Don’t Let Little Men Make You Small
How many times have you been told you’re too much?
In the meeting. In the review. At home. That pause before someone says it, where you can just feel it coming.
I can’t begin to count the times and ways. It still makes me wonder WTH when I think about how many times clients said that to me. I’m supposed to be an expert, and you’re trying to put me under your insecure thumb?
The need to keep women in their place, as supporting players to men, goes back in time for eons.
For centuries, any woman who pushed back, showed emotion, or challenged authority got labeled hysterical. It was a medical diagnosis used to institutionalize women who didn’t comply.
Then came Unladylike, the catch-all for any woman who stepped outside her supporting role. Spoke too directly? Unladylike. Wanted education? Unladylike. Had ambitions beyond the home? Unladylike.
Too Much is the latest attempt to make women believe they are meant to be less than men.
I SAID BELIEVE WE ARE LESS THAN MEN. Not that we truly are.
When women stop being invisible, speak up in the meeting, push back on the decision, overdeliver and swamp them with brilliance, we threaten the hell out of the system.
Men don’t call each other ‘too much.’ They were trained to fall in line, be a good soldier, support the team.
When we step up and leave our supporting player roles, some men get very uncomfortable. Make that threatened.
It’s not all men. I know so many men who have been supportive as hell of me. Over the years, I’ve come to realize it’s a select group of men,. For example, the ones with huge egos, who play swaggering power trips and who also know deep down inside they are not even close to having the skills and brains to be the player they pretend to be.
TOO MUCH IS A WEAPON
The “too much” label is one of the most efficient weapons in their game. It’s an emotional whip they use against women they fear
Have you ever heard a man called too much?
I was called “too much” my entire life. From grade school on. A smart gifted girl was a freak to be name-called. Luckily, my mom loved me so much she took away most of my heart pain and wiped away the tears when I came home from school.
She also helped me understand that being me, Too much in all, was a very good thing. Anybody who said differently was simply being mean and I should shed the meanness like water off a duck's back.
I never quite got that good at it, but I did learn to see through ‘too much’ comments. The man behind them was often powerful and swaggering in the client. Or situation.
It took me years to realize they were more likely questioning whether they were powerful and swaggering. When I showed up, they had to put me In my place to protect their little self-fantasy.
The Game Uses “Too Much” Against Us
It's not just that we're programmed to believe that being called too much is bad. The Game has weaponized too much within its corporate processes and culture.
“Too much” only has to land once in a woman’s description and she is marked for life. One "too aggressive" in a performance review, one “often a bit too outspoken” in a reference.
One room that went silent after you said what everyone else was thinking.
Too much is designed to make us take a step back. To force us to stop and police ourselves. We begin to filter every word before it leaves our mouths. We shrink ourselves and our opinions.
Don’t Let Little Men Make You Small
With the rise of the manosphere and the anger around our government's obvious attack on women, I hear many voices raised against all men.
I was in a client with a CEO who was mentally disturbed. His favorite thing to do to me was to call me “too much,” He’d then define that as being too confident, too eager to express my opinions, too sure of myself. The other executives in the company mostly supported me, behind closed doors. Although there was one who had always been threatened by me but kept the peace. Investors put me in the company after all. As soon as that CEO started pounding on me, he jumped on the bandwagon. He made some of the most condescending comments to me ever, as soon as he had cover from the CEO.
I admit it. They got me to shrink, a little bit.At the time, I was caring for a friend who was dying with AIDS. and I was just overwhelmed. I flinched. Not for long, But I did flinch. I got smaller and quieter for about 2 months. Then, one of my investors came to town, and after the meetings, he took me aside and asked me point-blank why I wasn't being Rebel. I told him what had happened. He paused and hough for a minute, then looked at me and said,
“Don’t you ever let little men make you small again.”
I never did.