?? White Women: Being Liked < Protecting Black Lives

Women have always had the burden of “likability.” Advice for improving our likability ranges from saying “good morning” to “smile more,” to “don’t be overly critical.” If likability for men means someone you want to hang out with, for women it seems to be code for be a helper, shrink yourself, be likable.

However, this excessive concern is not only crippling for women who seek to be leaders, but it also can be crippling to personal relationships. It leads to inauthenticity—saying what people want to hear rather than what is true and being true to ourselves. By violating beliefs around our societal norms about femininity, assertive women elicit pushback from others for being insufficiently feminine. As women who are described as ‘bitchy’ ‘shrill’ and my personal favorite I’ve been called many times, ‘aggressive’ can attest, we are deeply uncomfortable with honest women when it means others are made uncomfortable. 

So how do we navigate these difficult and necessary conversations around racism? As white women, there is so much responsibility on us to have them. Here are a few actions you can take to navigate:

1. Focus on influencing the conversation, not controlling the outcome - you can’t control if people like you or not, but you can plant seeds that will hopefully influence their thinking and behavior.
2. Create a connection - practice active listening. Listen to people’s stories and share your own. Defenses come down when you can share some of your own missteps in your daily anti-racism journey.
3. Speak with purpose - speak directly and avoid your own defensiveness and blame.
4. Remember this isn't the "you show" - the biases that people have about women are not personal, so try not to internalize if people don’t like you. Also, these conversations are bigger than you, so try and remove your ego and practice humility in the action of doing your part to uproot racism wherever you encounter it.
5. Lastly, don't shrink yourself - being humble doesn’t mean making yourself small. Leverage your strengths, don’t minimize them out of fear that others will be intimidated. Be big. Be you. Say what needs to be said.

Be brave, work to create change, not likes. Follow the simple yet perfectly stated mantra I abide by, “Run with me or run from me.” ?????♀? ~ Rick Ross