Why women need to be more assertive.
By Assertive Way
Topics Covered
- Pay compliments even if you disagree with the other and how to receive compliments gracefully.
- Respond to unfair accusations like "you are too assertive, aggressive, sensitive, selfish."
- Avoid the top mistake women make when trying to be assertive.
- Understand assertiveness and gender: are there differences?
- Find out what inspired Paulette Dale to write an assertiveness book for women, who is Susan, and the becoming assertive stories.
Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter “Nice With Limits” for confident communication tips and inspiration to boost your career!
We take your email seriously and will never sell or share it.
Interview with Paulette Dale
Paulette Dale is a Ph.D, Professor Emeritus, and author of “Did You Say Something, Susan? How Any Woman Can Gain Confidence With Assertive Communication.”
In this interview she shares some of her stories and lessons in the book and from her life. Enjoy!
What was bizarre about the reaction to your compliment to former President Trump?
Paulette Dale
So, I had been invited to be part of the Trump Miami town hall in October while the candidates were running for office and campaigning. And I was chosen to ask former president Trump my question about Dakar because immigration I’m a passionate proponent of immigration being the granddaughter of immigrants. I was very concerned that the former president was going to cut the dreamers program. So that was my question for the town hall.
I was the last person chosen to ask before the town hall completed, I was nervous. I was stressed. The atmosphere at the venue was very tense, acrimonious. So, I’m called to the microphone to ask the president my question. And he looked at me as he did all the other people asking questions, I must say, with this gracious thousand trillion Watts smile, and you never really see that former president Trump’s smile.
It took me by surprise. After I said, good evening, Mr. President, I hadn’t prepared to say anything else other than to delve right into my question. And what popped out of my mouth was “I got to say, Mr. President, you have a great smile.” And to my amazement, people started to applaud. And then what popped out of my mouth was, “you know, you’re so handsome when you smile.” Okay.
The next day my son called me up to tell me, mom, you have gone viral. You have hundreds of thousands of tweets and comments and posts on social media. Do you realize that? I had no idea. I had no idea. So, the whole situation was extremely unexpected and I’m very happy to have faded back into obscurity.
What popped out of my mouth was “I got to say, Mr. President (Trump), you have a great smile.” And to my amazement, people started to applaud. And then what popped out of my mouth was, “you know, you’re so handsome when you smile.”
And the bizarre thing is that, well, not bizarre. I was not a supporter of Mr. Trump. I did not vote for him. And people thought that was a weird juxtaposition. How could that be? Then that means your compliment couldn’t have been sincere.
Well, it was, and my message is: isn’t it tragic that kindness has been lost, that we’re expected to be unkind to those with whom we disagree.
And my second part of the message is that being able to pay a sincere, genuine compliment to someone with whom you have philosophical or political differences should not be mutually exclusive. So that’s my takeaway from all of the hullabaloo.
That experience triggered me to add when I was revising the book I originally written, did you say something Susan, about 20 years ago, and many of the examples were out of date. Many of the resources and references were rather old, but the content isn’t old, it’s timeless. So, as I was revising and modernizing and rewriting the book, I realized I should include a chapter on paying compliments because what people don’t realize is paying compliments is a highly assertive act.
And too few of us do that for any number of reasons. We don’t feel confident in ourselves. Therefore, maybe we feel that someone else won’t appreciate our compliment, or why should they believe anything coming from us. But that’s within our own minds and paying compliments is a highly assertive way to express yourself and start to gain confidence as well.
Isn’t it tragic that kindness has been lost, that we’re expected to be unkind to those with whom we disagree.
Could you share the first time you learned how to receive compliments well?
Paulette Dale
Oh, that’s thank you. That’s a great story. I was at college student at Queens college in New York city. I had made a presentation in a psychology class in one of these large auditoriums with 400 students in a class. And professor said to me, that was an excellent presentation. Paulette, Ms. Wayne was my maiden name.
He was very formal and I sort of mumbled and said, “well, it wasn’t as good as some of the others.” And he yelled “stop, stop right there.” And I thought, Oh God, no. What? And he said, “do you realize what you just did?” And “no, Dr. Reynolds, I really don’t realize what I just did.” He said, “I just paid you a compliment and you took it, threw it on the floor and stumped on it.” And I said, Oh. He said, “next time someone pays you a compliment. You look them in the eye, you smile. And you’d say, thank you very much. I appreciate that.”
