Woman to Women

She-Force: The Affirmation Reformation

Just say "no" to needing approval from others

-Holly Mandel

It may look like an innocent work meeting: men and women smiling, listening and nodding, some scribbling notes. But it's there, running through the veins of most of the women present. Perhaps the most powerful drug around - highly addictive, seemingly impossible to kick, and worst of all, hardly anyone can diagnose it.

What is it?

If you guessed "affirmation," you picked the right door. (Sorry, I don't have any door prizes, but hopefully the fact that you won is, well, affirmation enough.) Affirmation is something we as women haven't really taken on in ourselves. If we're really honest, we know it's what motivates much of what we do and how we think. The need to be liked, the need to fit in, the need to be told we're okay, we're beautiful, we're smart, we're good, we're right - man, oh, man, it's intense. And our pursuit of it can be both relentless and ruthless.

There are good reasons why "woman" is this way. Evolutionary biologists explain that our need to fit in, be accepted, be part of the group is completely survival-based - which is why it can seem so forceful. Thousands of years ago - and up until very recently - we haven't had the means, opportunities or freedoms to stand on our own and take care of ourselves. Barely 100 years ago we had absolutely no rights and were our husband's property, and a woman on her own was seen as dangerous and immoral. (About 35 years ago, my friend's mother was the first woman in her town to get divorced and was shunned because she was "dangerous" to have around the husbands. She says that label was more damaging than the actual divorce!)

So, for women, being accepted rather than shunned is learned at a very young age as not only vital but part of what it means to be a girl. Sociologists and psychologists alike have done endless research on how boys and girls interact differently while growing up, and repeatedly find that girls value togetherness, getting along and being liked above all else. Sure, we're not young girls on the playground, but that doesn't mean this drive for affirmation isn't steering the ship a good deal of the time.

Here's the deal: If we're going to create a new dynamic as free women, we have to liberate ourselves of our addiction to affirmation. Because once it's no longer important to be told we're good or to get a smile out of someone after we tell them our idea - well, something new can happen. We'll stop looking to others to indicate how we are - and who we are - and we'll start to get affirmation from the depths of our own being. When affirmation is no longer the most important thing, other things step up to the plate, like dignity, honesty and fairness (all things that, at least for me, go out the window when I'm desperate to get some good ol' affirmation). And if we're going to create a She-Force, we've got to be drug-free. No addictions, no Achilles heel. Only then will our motives be purer and our relationships straighter, more solid and deeper. No more using each other to see ourselves in a certain way.

So next time you feel the need for affirmation, remember what Nancy used to tell us - and Just Say No.