Why Women Can Only Be “Likeable Enough”

When I was in fifth grade, I was the new kid in school and earned the nickname “Terminator” by week two. I was intense. In academics and athletics. I wore blush-colored penny loafers while pummeling a kickball 100 feet across our concrete playground. I won our all-school Spelling Bee on the word “bracelet,” much to defending champion Germaine Murray’s chagrin. 

I also “dated” Ray Masterson for 3 1/2 weeks. It was very serious. We saw each other at school and spoke on our kitchen landlines for a few minutes every other night. I made him a mixed tape; the kind that included snippets of the radio DJ’s intro before each song. We hugged exactly 2 ½ times near our metal lockers.

And then, we broke up. 

I don’t remember who initiated the split. Or why our epic love story came to an end. But, what I do remember vividly and viscerally is his posse of friends announcing on the blacktop that he “threw me out like yesterday’s garbage” through laughter and outstretched arms...fingers pointing at my unarmored body. This scene played out in front of hundreds of kids as they waited to enter the building following recess.

I was twelve. 

This narrative has been repeated over the course of my life - in one way or another - for the past 25 years. Through my relationships, career moves, risks I chose to take, decisions I had to make.

I was labeled. I was judged. I was placed in one category or another; a very black and white view of a life made up of 250 shades of grey. 

Leaving a man. Leaving a job. The “posse” comes for you. To tell you all of the reasons you are wrong. The reasons you were never wanted in the first place. The reasons why the dreams you are daring to chase weren’t even yours to dream.

As a woman, I feel like a permanent resident of the space in between a rock and hard place. And it’s pretty damn uncomfortable. The double bind we face means that so often, we can’t win. The double bind faced by black women leaders is even worse.

“Be a lady,” they said. But only in the way “they” want you to be. It's a constantly moving target. And one that sits squarely on your back.

“Journalist Alicia Menendez has noticed a problem: in the workplace, and in many aspects of their lives, women are forced into becoming inauthentic versions of themselves in order to be likeable.”

And being likeable is so subjective. What makes you likeable to one person may make you intolerable to another. And who ever said that a woman had to be just one thing or behave in just one way? That being complex was “difficult” or direct was “bitchy” or strong-willed was “opportunistic” or ambitious was “selfish.” Who decided that when you spoke your mind or defended your basic human rights, when you were angry for reasons that were completely warranted, that you needed to “calm down?”

Personally, I don’t want to be condemned for being multi-faceted. And I don’t want an outdated version of what makes a woman “likeable” to determine the limit for my success or happiness. 

In Joan C. William’s New York Time’s piece “How Women Can Escape the Likability Trap,” she states: “Women who behave in authoritative ways risk being disliked as insufferable prima donnas, pedantic schoolmarms or witchy women. Even as women have moved into traditionally male domains, feminine mandates remain. More than 40 years of research by social scientists have shown that Americans define the good woman as helpful, modest and nice. In other words, as focused on her family and community, rather than working in her own self-interest. Meanwhile, the ideal man is defined as direct, assertive, competitive and ambitious.”

“A woman steps into her full power, not when she is finally given permission to do so, but because she realizes that she never needed the permission in the first place.” - Lisa Carmen Wang, Founder, The GLOW.

I’ve stopped saying sorry. Not for things that deserve reflection or redemption. After all, making mistakes and learning from them is the only way to evolve and grow. 

But, I’ve stopped saying sorry for the things I’ve been conditioned to become smaller and quieter for...for existing. For living. For having thoughts and feelings and differences of opinions. For being angry. Or loud. Or driven. Or direct. Or a mother. 

For being a woman. 

So, maybe the kids in fifth grade were right. I am the Terminator. Destroying the unfair labels placed on me by a patriarchal system. And I do my best every day to terminate the injustices for the people I love and care about in my life; for those who don’t have the privilege to raise - or even use - their voices; for leaders at companies who are interested in examining their role in perpetuating a system that is built by and for men, breaking it down and building it back up for all. 

Ladies, I encourage - I implore - you to be your full selves. In every beautiful, messy, multifaceted way; in each and every role you play in your life. And men, embrace us when we show up.

Until we've re-written the script, changed the definition of what it means to be a woman in society and achieved gender equity, women can only be "likeable enough." Because remember, the world hasn’t been ready for us to come into our power and use our full voices. But we’re here.