Why Can't We Say We're Awesome?

Or, how the Barbie movie's pink matriarchal utopia made me tear up.

Hello! This is The Slow Take, Heather Lanier’s very occasional newsletter about the strange beauty (and sometimes pure strangeness) of being human. Sometimes I share author news. Other times, I share little essays & reflections. Today’s post is the latter. Thanks for reading!

And also, THANK YOU for all the love re: my new poetry collection, Psalms of Unknowing! It was a busy launch day with lots of teaching, but you brought the virtual confetti. And in a big surprise, Poets & Writers Magazine featured the book on the front page of their website. If you read the book, please consider leaving a quick rating or review on Amazon or Goodreads.

---

In the minefield that is social media, I once read a woman get all riled up over Simone Biles. She couldn’t stand her. Why? Because Biles knew she was great. And this woman did not like Biles for knowing that she, Biles, was great. Greatness, according to this woman, should not be known of great women.

It was 2021, when Newsweek wrote this about the athlete: “Biles has won more world championship medals than any gymnast in history with 25. Of those, 19 were gold medals.”

Last month, Biles made history as the 8-time US National all-around champion. No gymnast of any gender has ever done that. In other words, Biles was then, and is now, quantifiably exceptional. The Literal Greatest. Of all time. The GOAT.

It’s easy to dismiss the social media commenter as an irritating anomaly. But we know she’s not—we know she’s the voice box of the culture. Biles herself has read plenty of similar comments online.

Which has me thinking lately: Why are we women not allowed to say when we’re awesome? I mean, we can physically utter those words. “I am awesome.” But it’s not advisable. It’s not normal.

In fact, denying our worth is so built-in as a rule of being female that I found the sight of its opposite to be like a shock of ice-water on my brain. Or maybe it was like hearing Bach’s Cello Suite for the first time. Or maybe a combo: beautiful alarming Bachian ice plunge.

I’m talking about an early scene in the Barbie movie when viewers get a glimpse of BarbieLand. (Spoiler alert, but only the first five minutes or so.) In a brief tour of the pink matriarchal utopia that is BarbieLand, we see an awards ceremony. The Barbies win all the awards, of course—Nobels, Pulitzers, and the like. And when they accept those awards, they don’t say “Thank you.” They say things like, “I worked really hard” and “I deserve this.” Each winner stands on stage and proudly owns that she is, indeed, excellent.

The first time I saw it, I laughed out loud.

I laughed even harder when the audience wholeheartedly applauds the Barbies in response. And then I shoved my happy mouth full of popcorn and buckled in for an amazing cinematic experience.

But I went home really really tired, and took a nap, and woke up feeling like I left some Big Feelings back in BarbieLand.

So a few weeks later, I saw the movie again. And this time, when the Barbies accepted their awards with unabashed pride, I actually… teared up. I wrapped a giant soft merino scarf around my shoulders, and put my hand over my heart—because some pain therapist on a podcast told me that this gesture lights up the same area of your brain as when you receive a hug.

And I freaking cried, because I was watching women, or no, dolls-as-women, own their worth. And not even in an overly-determined, somewhat false “I’ve been saying my daily affirmations into the mirror” kind-of way. In a legit, unselfconscious, unabashed, self-actualized way.

It felt so good and necessary, and also upside-down.

According to Scary Mommy, I wasn’t the only one impacted by the unabashedly proud Barbie Winners. One woman said that, for the rest of the day, she felt like she could walk through a wall. Another felt at first offended, and then mind-blown. Another said, “This is where I started crying and I never stopped until the credits stopped rolling.”

Years ago, after I signed a book deal with a “Big Five” New York press, I went out to dinner with a bunch of writer-pals. Someone congratulated me on the contract. It was big news—we’d all gone to graduate school together, and we’d all dreamed of one day having books. I probably said “Thank you.” But then, like when a doctor taps a rubber mallet below your kneecap, my verbal reaction was quick and out of my control:

“It just sort-of fell in my lap,” I said.

What?

Then I went on and on about all the ways luck and the support of others had played a role—my agent, my editor, my kindergarten teacher of 1983.

With a shake of a head, my male friend beside me interrupted with the most incredulous look:

“Bullshit,” he said. “You did that.” 

My friend was Jon Chopan, who writes about men, and men who work, and men who go to war. His comment shook me out of what had felt like a self-deprecation takeover.

He was right. I’d spent a year writing the essay that had gone viral. I’d developed the 100-page proposal in time for a fall acquisition to editors. I’d also generated five years of readers via shorter essays and blog posts. 

I sat at the circular restaurant table, feeling a little stunned by the force of my self-refusal. It really had felt like an automatized takeover.

Why? Who teaches us women this? Where do we learn it?

"Everybody can call you the GOAT,” Biles said in a 2021 interview. “But then if you acknowledge it once, they're like, 'Oh my god, I hate her! She's not that awesome!'

Biles’ experience makes the reason clear: our knee-jerk self-deprecation serves as a vaccination against attack. If I say I’m not that great, you won’t tear me down. If I own my worth, I’m a little bunny among wolves.

This means the solution isn’t as simple as “Women should just own their worth.” This suggestion is like telling women they need to solve the problem of gender pay inequity by asking for raises. Here’s a recent post by Adam Grant on the subject:

I don’t think change will come only from women acknowledging when we kick ass. That’s just the first half of the Barbie utopian equation. The second half is the wholehearted applause when we do so. That’s the real magic.

I don’t crave the habit of saying “I did it, I worked hard,” so much as I crave living in a world that receives those statements affirmingly.

“I’m great.”

“You are!”

I’m thankful for friends who won’t let me downplay my achievements.

In 2019, Biles started wearing a bedazzled goat on her leotards, as a joke to all the haters who thought she should be more modest.

Biles: "I just hope that kids growing up watching this don't or aren't ashamed of being good at whatever they do…. I want kids to learn that, yes, it's okay to acknowledge that you're good or even great at something."

Here’s to women saying they’re awesome, and learning to hear women say that they’re awesome, and applauding when they do! (Also, BILES! CONGRATULATIONS!)

---

Another woman to congratulate: the amazing Sonya Huber! She has a new essay collection out. It’s called Love & Industry: A Midwestern Workbook, and I had the privilege of reading some of it before it released. It’s as whip-smart and funny and big-hearted as the author herself. Here’s what another knockout essayist, Megan Stielstra, says: “Huber is a masterful essayist. I mean—holy shit. I felt this book in my bones.”

Get thee to a bookstore website, friends!