He said, “I just paid you a compliment and you took it, threw it on the floor and stumped on it.”
When we diminish, someone’s compliment. If someone compliments you and you respond, Oh, you like my haircut? Oh, it makes my nose look too big. Or this dress? Oh, I think it makes me look fat. You’re really diminishing the person’s opinion. You’re telling them they don’t know what they’re talking about. When somebody pays you a compliment, accept it graciously, I know it’s not always easy, but you can do it, smile and say “thank you.”
One of my favorite quotes of all time is, is Mark Twain’s quote. He says, “I can live on a good compliment for two weeks with nothing else to eat.”
We increase someone’s joy when we are assertive enough to show gratitude or to give praise or to pay a compliment, we elevate the other person’s mood and attitude. And we also elevate our own by virtue of the fact we see how happy it has made someone else. There’s so many benefits to being assertive in this way.
We increase someone’s joy when we are assertive enough to show gratitude or to give praise or to pay a compliment.
What inspired you to write an assertiveness book for women?
Paulette Dale
Well, okay. I was on my way to breakfast one day with a good friend. And on our way there, she said to me, out of the clear blue sky, “Paulette, why is it that people feel it’s okay to put me down to say inappropriate things to me and to take advantage of me and they don’t do that to you?”
My answer to my friend was immediate. I said, “Ellen, that’s because you let them, people will treat you the way you teach them to treat you.”
So, my friend said to me, “well, could you please teach me how to teach people to treat me?”
And I said, “that might be a little ambitious to do over breakfast.”
To which she answered, “why don’t you write a book?”
So I did. She’s a principal person to whom it’s dedicated. She is now deceased. And I know she’s delighted. The book is out there.
But that catalyst: people will treat you the way you teach them to treat. Ivna talks a lot in her podcasts and in her videos about setting boundaries as being assertive. And what’s so important is enforcing the boundaries as well. But I’m sure we’ll get into that more.
Who is Susan? Where did Susan in the book title come from?
Paulette Dalle
Well, you know, I had no say in the title 20 years prior. The publisher came up with the title and I started to love it. Susan is a very popular, lovely female name. And Susan is every woman, you’re Susan, I’m Susan.
Susan is every woman who has ever kicked herself for being too reluctant to speak up in a situation.
Susan is everyone and who has ever kicked herself for what she should have said. So, in a way, so many of us have had the experience of being Susan.
Why do you focus on women in your book?
Paulette Dale
If not, I’m ashamed to say that at the time it was a marketing decision, the editors and the publisher said that men don’t buy self-help books. Women read them, but men need them. And they felt that focusing on the female niche would be better for marketing purposes.
And being a naive as to the publishing world for self-help and for trade. I had written several textbooks prior, which are still used internationally in language institutes, all over the world, including Brazil. I was going to defer to their advice on the best approach to take. So that’s the reason it’s geared towards women. It was a pure marketing decision at the time.
“Paulette, why is it that people feel it’s okay to put me down to say inappropriate things to me and to take advantage of me and they don’t do that to you?” My answer to my friend was immediate. I said, “Ellen, that’s because you let them.”
Were you assertive when young? Who encouraged you to be more assertive?
Paulette Dale
You know, my dad. My dad would not tolerate it if we, my mother or my brother or myself, were not assertive. And the big catalyst was an incident that happened when I was 17 years old, I was not particularly assertive.
I had a job as a showroom model in the New York city garment center. There were a bunch of mannequins in the corner of a room. One of the showroom managers wanted me to go stand with the other mannequins.
He said to me, go stand over there with the other dummies, because dummies is a slang term for mannequins. He said, “go stand over there with the other dummies.” So, like a dummy, I went over there and stood with the other mannequins.
I was too intimidated to protest the insult. At dinner that night this, the incident was still bothering me and I mentioned it to my family at the dinner table and I was expecting innocuous platitudes. Like, “don’t let what he said, bother you”, or “just forget about it.”
But no, my father said to me, “Oh, really? And what did you respond?”
And I sort of mumbled, “well, dad, I didn’t say anything.”
He became irate and he smashed his this down on the dinner table and said, “how dare you allow yourself to be spoken to that way? You are inferior to no one. And don’t you ever forget it.”
