We Shouldn't Have To Flaunt Our Ambition To Earn Your Respect

On acknowledging our humanity vs. our accolades on International Women's Day

Last weekend I took a good friend to my favorite Oakland coffee shop, a little community outpost tucked away in the magnolia-lined hills surrounding Lake Merritt.

It was a Sunday morning, and both of us were in the trenches of war with a semi-severe hangover. We’d gone out for dinner (and several martinis) the night before, and I, adamant that he not drive back across the Bay Bridge brandishing such high blood alcohol content, had kept him prisoner with me for the night in Oakland. By the time the sun came filtering in through the windows we were both in squalor, suffering from a pounding headache and a dire need for caffeine.

As we stood outside the coffee shop, waiting for the barista with the singsongy Portuguese accent to call out our order, we began with our usual antics: roasting the ever-loving shit out of each other.

This is how it always goes (that we can both take it and dish it out with a fierceness is why we’ve remained friends), and I usually never take comments from a banter session like this seriously. But that particular morning, mildly nauseous and entirely self-conscious about my haphazardly strewn-together outfit, I felt acutely raw and exposed. “You’re kind of a mess,” he said, clearly referencing the pile of clothes he’d seen on the foot of my bed the night before, scanning me up and down to survey me in my disheveled, hungover state.

I could feel something in my chest deflate like a balloon. It was nine in the morning on a Sunday and now I had to stand here and defend myself for something so banal, so benign. I can’t even be a little bit imperfect—a little bit human—without getting shit for it?

So my response was, for once, a genuine one, and not some smartass retort steeped in sarcasm. “I’m not really feeling appreciated,” I said, doing my best to shoot daggers from under bleary, sleep-deprived lids.

His demeanor changed in the instant. I watched his eyes widen in a panic, as if he’d been riding shotgun in a car that had abruptly hit the brakes and lurched him into the dash. The apology was swift to follow, and then came his signature, over-the-top amelioration: “I really appreciate you buying this coffee for me! Wow. I really appreciate that you stopped me from driving home last night. I appreciate you doing all this for me.”

But the irritation still gnawed at me, and after a few sips of iced coffee, I managed to vocalize it in plain terms: “I don’t want to be appreciated for what I do. I just want to be appreciated for how I am.”

* * *

Today is International Women’s Day. I know this because my screen was riddled with push notifications before I’d even gotten the chance to get up and make coffee this morning: “Discover these ten inventions created by women! Support women entrepreneurs! Shop new outdoor gear from female founders!”

When I eventually started scrolling through Instagram, every second post reminded me that today is a day about women, that we should all be so very thankful women do the things they do, that we should celebrate what these wonderful women have accomplished.

I’ll start by saying with I have no qualms with this sentiment; I want to see women do great work and live up to their fullest potential. I want to live in a world that is shaped by the profound art, the architecture, the policies, the poetry, and yes, the outdoor gear created by women. I am all for heeding ambition and proving to yourself that you can, in fact, do hard things, especially when the patriarchy is telling you that you can’t. But, as I scrolled through the hundredth post celebrating women for all they’ve done, that same irritation I’d sensed at the coffee shop last Sunday reared its ugly head.

“I don’t want to be appreciated for what I do. I just want to be appreciated for how I am.”

Here’s what’s causing my internal friction: simply existing as a woman doesn’t seem to be enough for this world, and it never has been.

While our accomplishments certainly deserve celebration, our worth as people has traditionally been rooted in our ability to produce what men want from us, because our humanity has never been fully acknowledged by heteronormative patriarchal society. So when all I see on International Women’s Day are posts about the great things women have done, provided, etc., I start to grind my teeth. There is so much more to a woman than her laurels and accolades, and it pains me to see those are the only things people seem to be celebrating today.

I'll put it this way: women have been viewed as fertile fields from which men can pluck what they desire—like sex, children, or domestic labor, for example—for centuries. Women who didn’t or couldn’t provide any of the listed above were ultimately deemed worthless and sometimes severely punished for it.¹

These might feel like antiquated examples, but I think our current society is structured under a similar pretense. In a society that values capitalistic (and perhaps also creative) output above all else, your worth as a human being is measured by what you can contribute to the system. So to prove that we deserve the respect of the men who have designed this system, we must clamber to the top of the corporate ladder, we must shatter the glass ceiling, we must infiltrate the ranks of STEM. We are also expected to look good while doing it.

We are told to play by their rules to continue demonstrating the worthiness of our existence. The kicker here is that the patriarchy does a damn good job of hindering our ability to rack up the same amount of “worth” that a man might in his lifetime, but I think that’s a topic for a different essay. Capitalism demands that we sell our souls to corporate America to tell ourselves that we are “slay queening” and “girl bossing” our way to success, but the ever-present patriarchy is the snake in the grass that lunges any time we try to fulfill those capitalistic endeavors.

The system is set up for us to fail, but I digress. The point is that I want us to examine the belief that women should owe us their ambition to prove their worth. Our existence is worth more than what we can produce. We need to wrap our heads around the idea that a woman can be valued for her humanity, for her existence, as well as all the cool things she accomplishes throughout her lifetime. Because, truly, women are badass. I just don’t want us to get wrapped up in the idea that a woman only amounts to her achievements.

So, on International Women’s Day, I’d encourage you to think about the women in your life. Why do you love them? Is it because of what they do? Is it because of what they do for you? Or is it because you get to exist with them at the same place and time here on Earth, sitting on a bench in the park in the sun, perhaps, or in front of a coffee shop in the small hours of a Sunday morning?

Maybe some days we are a little hungover, a little messy, and other days we are out taking the world by storm. Regardless of our accomplishments or lack thereof, our existence is something to revel in.

1. Remember Henry VIII? https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-did-Henry-VIII-kill-his-wives#:~:text=Of%20his%20six%20wives%2C%20Henry,motive%20for%20having%20her%20executed.