Sorry, I didn’t mean to be flip. Some people really do struggle saying no. It’s a life lesson to learn that assertiveness is about the right o be treated with respect and balancing your own rights with the rights of others. Certainly there are times when it’s not appropriate to say no, and I’ve said yes at work plenty of times when I’d rather say no. But I have learned, because I was so shy and introverted when younger, to be assertive mostly because my best friends kidnapped me for a weekend at age 25 when I had just begun dating a guy that I adored but who didn’t treat me the way I wanted (and in the way my BFFs wanted me to be treated) My BFFs spent the weekend telling me to quit being a doormat (their words) in the relationship while I ranted and whined and complained… It took practice, but I learned to speak up and it carried over into my work and my life. Anyone can learn. BTW it’s the guy I ultimately married that I had to practice with and he treats me just fine.
I’m also blunt and direct, @momofthreeboys, but are you saying that it is NOT perceived as rude to bluntly say no? I’ve been told many times that it IS perceived as rude.
@momofthreeboys, we may be talking past each other.
There are two issues here: whether you refuse, and how you refuse. I’m not saying that women accept offers that they would rather refuse. Maybe they do, but that is not the issue I’m bringing up. Rather, I’m saying that in our culture, people usually refuse without saying the word “No.” They refuse, but they refuse indirectly. People understand this. It’s normal.
Let’s say you and I go on a bike ride. At the end of the ride, I say, “Hey, let’s go get coffee at Peets.” You don’t want to go. You could say, “No, I don’t want to go.” That would be blunt. Many people would not phrase their rejection that way.
You might instead reply, “Oh… I have to go home.” That is also a refusal. Everyone knows that if I ask you to go for coffee, and you say, “Oh… I have to go home,” you are refusing my offer. If I acted as if you had just agreed, when you just refused, that would be weird.
Or you could be so tender-hearted that you said, “OK,” even though you didn’t want to go. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about people who refuse and other people who pretend they don’t understand refusal.
No. I mean that women are treated worse if they are direct and blunt. I JUST went through this with a client. I try to be careful about how I ask for things or push people when they aren’t getting stuff done (that is actually my job, to get people who don’t report to me to complete tasks). I got pushback because they wanted me to be “nicer” to people. I wasn’t yelling, I wasn’t using bad language, I wasn’t using a nasty tone, and I was trying to be pleasant in my interactions with them. But I was being direct and what I needed and when, and escalating when things were not getting accomplished. And it pissed people off. Men do NOT get the same pushback when they do things like this. It is more expected that they will push for what they want (or don’t want). It is cultural, and women are definitely “trained” to avoid bluntness and directness.
This article describes it perfectly:
Women have to “bring the threat level down”, “let others speak first”, “agree before you say you disagree”, and “ask questions instead of making statements”. GIven how much this is expected in the rest of their lives, why would they suddenly have to (or be ready to) “code switch” to tell a guy “NO!”? And then they get ripped on by the guys, too – called a witch (not), a tease, etc.
That Forbes article is infuriating. The writer is right about how women have to navigate minefields in the workplace, but it’s infuriating that women have to tiptoe around to avoid the mines and men can just forge ahead knowing the mines are only for women.
Oh, yes. It infuriating. But it is not wrong. I was punished extensively early in my career until I learned all of those tricks.
There is such a thing as “tact”. Shouldn’t both men and women strive to be more tactful instead of just trying to get everyone to be tactless together?
Nonsense. They have been pushing the “No means No” montra since I was young, probably 20 years or more. And most women I know, there is a soft no, then a hard no, and then a frying pan to head.
And most regular social refusals are polite, rather than direct. “I can’t,” “not now,” “maybe next time,” etc.
The rules for “tactful” are completely different for men than for women, as the Forbes article points out. Intparent is pointing out that she gets criticized for doing her job, but a man in her position who did exactly the same thing would be praised for doing his job.