Well, I half a century later, I’ve never forgotten his words. And that was pretty much the catalyst for my realizing the importance of speaking up for yourself. Otherwise, you deny yourself as person.
My father became irate and he smashed his this down on the dinner table and said, “how dare you allow yourself to be spoken to that way? You are inferior to no one. And don’t you ever forget it.”
Were both your parents assertive?
Paulette Dale
No, my mind, not so much. My dad was highly assertive. My mother bordered on passive and when I wrote the book and she read a copy, she had tears in her eyes and she said to me, “I didn’t know, you wrote this book for me.”
I’ll never forget that. And I said, “mom, I didn’t write this for you. I wrote this book for every woman who has trouble speaking up, needs a little encouragement.” And I had no idea that she really felt so intimidated and speaking up was such an effort for her, but she did it anyway, which brings me to feel the fear and do it anyway, ladies.
You might think, I don’t know, I’m too timid to ask a question in class, or I don’t want to express my opinion at this meeting. You know what? You deny yourself as a person if you don’t speak up when you want to. So do it anyway. And then the confidence just starts to come and it gets easier and easier. I know Ivna has spoken about this as well.
And something else and you deal with this a lot too. You know, assertiveness is a skill. Introverts can be assertive too. I know plenty of extroverts who are not assertive. They’re either aggressive or they get defensive or they’re passive. So, assertiveness is not something that is exclusive to extroverts and introverts can learn assertiveness just as well. Because again, it’s a skill like playing the piano, playing tennis, learning to use social media. And it’s a skill that gets improved with practice and trial and error, like most skills do.
So, assertiveness is not something that is exclusive to extroverts and introverts can learn assertiveness just as well. Because again, it’s a skill like playing the piano, playing tennis, learning to use social media. And it’s a skill that gets improved with practice and trial and error, like most skills do.
How did you learn this skill of assertiveness? How did you go about actually developing the skill in your life?
Paulette Dale
Well, I started slowly by speaking up, if someone said something inappropriate, and I started to see that I was respected and that those individuals would never say that to me again, but they’d go next door and they’d say it to someone else. They’d find easier prey. So, success breeds success.
Had I not experienced early success by saying no to inappropriate requests or letting people know nicely when they were out of line, that might have been inhibited it. But because assertiveness usually works, it doesn’t always work because nothing always works. But what it always does is even if it doesn’t get you what you want, and even if it doesn’t get a verbal bully, for example, to stop verbally abusing you, it will always leave you feeling better about yourself.
And in my view, that’s major. But basically success read success and that as with anything. That gave me the encouragement to keep on being assertive when appropriate, which is almost always.
You know, a pet peeve is when people say “you’re too assertive.” Well, as Ivna will tell you over and over and over and I as well, assertive communication is polite, respectful communication. So, what I say is that how can you be too polite or too respectful?
When people say “you’re too assertive.” Well, assertive communication is polite, respectful communication. So, what I say is that how can you be too polite or too respectful?
How can people know that they are not being aggressive when they are assertive?
Paulette Dale
Okay. That’s a great question. You’ve got to remember something like, just because someone tells you the moon is made of green cheese, it doesn’t make it true.
What do I mean by that? When you appropriately start to assert yourself, and do not allow people to take advantage of you, and you say no to others nicely, politely and pleasantly to inappropriate or inconvenient requests, you will be confronted.
You will be told, “Oh, look how aggressive you are.” Or “you’re not being cooperative.” Or “you’re so selfish.” Just because they tell you this doesn’t make it true.
They want to intimidate you back to being the doormat, to doing their bidding at every possibility. Just because someone says you’re aggressive, they’re not using the word appropriately. And as long as you have the confidence to know that you were polite and you were respectful, let them say whatever they want to say, because it’s going to happen. You need to be prepared for that, the confrontation of your appropriate assertions.
How can women prepare for confrontation?
Paulette Dale
As it comes, you know, little by little. You wrote a wonderful article for Forbes magazine. I recall several months back, I believe it was November. Several experts recommend role playing situations, and I’m a big proponent of role playing.
Role play the situation in a safe environment with a friend who takes the part of an aggressor or someone who confronts you and says, “gee, you’re so selfish.” And how could you respond? One of my favorite responses is, “oh, well, you know, you’re entitled to your perception, right? I choose to see my behavior differently.”
