92y: It’s Ok To Demand That Things Be Better Right Now Last night, a high school student asked
92y: It’s Ok To Demand That Things Be Better Right Now Last night, a high school student asked Roxane Gay if she had any advice for young women dealing with sexism and racism. This is what she said. (Watch it around the 1:12:20 min mark here.) “When you’re young, people just tell you it gets better. And that’s very easy to say. But I think that it’s ok to demand that things be better right now…it’s ok to say this is not ok, it’s ok to push back on things that people want you to just suck up. … Don’t be afraid to push back and don’t be afraid to use your voice and say, ‘No, this is not ok.’ And don’t get down on yourself when you can’t find the courage. Because it’s hard to stand up for yourself. It’s hard for me at 42. So I can’t imagine, like when I was in high school, I never stood up for myself. I was just a doormat. And if i could go back and tell myself anything it would be you don’t have to be a doormat to get along. You don’t have to the good girl to make people tolerate you. It’s ok to be unlikeable and it’s ok to make people uncomfortable. I think that’s the biggest thing that people need to embrace is discomfort. It’s ok to be uncomfortable. It’s ok to disagree. It’s ok to have opinions that other people don’t like. So, just be unlikeable.” -- source link