The one question no man, ever, even thinks to ask

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There’s a question women keep asking each other.

It’s the single most commonly asked question in women’s communities.1

The most intriguing part (to me) is that it’s a question that has no satisfying answer.

Picture this:

You’re browsing a women’s community. A forum. One where women talk about issues they’re dealing with. Mostly familiar issues. Mostly nothing spectacular.

You start reading a post by… let’s call her Nathalie.

Nathalie works a stressful full time job. She lives two hours away from her aging parents who expect her to visit weekly and help them around their house. She has a partner who enjoys playing football and sulks whenever she misses a match.

Her post opens: “I don’t know if I’m being really selfish or unreasonable.”

Then, three sentences in: “Don’t get me wrong, I know I chose this life.”

The want, when it finally comes not even stated as a want: “I never get even half a day to do what I want to do.”

Half a day…

Nathalie’s story is fiction. The quotes aren’t…

We have all written posts like this. I have. You have. Maybe not on a public forum. But in your head at 2 am. To a close friend. In a text you deleted.

And they always have the same structure.

• The question. “Am I being selfish / unreasonable ?”

• The description of what they’re facing.

• The pre-emptive strike. About paying the toll. “Don’t get me wrong”, “I love them dearly, but…”, “I know I chose this (so I should endure it, whatever “it” is)”.

• The want. Hardly ever stated outright. Almost always as a lack in comparison to someone else.

• The take-it-back. “not real, concrete ones as I’d never leave X”.

Invariably, the question comes first, the want and the take-it-back last.2

It’s a striking pattern in women (of all ages). That we ask at all and the way we ask.

Yet…

• No man would ever ask whether they’re being selfish or unreasonable. About anything they want.

• No man would ever feel the need to poll others about a want and their motivation for it.

• No man (that I’ve ever come across, heard, or read about) would ever assume that any choice they make requires sticking with it regardless of the toll it exacts.

Why then do women?

Don’t get me wrong (ha!), women do it and men don’t, but it’s neither’s fault.

For exactly the same reason: patriarchal conditioning through the messages we’ve been fed from the day we were born.

These messages are fully ingrained into our belief systems before we were nine. Before we had the capacity to question them, let alone reject them.

Hearing these tapes3 so often without the ability to question them, you’ve internalized them. You’ve heard them from every equally conditioned person around you: parents, teachers, peers. Literally everyone, both female and male.

It’s little wonder that you’ve embedded them into your subconscious so deeply, you mistake them for you own beliefs.

Tapes and observed behaviors that ultimately lead to these types of posts:

• “Good girls are polite and considerate of other’s feelings”.

• ”Good girls don’t get angry”.

• “Good girls don’t make a fuss”.

• Assertive behavior in girls labeled negatively as bossy. “Don’t be bossy”.

• “Don’t be selfish.” The number of things not to be are endless.

• “When you behave well and obey without complaining, everyone is happy with you. That’s what we expect from you”.

• “Step back to let others shine”.

• Vague feedback throughout life from teachers and bosses leave girls and women guessing about what exactly is considered appropriate.4 “Watch your tone”, “Really talented, but I wish she’d be less abrasive”, “Comes on too strong”.

• Personality based criticism for women (not men) and gender-specific language patterns that reinforce men are capable and women are too much (among others), imparting the sense there’s something wrong with them rather than their performance.

• Girls and women get imbued with the belief that their worth depends on external validation. That is a kicker. My father gave me a good dose of that with his recurring refrain: “Who else says that?”

The list goes on. Endlessly. Incessantly.

All of them questioning your abilities, and training you not to show up for yourself, not to have wants, not to have, let alone, show that you have an opinion. And only because all of that will inevitably and inexorably lead to negative consequences nobody ever specifies.

All of them are so ubiquitous and insidious, and constantly reflected by society at large, that when you grow the capacity to question them, you don’t.

Not until you face a major upheaval that inspires you to question everything you’ve always taken for granted.5

The patriarchy inspired conditioning women suffer is what leads to the ubiquity of “Am I being selfish/unreasonable” question posts by women.