Okay. Practice that with your friends, so that when this occurs and it will, I promise you, you will get an opportunity to put this into practice. You will feel like you’ve been in this situation before visual imagery, role-playing, and you’ll be able to say “that’s an interesting opinion, or you’re certainly entitled to your perception. I choose to view my behavior differently.”
Another example is role-play a different situation. Again, “you’re so selfish,” because that’s such a common one. “Well, you know, I find it really interesting that people call other people selfish when they don’t do what you want them to do. Hmm.”
Again, practice it until it becomes second nature.
Another one is who here has ever been told by someone who protested an inappropriate remark, “you’re too sensitive.” Raise your hand. You’re too sensitive. Well, practice role, play with a friend telling you that as aggressively as she or he can, and try responding, “interesting, why is it always the insensitive people who call others too sensitive?”
Or another one I like is “you’re too sensitive.” “Well, maybe you’re not sensitive enough.” Ways to assertively respond that are polite, respectful, and not let the verbal bully rattle your emotional cage because bullies win when we’re upset.
Start small, start slow, try it. The next time you’re faced with one of these situations, you will experience a feeling of exhilaration. You will be so proud of yourself for having made the effort. And that will be the catalyst you need to repeat the behavior on subsequent occasions.
Ivna Curi
I think another thing to note is the composure and the calm when you say that, when you answer, when you respond to someone who was pointing fingers at you, just by the way that you say it back and you even pause for a moment afterwards and let that sink in. I think that itself is already showing that you’re completely in control of the situation. And it’s an element of self-respect as well. And the other person will notice that, from the way you communicate.
The next time you’re faced with one of these situations, you will experience a feeling of exhilaration. You will be so proud of yourself for having made the effort.
Paulette Dale
And it doesn’t matter that you’re trembling inside and that it feels so horrid. Okay. Act as if. So many sociologists, psychologists, actors and actresses have advised the same. Don’t wait until you feel the confidence in order to assert yourself. Pretend that you have it, be trembling inside, feel uncomfortable, feel the fear, but do it anyway. Before you know it, it doesn’t feel so difficult. And before, you know it, it actually feels comfortable. And you will be so proud of yourself. Really.
Ivna Curi
Yeah. The feeling’s amazing, you know, independent of what happens afterwards. I would say that even when, like you said, we should trembling inside, but even if you’re trembling, visibly trembling. Even if you are blushing. Even if you are crying. I know, cause I’ve gone through all of those where you’re physically trying to communicate and you’re a mess. But it’s still going to feel amazing at the end.
Paulette Dale
That’s right. Something else. Why do so many women fail to assert themselves? And another reason is they’re afraid of the confrontation, which is unfair and inappropriate. So, in an effort not to be called aggressive, for an effort not to be called selfish, or an effort not to be called too sensitive, they don’t assert themselves.
You may as well because people are going to criticize you no matter what you do. You may as well be criticized for being appropriately assertive. Because again, it’s just inaccurate criticism.
But another reason is I believe too many women have a well-intentioned, but misguided view, is that they’re going to hurt somebody’s feelings. They have a confusion over being polite and being assertive.
I believe too many women have a well-intentioned, but misguided view, is that they’re going to hurt somebody’s feelings. They have a confusion over being polite and being assertive.
For example, I had a 20-year-old student in one of my college classes. Every semester I would do an exercise where I would ask the students to role play a situation in which they wished they could have been more assertive, what they actually said, what they wish they would have said, and what they would say if they’re ever faced with the situation again.
One young lady said that she had accepted her boyfriends marriage proposal a year prior and called the wedding off about a week before. They had to cancel the venue and they had to notify all the guests.
And of course the other classmates asked, “why did you accept the marriage proposal? If you knew you didn’t want to marry him.” And she didn’t know at the time, it’s not something that evolved. She said
“I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”
Of course. So being assertive can prevent so much heartache and so much aggravation and acrimony later. I’ll give you an example of a mature woman, trial attorney and friend of mine, by the name of Barbara.
I went to her office to pick her up. We were going out to lunch and one of her colleagues said to her, “okay, Barbie, have a nice lunch.” And she turned around and screamed at him in front of the secretaries, the office staff, and the paralegals, “stop calling me Barbie, I hate it when you call me Barbie.”
