The Ladybrag: Why Women Being Vocal About Accomplishment is Essential to Progress
I recently read an article in The Atlantic about Olympic athletes and the newly coined, and amazingly important term: ladybragging.
What is ladybragging? Well, thanks to the creation of the internet, there is a whole website dedicated to the term where it is defined as "an unashamed boast of female accomplishment". The website is essentially just a compilation of social media posts in which women say things like "I wore no make-up today and got told I had beautiful skin!" or "I just applied for a general position at Hey Vina App. Feeling Confident!", and it allows you to login through your Facebook page and "share" other lady's ladybrags.
If you know me at all, you know that stumbling upon this website is equivalent to me finding the holy grail of feminism. The site even includes a "guide to ladybragging" which outlines important things like not comparing your lady brags to others and the importance of females sharing their accomplishments, something that they are statistically less likely to do than men.
That last sentence highlights why this is important, but as a woman it is so uncomfortably real. I am lucky to work in an office environment where I feel my work is valued and that my company legitimately seeks to hire people based on qualifications and not gender, but I have friends that work in fields where their input is valued less than their male counterparts. I have friends whose mother's have been passed up for promotions and raises despite outperforming their male coworkers, not to mention the pay gap between men and women on the national level. All of these reasons and more, are why we need ladybragging.
The article in The Atlantic that talked about ladybragging was important too, because it not only showed women, but women who are athletes, sharing their pride in their accomplishments. The Olympics are thus a perfect example of the importance of ladybragging, as evidenced by the multiple headlines that either minimize female accomplishment or relegate it to a status below men (i.e. Phelps winning silver trumping Ledecky breaking a world record in headlines). Especially in athletics, an arena where women are grossly undervalued or at least not immediately perceived as worth paying attention to, the ladybrag is crucial.
Why isn't it just bragging? Or why should we encourage people to be boastful? Because women are taught to be modest, to apologize, and there is a stigma surrounding them sharing their accomplishments which can only be broken by normalizing appreciating our own success.
As I've gotten older, attended university, and entered the professional world, I've become increasingly reflective about my own personality traits and tendencies when introducing myself or talking about my own accomplishments. I'm infinitely more confident post graduating college, but I still find that I have to remind myself that I don't need to constantly apologize (a topic for another #feminism discussion), but I especially don't need to apologize for being smart, ambitious, or driven.
As an example, a few weeks ago I was on a date when I mentioned I went to the University of Rochester. The guy didn't know the school, so I equated it to a Case Western or Carnegie Mellon. "Wow, that's a really good school then", he said, and I was at a loss for words. I probably said an inarticulate deflection like "umm I guess, sure I don't know", because that is my reflex when people compliment my intelligence: deflection. The incident is reflective of my unwillingness to ladybrag. If I polled every male I know I have minimal doubt that the average consensus would have been to exhibit some form of mild to severe braggadocio and assent that the school was very good. The guy would want to impress the girl with his intelligence. Women though, are not encouraged in the same ways that men are to value intelligence or confidence as desirable character traits. They are told that they should do well in school, but there is an underlying societal force which tells us that trying to impress someone with our brain isn't as important as our outfit or our makeup. Smart girls who are vocal about it are dubbed "intimidating" and it has actually been proven that some men dislike dating someone they feel is more intelligent than themselves.
Why are we so afraid of self promotion? If as a woman you do something cool, you shouldn't have to be embarrassed to tell people. I shouldn't deflect in situations where I'm confronted with my own success.
Alas, there are men I know (who probably won't read this anyway), that will roll their eyes at this idea. In the wise words of Leslie Knope, "I guess some people object to powerful depictions of awesome ladies". There will always be people that see gender as a nonissue or reject the premise of inequality, but that shouldn't deter the rest of us from taking steps toward equal opportunity.
So ladies, be proud of your accomplishments, and men, be proud that you no doubt know many wonderful ladies who are worth your support and appreciation. In order to achieve success, you have to believe it's possible, starting with sharing our own experiences as women and being proud to #ladybrag.
"I am big enough to admit that I am often inspired by myself" -- Leslie Knope.
