Mommy Finger, Baby Finger

I vividly remember the first time I was judged for being pretty. It was my first day as a staff writer at a university. I was in my early 20s. I loved wearing heels, doing my makeup, and putting outfits together for work, and I was no different walking into this new job that day. I was both excited and nervous to introduce myself to my new co-workers, and I flashed my best smile as I shook their hands. Everything was going well until I walked into my shared office space with a senior writer on my team and she turned around in her chair to sarcastically tell me that I was so young and pretty. Then, adding that that was probably the reason “why” I got the job in the first place.

When I remember this moment, I regretfully remember my silence and awkwardly sitting down in my chair, embarrassed. Then, there’s that time while I was conducting an interview while working as a reporter and I asked the man (twice my age) if there was anything he would like to add to our interview and he told me he was single before asking, “are you?” Then there was the uncomfortable time I sat down with my supervisor, in tears, after a gossiping co-worker started a painful rumor that perhaps he had a crush on me because she felt she was treated differently.

Looking back on these moments as well as other moments, I truly cringe, and I feel a mix of anger, sadness, and humiliation … but I’m also encouraged. I’m encouraged because I recognize my ability to persevere in an often, cruel world. These experiences are now lessons that have built me personally and professionally. They are experiences that have now inspired me to speak up against disrespectful behavior, make myself heard even if my voice shakes, and show up differently because I now come from a place of knowing my worth and making that known.

In advocating for myself, I have found that there are countless other women in my community that simply don’t know how to advocate for themselves at work, have felt silenced, or fear the backlash of speaking up. And let’s not ignore the fact that we tend to be so great at advocating for others and don’t do as well advocating for ourselves.

From that moment at that university to the present, I know that this conversation is long overdue.

I wasn’t prepared for the moment when I discovered in my 30s that my looks could still feel like a slap in the face. Like when a co-worker stopped me in the stairway, looked me up and down, licked his lips, complimented me on how good I looked that day and offered false hope for a career opportunity, and then said, “did you think I would give it to you just like that?” Or when I looked for help and support from other co-workers, and they told me that it was the price I had to pay for being so beautiful.

I was only half prepared. It has taken me so many painful workforce experiences to recognize the importance of using my voice, communicating boundaries, and being an audacious woman.

I could hate these experiences, or I can embrace them to be a better woman, leader, and mom. I choose the second one.