A good friend of mine at work, who is an amazing human and amazing at her job (and does even more, like providing important and heartfelt support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs) was recently promoted. After she shared the news, I asked her how she was feeling, and she said, “Like it was well deserved!” And I loved that. Because it was. And because I realized how uncommon it is to hear women feel empowered to respond like that, without the learned, conditioned behavior of feeling like they, we, have to divert attention from ourselves, unnecessarily humble ourselves in what is a shining moment. “Yesss!” I responded. “May we always know our worth!” She, we deserved to honor and celebrate that. Her promotion, her worth.
May we always know our worth. (Especially in the workplace, as women!) And may we always remember that our worth is intrinsic and whole, always, without need to be proven or earned.
(But, also, like, an aside: We live and work in capitalism and I always tell people, especially women and people of the non-dominant corporate profile, ie: not a cisgender, hetero-presenting white male, to negotiate the first offer because when I managed a large team it was always the men, especially and predominantly of the dominant class, who always asked for more.)
For Kaitlin—keep shining, Leo star!