While composing an email to send to her male colleague, Lucy Paulson, a project manager at a Chicago software company, heroically decided against including a sentence apologizing for her message’s extended length.
Paulson often finds herself concerned with her male colleagues’ feelings and perceptions of her, doing all she can to avoid gaining the reputation of being bossy or overbearing. In the past, she would be compelled to place an apology in long emails, even when contacting those working underneath her, so men know that she doesn’t mean to inconvenience them during their uniquely busy schedules.
Paulson notes that her motivation for excluding an apology evolved as she wrote, stating, “At first I thought I shouldn’t say ‘sorry’ because it would technically make my email even longer, and I’d feel bad making a man read extra words at his job. But then I remembered a long conversation I had with one of my girlfriends about modern gender dynamics in the workplace, and it made me recognize that if my colleague was the one sending the email, he probably wouldn’t feel the need to apologize to me.”
When asked what her future holds, Paulson replied that she has already begun to exercise her extraordinary assertiveness in other ways, including openly advocating for her own ideas, posting a tweet without asking her friend if it’s good, and only saying “thank you” one time when someone holds the door for her. We salute her bravery.
Written by Sarah Palazzo, Co-President