I\u2019m just a girl who can\u2019t say no, goes the song. In the case of the musical, her problem was saying no to men. Yet the problem is much more pervasive than just romantic relationships. I do it, all my friends do it, everyone I know does it. We all say, “yes,” “OK,” “I\u2019ll do it,” when we don\u2019t want to. It can be a favor for a friend, additional work for an employer, a helping hand to a co-worker, an errand for a relative, a committee we don\u2019t want to sit on, a fundraiser we don\u2019t want to attend. Why do we say yes when we really mean no? Do women do it more often than men? I believe they do. After I have said yes, agreed, committed myself, I often regret it. By then, it\u2019s too late. If it is hard to say no, it is 10 times harder to say, “I\u2019ve changed my mind.” So why do we do it? Often it does not seem such a burden at the time. Many of us underestimate the time it takes to fulfill the added responsibility or else the deadline is weeks or even months away. I frequently accept to write a lengthy article or to give a talk “due next year.” But then that inexorable date arrives and I\u2019m frantically trying to fit it in with everything else I have to do. Another reason is that it feels better at the moment to say yes to someone than to say no. None of us likes to be rejecting, and this is perhaps where the gender difference comes in. Women generally are more attuned to the needs of others, more consciously dependent on relationships. Turning our back on a request feels like a rejection of the person, instead of just a denial of one request. It is not very different from the statement that women tend to personalize more than men. In other words, if a woman\u2019s behavior is criticized, she feels like the criticism is an attack on her whole person, not just a reference to one of her actions. If refusing \u00e5one favor is seen as akin to rejecting the person, it becomes understandable why women would have a harder time doing so. Another reason is that women either are genetically programmed to be more nurturing or have been brought up to be more giving. That being the case, it is not surprising that when asked to extend themselves, they tend to do it. We have been taught to think of others and thus are quick to respond when we hear a plea for help. There \u00e5 also the issue of assertion. It often feels like being assertive in responding to one\u2019s own needs instead of someone else\u2019s is selfish. “I\u2019m going to take care of myself first” smacks of the “me” generation. The voices disagree between my needs and wishes versus your needs and wishes. Of course, when it\u2019s our children, their needs come first until adolescence \u2014 then it\u2019s up for grabs as to who wants and gets the car or how much money they\u2019re allowed to spend. Discipline and teaching values comes into play and the “why” of decision making becomes more complicated. We tend to say yes more often to people we like, to people in power, to people with whom we have a reciprocal relationship. We also tend to help out people we feel sorry for, those who can\u2019t fend for themselves. The issue then is how real are our feelings of responsibility. Are we taking on too much \u2014 is it a burden that can be shared or are we not paying attention enough? Now, I am not saying we never should respond to others. I like that nurturing side of women. I like it in me. It becomes an issue and a burden, however, when it is not what we really want to do, when we pay too high a price for it. What is important here is to know whether there is enough available time and energy or whether there is not.\u2018Me Too!\u2019 I am always someone\u2019s daughter someone\u2019s mother someone\u2019s wife I am also someone\u2019s teacher someone\u2019s neighbor someone\u2019s friend I am available responsible can reliably be counted on I wish I, too, had ME to lean on. \u2014 Natasha Josefowitz, Ph.D.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m just a girl who can\u2019t say no, goes the song. In the case of the musical, her problem was saying no to men. Yet the problem is much more pervasive than just romantic relationships. I do it, all my friends do it, everyone I know does it. We all say, “yes,” “OK,” “I\u2019ll do […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Doing It Better: Saying 'yes' when one should say 'no'","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11552,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-opinion","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}