup, still a people-pleaser. I don’t want anyone to feel badly about themselves on my account. (I do enough self-criticism for both of us.) I’ll tell myself I know how hard it can be to get up the nerve to ask out that attractive person, and why wouldn’t I want him to know I appreciate the guts it took?
But I still rejected him. I still said “no,” ultimately. In my experiences of asking men out—which certainly is less frequent than the times I get asked out—I rarely get the “that’s really sweet of you”s that I hear myself layering on to soften the rejection that’s coming.
Do other women do this? If a woman responds with “No. Go away,” do people label her as a heartless bitch? Does society expect us to be as nice as possible for those “poor, unfortunate men” who did not manage to win our affections? Is this a way of leeching the limited power we have historically had?
But Skylark, in your case telling him you’re flattered but [taken, menstruating, just not ready, etc.] and therefore can’t do it isn’t necessarily people-pleasing. It might be considered a good strategy: if you reject him out of hand, he might get angry and violent, whereas if you give some reason for it, it will mollify his anger. Should you let angry and/or violent men dictate your responses? No, but it’s certainly less risky.
felagund, anger and violence aren’t usually in the factors I weigh when figuring out how to turn down a man’s request for a date (or a dance, or a kiss, or a one-night-stand). I’m talking about the “normal men,” the ones who I don’t find interesting but also aren’t likely to beat me up for telling him to get lost. I could be naïve. Maybe more men than I think are on the verge of wringing my neck. My point is I’m thinking about his feelings when figuring out how to tell him, “No thanks.”
Up until today it never dawned on me to see that as a possible bad thing. But then, I’ve never calculated my “no” responses vs. my “yes” responses like Hugo’s suggesting.
Skylark, I’ve done that before. I usually try to say something nice. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because a flat-out, simple “no” sounds so rude. Of course that doesn’t mean men haven’t flat-out said “no” to me; they have. Just “no.” Yup. The important thing is to say no, however, since saying yes would only be leading on the guy. But I do wish both men and women would couch their date rejection messages in a nice way.
Two Stories about ‘No’
1) There was a moment when I really needed a lift, and asked a friend. She was not able to, and said ‘no.’ I was actually fine with that, had even said in advance I was prepared to hear and respect that for an answer - but then she turned to me and said I was terrible for even asking. I had put her in that terrible position of having to say NO. I’m not sure I could buy that, but it gave me a lot of food for thought about not only the pressures we were raised with to say ‘yes’ when we’d rather not, but also the complimentary, the pressure to not present ‘awkward’ demands. I wished my friend had felt more faith in her own ‘no’; I’m sure I was never entitled to a favor (that’s what favors are, anyway), but to not ask when there was need?
2) Some years later, in one of these personal development workshops, the participants were doing a yes-no exercise, feeling out the different energies of each. And at the end, the organizer pointed out that “‘no’ is a gift.” And it is - we know where we stand with one another when ‘no’ is allowed. I know the other party respects me enough to not lie to me. Then I also know that ‘yes’ is REALLY yes, and that I don’t have to hold back when there is something I need.
Still, the guilt of getting to ‘no’ in one’s own heart and head… ack!
This is certainly more common in women than in men, but it does happen to some men, too: learning to say ‘no’, in both a work and a personal context, took me a long time, and was quite a struggle.
Because, after all, I wouldn’t want to make someone unhappy by saying ‘no’ to them … and I can just deal with whatever the price of saying ‘yes’ is. Until I break.
Yep, basic boundaries=huge.
>This is certainly more common in women than in men, but it does happen to some men, too: learning to say ‘no’, in both a work and a personal context, took me a long time, and was quite a struggle.>
I was wondering about that. Hugo, would you say this has been an issue for you personally, also?
>but then she turned to me and said I was terrible for even asking. I had put her in that terrible position of having to say NO.>
No, that is putting too much responsibility back on you again. She is entitled to her “no;” she does need to take the responsibility for the feelings saying it brings up in her. Asking you to be a mind reader is too much.
Actually, saying “I WANT” is even bigger, I would say; after all, even “no” presumes someone else doing the asking in the first place. Setting the agenda ONESELF, though…well, hoo, boy. Nice Girls Don’t. (including, but not limited to of course, sexually)
Thank you.
I’ve recently been struggling with a decision about whether or not to quit my job. It’s a job in my field (and my specific area of interest) in a location where that is a very rare thing. The work is wonderful, and I enjoy my co-workers. It would be perfect if my boss was not such a negative person. I have heard from others that he is thrilled I am working there, but whenever we interact, he focuses on the one thing I do wrong out of a hundred. It makes me feel stupid and angry, and it’s affecting my life outside of work. I can count the number of times he has said anything nice to me on one hand, and I’ve been working here for months. And yet I still feel like I have some obligation to this man and this company.
No I fucking don’t.
Thank you!
