Stop Being Likeable

Photo by shahin khalaji on Unsplash

People love to celebrate strong women, but very few can handle the reality of who a strong woman is.

In today’s society, we loathe to see a woman with an opinion you can’t change. A voice that doesn’t shake. The audacity to remain in the spotlight even when angry detractors demand she shrink.

I’ve always hated the term “feisty woman.” This embodies a certain sassy lady, who says what she wants and gets away with putting men in their place. This woman is rarely the one to disrupt the system. She is rarely the one to amass piles and piles of hate for standing up for what she believes in. She is the socially acceptable version of strong—the woman who takes up just enough space to be seen but never kicks the walls down.

For those who kick the walls down are reviled. Abused. Hated.

True strength is when a woman is no longer here for your approval. She allows you to misunderstand her. Misquote her. Bully her. Make her pay for the crime of not apologizing.

And she still won’t back down.

From the day we come into the world, they train us to be nice. Don’t speak up. Make sure your parents and teachers and bosses, and friends all like you. Being disliked is a character flaw, they said. It’s the strongest tool to control you. Make you believe the way to happiness is to avoid dislike. Loud women are bitches. Militant. Ugly.

I like to remind people that every woman you look up to from history was absolutely HATED in their time.

Eleanor Roosevelt? A buck-toothed ogre who couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Rosa Parks? Disruptive. A communist liar—and somehow also a tired seamstress. Amelia Earhart? A reckless loser who didn’t have the skills to fly a paper airplane. Marie Curie? An immoral foreigner stealing French jobs. A home-wrecker who broke up a family.

A strong woman is more than a catchy title to put on merch. It’s embodying the notion of disruption. Breaking rules and creating a system outside what everyone believes you should live in.

I highly recommend the show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The monologue in the show’s final episode still gives me goosebumps:

I want a big life. I want to experience everything. I want to break every single rule there is. They say ambition is an unattractive trait in a woman. Maybe. But you know what's really unattractive? Waiting around for something to happen. Staring out a window, thinking the life you should be living is out there somewhere, but not being willing to open the door and go get it. Even if someone tells you you can't. Being a coward is only cute in The Wizard of Oz.

I’ve been thinking about strength a lot lately. I haven’t mastered the art of being misunderstood. As my platform grows, so does the hate. The comments that want to pick apart every word, admonish me for highlighting a woman or situation they hate. Personal attacks on my looks, my age, my eyes, my hair…

I’ve learned that the more successful a woman becomes, the angrier the world around her gets. Breaking down a woman with a voice is America’s favorite pastime.

It’s one thing to love the idea of being strong. It’s another to sit in a moment in a tiny spotlight as insults are hurled at you. I will never forget a comment on one of my posts highlighting the abuse women get online. This woman said, “I would think studying women’s history would have prepared you for this kind of response.”

She was right. It should have. It’s why I study this. So the rest of you can read how Helen Keller was a founder of the ACLU. So the woman who wonders if she can start a new career can read about how Virginia Hall couldn’t become a diplomat as a disabled woman so she became one of the Gestapo’s most wanted Allied spies and trekked mountain passes in blizzards to escape Nazi capture. I write for the woman who has felt ignored and invisible in her own life, so she can learn about Simone Melchior, Jacques Cousteau’s wife who was monumental in the world of scuba, called the “real” captain of the Calypso, and who was practically erased under her husband’s fame. So the woman who wonders how she can overcome the hardest moment of her life can read about how Harriet Tubman risked her life to rescue slaves while suffering from severe headaches, seizures, and narcolepsy. For the single woman who wonders if something is wrong with her for not wanting marriage, I offer Martha Gellhorn, who chose her groundbreaking journalism career over marriage (two divorces of men who couldn’t handle her commitment to being a war correspondent), and was the only of Hemingway’s wives to leave him.

When you’re in the moment, or in the hot seat, that is precisely the time to summon these stories. When you are certain you can’t do this and the world has broken you and you just want to give up.

Strength isn’t a title to claim. It isn’t fun, and it isn’t pretty. It arrives in the darkest moments. In the ugly of a life about to shatter. In the overwhelm of online bullying that only worsens as you grow. In the quiet of your life, when everyone knows how to silence you.

I am an Enneagram 4 with childhood trauma, mental health struggles, and a neurogenic cough from years of silencing my voice. Every insult stings. But learning to continue talking about women’s history is a little battle won with every post. Every book. Every article. Strength for me is learning to hold the confidence others try to strip from me. And it is a daily battle. I created Badass Women in History for the shy girl who never heard women told in history lectures. For her terrified little voice that too often never made it into words. And I made it for you, so you can face your battle that others have no idea you’re fighting.

We have a legacy of strong women who let go of approval and tapped into a torrent of strength to be authentically her while the world threw stones at her confidence. Women like Frida Kahlo and Billie Holiday made art that literally changed how people viewed society, and they did it against vicious attacks.

When you succeed, people will want to watch you fall. The higher you climb, the louder the chants get. If we can still take that next step, they won’t win. We will win.

And we can truly stand in the joy that is emotional tenacity. In a world that fears women’s voices, can we be the ones they don’t silence? Can we turn away from the mean girl energy that permeates our lives and teaches women that breaking each other down is the quickest way to power in the patriarchal structure? Can we not bristle when a woman rattles the system?

If you get uncomfortable when a fat woman celebrates her body, I urge you to sit back and think where that thought came from. If you hate an outspoken woman for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on, that’s a warning to look deeper.

Inside, under all that insecurity, I hold a belief that they won’t break me. I bet you have that too, it’s just been buried under a lifetime of people pleasing.

Be the change. Fuck their opinions of you. Truly, the only way to freedom is to let them judge you while you keep slaying.

Thank you for reading. I don’t monetize my substack. Please consider buying my book, The Secret Courtesan, about a female sculptor erased from history.