An "Outspoken" Woman
Because you can't tell anyone you're angry
Black women know this and they avoid it like the plague - this “I’m an angry black woman” stamp. And all women know it no matter what their color, size, shape or age. Don’t. Be. Angry. Because people will tell you - mostly men, and other women who haven’t figured out that it doesn’t do them a damn bit of good - that you will be seen as “too emotional”, “irrational”, and you will be dismissed, disliked, and punished.
About these last three, yeah, you will probably will. And I want to ask: Why do we care? (I mean, I know why, but why? Let’s aspire to better than our status quo!)
What kind of damage does it really do us if some ignoramus doesn’t like the fact that we are angry? Now, listen: I am not espousing the idea of playing Ignoramus Wars. Being known as The Angry One does no one - least of all yourself - any good at all. I am talking about well-spoken, well-considered, standing-in-the-core-truth-of-your-own-Capital-T-Truth anger. It’s also known as “righteous anger”.
And it’s a beautiful thing. When you express your anger with ownership and craftsmanship, it is a gorgeous thing!
Once upon a time in my 40’s, I went to a Berkeley, California printing shop to pick up some business cards I had ordered. They were incorrectly printed; one of the lines was not trued up and I refused to pay for the cards. The young man behind the counter started yelling at me - “YOU OWE ME FOR THIS JOB!” - and a strange kind of calm descended on me. Customarily I would have started working out in my head how I could forgive the problem and just settle for it and pay and get out of there before being yelled at some more.
But not this time.
This time I just looked at him and said, with all of this lovely and unusual calm, “No. You should have called me to proof them before you printed them.”
This calm, core-of-myself Truth-with-a-capital-T stopped him literally in the middle of his raving, and he stared at me. A moment of palpable silence ensued, and I said, “Sorry” - which I wasn’t, really - and I left the shop.
Instant superheroine status.
Here’s the absolutely gorgeous, breath-taking kicker: I didn’t have to keep the anger in me! I said what I said, I meant what I said, it was the “ground floor” of the argument - that delicious place that where no further argument can be made, because it’s just. too. damn. TRUE! And then it was done. There were no regretful “I wish I had said”’s. I didn’t lie awake at night thinking about what I could have said and I could have done and how no one was going to treat me that way ever again! No, I said what I needed to say, I said it beautifully, and I was done.
Maybe one of the reasons we’re so damn angry is because we don’t let ourselves speak our Truths-with-a-capital-T.
I mean, if someone you don’t even know doesn’t like you because you showed that you are a human being with the full range of human emotions - including anger - are you going to lose sleep over it?
If so, use that sleepless time to figure out your Truth-with-a-capital-T. Because your power and voice live there.
Lori works with emerging and aspiring women leaders reaching for self-confident authenticity and success by bringing in the balancing nature of Feminine values, visibility and voice! Video Presence • Self-Expression • No Apologies | www.GoodbyeGoodGirl.com • WomanpreneurDigitalAgency.Link