Exactly. “Next time” is a polite refusal. This is my point. Yet people are pretending that when Ansari allegedly said “Where do you want me to you?” and Grace allegedly said, “Next time,” he couldn’t possibly interpret that as a refusal. Even though, as you state, “next time” is exactly a textbook polite refusal.
He was pretending he didn’t understand her refusal, even though we all know it was a refusal.
Where does it say she “refused” anything. What I read is that it was “in her mind” that she didn’t want to do it.
There is a time to be polite and a time for the frying pan approach.
LOL true. And generally I say “No, I can’t do that now but I can do that by Wednesday, Thursday etc.” When I was dating it was simply “No I don’t want to do that”…I could care less if the guy heard it as “No I don’t want to do that now
or “No I don’t want to kiss you” or “No I don’t want to go to your place” but maybe I will next week, or next date.” I really didn’t care. What HE needed to hear was “No” not at that time.
“Where does it say she “refused” anything. What I read is that it was “in her mind” that she didn’t want to do it.”
from the Babe article
https://babe.net/2018/01/13/aziz-ansari-28355
Many of the articles about Grace and her experience have interpreted her experience. The Babe article purports to be as told to the author by Grace herself.
and then a short while later:
Right here, in paragraph 23:
You gotta admit he had a great comeback!
His comeback was to ignore her refusal. I see nothing great about that.
His comeback is further proof of what we already know. Aziz is a cad. The kind of guy most girls are trained all their lives to avoid. The kind of guy that thinks a girl is going to give herself away for a dinner out.
Grace’s mistake was not leaving the minute he made the suggestion about hopping up on the counter. At that point it was clear he fell into the above category. She didn’t leave and then engaged with him so frankly she has to own those decisions.
No. I mean that women are treated worse if they are direct and blunt. I JUST went through this with a client. I try to be careful about how I ask for things or push people when they aren’t getting stuff done (that is actually my job, to get people who don’t report to me to complete tasks). I got pushback because they wanted me to be “nicer” to people. I wasn’t yelling, I wasn’t using bad language, I wasn’t using a nasty tone, and I was trying to be pleasant in my interactions with them. But I was being direct and what I needed and when, and escalating when things were not getting accomplished. And it pissed people off. Men do NOT get the same pushback when they do things like this. It is more expected that they will push for what they want (or don’t want). It is cultural, and women are definitely “trained” to avoid bluntness and directness.
This article describes it perfectly:
Women have to “bring the threat level down”, “let others speak first”, “agree before you say you disagree”, and “ask questions instead of making statements”. GIven how much this is expected in the rest of their lives, why would they suddenly have to (or be ready to) “code switch” to tell a guy “NO!”? And then they get ripped on by the guys, too – called a ■■■■■, a tease, etc. when they push back.
I think she shouldn’t have gone back to his apt after he rushed the dinner.
And I think he should have called the Uber after she said “next time” and just asked her for a second date if he wanted to get to know her better.
Still, as described, she refused his advances more than once. Imho
I think all this is complicated by the seeming disparity between his public persona and what she was experiencing. He has written a book on dating. She was familiar with his work.
Samantha Bee called him out in a recent monologue, saying something to the effect, “if you call yourself a feminist, then [deleted word] like a feminist”
eta
Of course Grace is an anonmous source. Babe is a very new website. I don’t like that combination at all.
The fact he hasn’t revealed her name gives me a good impression of him. That is the only fact I have to hang onto in this particular story. He hasn’t revealed her name. It is possible he isn’t a cad at all. As far as I can tell, there is no way to know, at least not yet. Maybe someone else will talk about him.
It depends on the context. If you’re a concierge at a nice hotel and a customer makes an unreasonable request, just saying no might come across as rude. If your boss or client comes up with a harebrained idea, instead of just saying no, you have to be careful in how you steer them in a different direction. That’s true even if you’re a man. Now, If someone asks you to grab coffee, then it’s perfectly socially acceptable to say no.