Great post, Hugo. I agree completely with much of what you’ve said–especially the idea that feminism makes women selfish, and, by extension, a person saying “no” to things that are not entirely necessary is somehow construed as someone being “selfish.”
Hilariously enough, it took a huge life change (I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia a few months ago, after mysteriously feeling like crap for many months) for me to be able to start saying “no” to things that were and are not completely necessary. Example: “Can you help me find my keys? I lost them AGAIN!” Me: “No. I literally cannot get out of bed right now.” Or, in a more scholastic setting, “Hey, Anna, everyone else in the study group and I *forgot* to type up the ten pages of notes and stuff. Since the test is in in two days, can you type them up and email them to all of us?” Me: “No; I can’t type and haven’t been able to do so for a week.” [Note: I used to be the super-woman who would absolutely type up the notes, come hell or high water, for the benefit of my lazy study group. My own thought was usually, “If I don’t do it, no one else will!”, which usually turned out to be correct.
In short: When you’re struck down by a long-term illness and by the physical pain that comes with it, you end up having to re-evaluate your priorities, even if said priorities usually involve trying to make other peoples’ lives easier.
belledame: I totally agree with you about the difficulty of “I want.” And it’s inextricably linked to “no” and “yes,” of course, but it’s even more challenging, for me. This has been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve gotten pretty good at “no” and “I won’t” and “I don’t want,” but “I want” is still terra incognita in some ways.
Hugo, this is an excellent post.
One thing I found that worked as a transition between saying yes to everything and saying no when I wanted to — in particular if it was a woman (esp. my mother) doing the asking [interestingly, there are some things to which men will take no for an answer more readily than other women will] was to respond by saying something like, “yes, I’ll take my sister to her skating lesson after school, pick up some groceries, do a load of laundry, and have dinner on the table when youall get home, but that means I can’t go to my newspaper editorial meeting and I will be kicked off the editorial staff if I miss any more meetings, plus I will need the rest of the night to do my homework, so I won’t be able to do anything else tonight. Is that what you’re asking me to do?” More often than not, the answer was a very angry “yes, that’s what I’m asking you to do” — along with a response similar to what Melanie describes — sort of a “how could you put me in this position of having to ask you to give up something that you love in order to meet my needs?” [I’m paraphrasing that last bit, but that was the underlying message — I’d never ask you to do this, but you should willingly offer it in order to meet my needs].
But for me, articulating the consequences of saying yes — not only to myself, but also to the people around me who were asking for my time and energy — made it much easier to learn to say no.
Up until today it never dawned on me to see that as a possible bad thing. But then, I’ve never calculated my “no” responses vs. my “yes” responses like Hugo’s suggesting.
Why would you possibly think that giving a civil response to a civil question would be a bad thing? Or more so, that responding in an abrupt and impolite way to a civil question would ever be appropriate?
Great post, and great pedagogical exercise, Hugo.
“‘Up until today it never dawned on me to see that as a possible bad thing. But then, I’ve never calculated my “no” responses vs. my “yes” responses like Hugo’s suggesting.’
Why would you possibly think that giving a civil response to a civil question would be a bad thing? Or more so, that responding in an abrupt and impolite way to a civil question would ever be appropriate?”
This isn’t just about civil responses, though. A civil response can be, “Thanks but no thanks.” I’ve been going out of my way to make sure their feelings aren’t hurt, when that is certainly not the same consideration men seem to be expected to give back to women. Something to add to my previous comment is I tend to go over the situations in my head after they’ve happened to see if there was anything I could have done to be nicer or kinder or soften the rejection in any way. I don’t lose sleep over it. Yet some would say that’s almost obsessive. Being overly concerned with others’ wellbeing can be to the detriment of my own, which I think is Hugo’s point.
I still need to think on it. Certainly the point of feminism isn’t to give women license to behave as badly toward men as men historically have toward women. It’s about equality and fairness. So, I’ll get back to ya later.
Hugo so well said. Wow. It is taking years and years and years to unwind the tangled web I live in of
“sure, I’d be happy to”
“Oh, it’s okay”
“Ummm I think I can fit it in”
and my favorite…
“Yeah, I can do that.”
You really have such a great point at that processing that has to go on post “no”. The “I’m okay, they’re okay, we’re all okay” convo is so hard to have with myself. :)
You’re always so good at provoking some great thoughts…
Folks, just checking in here — thanks for all the nice words in response to this post, and please remember to avoid both thread drift and anti-feminist bromides. I may not be posting, and my internet access is intermittent, but I can still moderate from where I am…
Interesting ideas. I have noticed that generally people (among my mixed group of friends) who say yes are happier than people who say no.
it’s as if i heard this lecture yesterday in class. and still, the challenge of saying “no” is all too frequent! just an hour ago i said yes to babysitting even though i had prior committments.
Feminism is…opposed to a culture of…endless self-denial.
