SORRY. NO, NOT SORRY.

I don’t think I’ve ever known a woman – no matter how beautiful, intelligent or capable she is – who did not lack confidence in herself in one way or another. At work, or as a mother, or when she asked for help, when she was in a competition, when she spoke out about an injustice, when she had to deal with confrontation, when she exhibited something she created, when she started aging or when she simply asked to be loved back. Not to mention every woman who contemplates getting into a swimming costume again for the first time after the winter break. 

We are masters of self-deprecation. Personally, I have it down to a fine art. Self-deprecation is one of my very few talents. However, I have a theory that we evolved this way as a self-preservation technique. It keeps us in good faith with our fellow tribeswomen. Women have always needed other women to watch their backs and be on their side. So maybe we self-deprecate because we want other women to like us.

Let’s face it, we still don’t like a woman who is overly confident. I read an interview with a famous supermodel once, who explained how she simply didn’t see herself the way the rest of the world did. She still felt like that gawky teenager at times. She hated her knees and thought her teeth were too big. I liked her much more after reading that. If she had said something like, ‘Yeah, I know I’m gorgeous’, I would have instantly hated her.

Years ago I worked in the most boring office in the world. It was dull, lifeless and a complete dead-end. A very pretty, lovely and friendly twenty-something came to work there, and she was like a fresh breeze blowing into the place. She was gorgeous in every way. A married man in his late 50s also worked at this office and he was extremely not-gorgeous. I’m not being cruel. It was simply a fact, and it would have been impossible for him not to realise how unattractive he was, just like it would be impossible for him not to realise he had brown eyes. Anyway, one day I bumped into the new girl at the photocopier and she seemed a little upset. We got talking, and she told me something that to this day, I have never been able to comprehend. The unattractive man had just propositioned her. He had said she had been flirting with him for weeks, and it was time to do something about this ‘sexual tension’ between them.

Switch the gender roles and I don’t believe there is a woman on earth who would have that amount of confidence in herself to even contemplate such a fantasy.

TIDBIT:  Did you see the fantastic Pantene advertisement showing various women talking in different situations who constantly used the word ‘sorry’. There were two versions of the ad, and in the second version they used the same woman and the same script, however they removed the word ‘sorry.’ It was a powerful message about women and how we constantly apologise for no valid reason. In the second version, the women all appeared stronger and more self-confident. At the risk of admitting that a mainstream advertising campaign worked on me, it did.  Every time I begin a sentence with ‘sorry’ now, I think about how I shouldn’t have said that. Maybe one day I’ll stop it.

What would Jane say?  

‘Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?’  

I simply love this quote although it does nothing to relieve me of my constant inner voice that is telling me I may perhaps be wrong.