The core message patriarchy instills is that a woman can’t trust her own judgment, isn’t allowed to have wants for herself, can’t speak or advocate for herself, has to comply with what patriarchal thinking says she can and cannot be and do.

It’s all bollocks and women know it.

You know why I am 100% certain of that?

Because women show it all the time.

Women are brilliant at:

• doling out judgements

• identifying wants

• coming up with approaches and solutions

• rebelling against the status quo

• … and everything else they want to pursue

You only have to read the responses to these “Am I being selfish/unreasonable?” posts to see it in full swing.

There’s no hesitation. No polling (as the poster is doing) other’s opinions. No compromises or any other diminishing of wants and needs. Validation and empowerment of the poster are instant, fierce, and unqualified.

Women:

• know exactly what’s wrong in patriarchy.

• know exactly what to tolerate and what not.

• know exactly the consequences of tolerating bad behavior towards them.

And, when asked, they know exactly how to deal with them.

Skills aren’t the issue.

Women have all the skills they need to behave as and achieve whatever they want.

Except one.

Applying them for their own benefit and teaching their daughters to do so as well.

You don’t have to believe me. Believe the research. The most telling finding:

While women tend to settle for lesser outcomes in negotiations than men, research shows that this isn’t a skills issue. Women are excellent negotiators and get results on par with men. As long as they’re doing it for or making it about someone or something else.

Imagine what would become possible if you stopped polling other women? If you let go of the need to seek external validation and approval? If you stopped asking for permission for everything, including wants?

Let me lift the veil in case the scales only just now fell from your eyes.

• You’d stop shrinking your wants with every edit and re-read before you hit publish, with the sole purpose of convincing yourself they’re reasonable, and not too much.

• You’d stop condemning yourself as selfish and unreasonable in advance to avoid receiving a label you’ve already given yourself.

• You’d start asking better questions. “Am I selfish?” elicits a verdict. “Who’d be harmed?” an answer. If the answer is “Nobody would be harmed, though various people could be annoyed”, you’re giving yourself something much more powerful than any external validation ever could.6

• You’d stop needing reassurance at every turn. Which is always temporary. Every time you get reassurance, that affirms your need for it, and you’d seek it again for something else next week.

• You’d get to be difficult, assertive, not always agreeable, having wants and needs, and serious about meeting them. Yes, there will be grumbles. Nothing to be alarmed about. It’s what people do when they adjust to a new reality.7

• You’d get comfortable with displeasing people. Even with being disliked. It’s okay. You’re allowed to. It’s only your patriarchal conditioning that trained you to believe you shouldn’t. When it’s actually impossible to please or be liked by everyone anyway. Please one, displease another. Guaranteed.

• You’d stop teaching it, stop perpetuating the patriarchal conditioning. Your daughter is watching. How you behave. How you ask (or not) for what you want. How you shrink not to upset others. How you prioritize serving others. She’s learning the patriarchal rules for women through assimilation. And she’s never not learning.

Women are able. Women are powerful. Women are resilient.

In a way, that’s exactly why patriarchy trains us to believe otherwise. Because women who know who and what they truly are and what they’re actually capable off (without assistance from a man!), pose a threat to the patriarchal status quo.

Start to stop living your conditioning.

Sure it won’t be an overnight change. No meaningful change ever is.8

And it won’t be a complete 180° turn overnight either.

It doesn’t need to be either.

Go slow. Tiny steps. Tiny steps compound!

Start with stopping that one question no man ever asks, never even thinks to ask, dead in its tracks.

How?

With an interrupt-and-swap technique that’s been proven in all manner of settings.

Next time you catch yourself drafting an “Am I being selfish” post (out loud, in your head, in a text never to be sent), stop and swap it for “who would actually be harmed, not merely annoyed or put out?”

Then answer that honestly. If nobody’s harmed and some people are merely inconvenienced, you have your answer and you didn’t need a jury.

Remember Nathalie?

She asked strangers for permission to have four hours to herself, and 140 women told her to take the whole weekend.

She could have told herself that.

So can you.

Live long and prosper.