Hugo, I’m having trouble figuring out (if this is the case) how feminism fits either with your own life, or with Christianity.
You seem to think self-denial is valuable and desirable when it makes you a better person (running, boxing, avoiding sex with young women) and when it makes the world better for your fellow creatures (chinchilla rescue, veganism).
All ethical systems I know of except Objectivism acknowledge the second category; self-denial is morally required in some cases because it makes the world better for your fellow creatures. All the contemplative moral systems also insist on the first–that self-denial in certain respects makes you a better person. Christianity is probably strongest on both points; Christ, our perfect example, denied himself of all the power and glory that was rightfully his, denied himself of deliverance that was easily available, and did all this to benefit us.
So I’m having trouble figuring out why self-denial is a bad thing for young women, when it’s required for all the rest of us.
Sam, as a Christian feminist, I think there’s a difference between saying “no” to God and saying “no” to people. There is also a difference between being a chronic people-pleaser in order to avoid a possible argument and in serving humanity. I’ll try to explain.
My father can be a terribly irrational man. One night when I was a senior in high school, I came home from a very long, very stressful day at school. I spent hours working on the school newspaper after my last class of the day. And although I do not remember why, I remember feeling upset about something. On my way home from school, I drove through a fast food place for dinner. I was looking forward to finally sit down to eat and have some peace and quiet. When I came home, however, and began eating, my dad ordered me to pick up my brother from Confirmation class at church so he could watch his oh-so-precious Lakers game. Nevermind that he had been home hours before that and was not nearly as tired or hungry as I was.
So, I said, “No. I’m not going to pick him up.” He said to just “eat in the car” to which I said, “I drive a stick shift- I can’t eat in the car.” So he stomped out, yelled at me and said, “THANKS FOR NOTHING!” When he came back, I tried to make some conversation with him, but he pouted.
So… if I wanted to avoid his immature temper, I could have said, “Yes.” But he was being completely selfish in wanting me to pick up my brother so he could watch his basketball game.
But I don’t regret saying “no.” If I said yes, it would not be to serve the Lord through my actions toward others. It would simply be about making HIM happy and avoiding conflict. Would you argue that self-denial would have been right in my case?
Now, Jesus instructs us to deny ourselves in order to follow him. I deny myself when I don’t cuss at drivers who cut me off. I deny myself when I donate money to charity. I deny myself when I calm myself down when someone says something rude to me (the one I get sometimes is, “you have so much acne!”) - the ole Golden Rule. I deny myself when I pray for fifteen minutes instead of watching TV.
There are countless ways to say “yes” to God, while putting healthy limits on people who try to take advantage of you. It seems that girls, more often than guys, are taught to be people-pleasers, which I think is one of Hugo’s points.
Excellent post, Hugo. I’m usually pretty good about saying no, but the hard part for me is teaching my children the difference between saying no to reasonable requests and saying no to unreasonable requests. I think saying no is generally very different for children than for adults (because of the power dynamic), and it’s part of this culture’s infantilizing of women that fully mature women are *expected* and *conditioned* to respond to requests the same way children do, rather than as rational adults.
Mermade,
I agree with you that there is a very important distinction between “being a chronic people-pleaser in order to avoid a possible argument and serving humanity.” Some recognition of that distinction and how it works out in life is what I was asking for–it doesn’t seem to me that “opposing endless self-denial” is a good formulation when what you’re trying to do is “serve others for their good, to edification” rather than making it comfortable for them to continue behaving badly.
Mermade:
Your example does not make you look wise or strong but rather spoiled . . . if you live under a roof he provides, you may want to consdier that your understanding of “fair” has nothing to do w/ honoring and respecting him.
Anonymous
Thanks, Sam. You made great points, which is why I responded to your first comment. :-)
Anon, you’re right. If you think I am spoiled simply because I have a roof over my head and food to eat, then that’s fine. I agree. After all, I have access to a good education, internet, a car, healthy food and things like that.
But just because my father gives me a roof over my head doesn’t mean that I have to say YES to his every command. He acted like a total jerk to me in that situation (and has done things more irrational than that, such as screaming at me and kicking my bedroom door for reading a book he did not approve of). I don’t think providing for your kids means you can order them around and harass them for not believing and doing what you want them to.
So yeah, he provides for his family. But that doesn’t mean he can walk all over people he provides for. Just like, if a guy treated me to a fancy dinner, I don’t have to give him sex in return. Money doesn’t justify commands. And if I chose to be a stay-at-home mother while my husband provides money for the family, it doesn’t mean I have to give into his every demand either.
Oh, and by the way, Anon, the Ten Commandments say to HONOR your father and mother. It does not say OBEY them. There is a difference, you know.
I don’t think providing for your kids means you can order them around and harass them for not believing and doing what you want them to.
No, it means setting a good example of service to others and good behavior.
Mermade - do you need help getting out of this situation?