The poor fellow looked down and mumbled “I didn’t know” and was absolutely mortified.
As we left, I said to my friend, Barbara, “is that true?” I had assumed that he would talk to her that way. And she had made it clear to him that she preferred to be called Barbara and that he persisted in doing this just to annoy her. Then she finally blew up. That was my assumption.
Barbara said to me, “no, I never told him.” I said, “he didn’t know you didn’t like to be called Barbie?” I said, “how many times has he done this?” She said, “oh, 30, 40 times, he always calls me Barbie, I finally got sick of it.”
I said, “Barbara, why didn’t you ever tell him?” Guess what the response was? I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Yet you blow up at him like a banshee in front of the whole office and embarrass the heck out of him. Something’s wrong with this picture.
Being assertive can prevent a problem within you, aggravation, upsetness stress, from festering, which can lead to physical illness and emotional distress as well. Being assertive right from the start is so, what’s the word I’m looking for, liberating. It’s so liberating. And once you experience the feeling of liberation, I did it. I got it over with, and now I could relax.
You’ll never want to be any other way. To answer your question, I learned that just because that’s what happened when I started to be assertive, I started to feel so liberated. I started to feel at ease and I realized I liked the feeling. I think I need to do more of what gets me to that feeling.
“You’re so selfish.” And how could you respond? One of my favorite responses is, “oh, well, you’re entitled to your perception, right? I choose to see my behavior differently.”
How does worry play into assertiveness?
Paulette Dale
And the worry that people won’t like you, if you speak up for yourself, they won’t like you if you say no to an inconvenience or inappropriate request. Being liked and being respected are not mutually exclusive. You can be liked and respected. And that’s also liberating when you start to realize that as well.
Can women be liked and respected at work?
Paulette Dale
You and I are both on LinkedIn and there’s quite a few influencers. People who run billion dollar companies, a Gary Vaynerchuk, for example, and many others. And they often do videos. So there, they employ thousands and thousands of people. And they talk about taking the best people with them to the top and what leadership is.
They often make it very clear that they don’t want to be surrounded by yes men and women. They do not respect the yes women or the yes men. They want to hear dissenting views. They don’t need to hear what they want to hear. They don’t need to hear their ideas parroted back to them.
They want to hear other ideas, other opinions, even if those views or not in agreement with theirs. They may not agree with you after all was said and done, but they all say they respect the hell out of the person that has the assertiveness and the gumption to speak up. So think about that.
If you have to choose, air on the side of assertiveness. If not, you need to revisit your circle. These are not people who are healthy to surround yourself with. That’s the bottom line. They liked you when you were passive. They liked you when you did their bidding. Again, this is not healthy for you, but like Ivna just said, so if you have to choose between speaking up, when you want to.
Remember, something else I like to say is that not everything that triggers you deserves a response. Sometimes the most assertive reaction is none at all, is to be able to turn your back on the individual, not even dignify what they said, or what they did with a response. And that’s okay too.
My point is, though, it’s a choice. If you choose not to respond, that’s being assertive. If you fail to respond, when you really want to, that’s not being assertive, that’s denying yourself as a person.
Not everything that triggers you deserves a response. Sometimes the most assertive reaction is none at all, is to be able to turn your back on the individual, not even dignify what they said, or what they did with a response. And that’s okay too.
Do you see any difference in how a woman would behave assertively versus a man because of the social stereotypes or the social expectations around gender?
Paulette Dale
My first reaction is to say there is no difference. Assertiveness is being polite and being respectful. If a male is polite, respectful, and assertive, great. If a female is polite and respectful and assertive great. There should be no difference.
Unfortunately, it’s people’s perceptions. A man can say, “unfortunately I must decline your request, I’ve got too much on my plate, thanks very much for asking.” Okay. And the person will respect that. A woman says, “no, I must decline your request, I have a lot on my plate, thanks so much for asking” and she’ll get, “you’re not being very cooperative” or “I was really counting on your support” or, “why are you so aggressive?”
Hello? And if I didn’t have confidence in myself, I would start to believe that maybe I was being uncooperative or I was being aggressive. There is no difference, but it’s the way others like to react to it, which makes us believe there is.
Ivna Curi
I do believe there’s a difference. And I wonder if sometimes when a woman who is passive, or who behaves or is known to be passive, wants to change to assertive. And I think it’s a little bit different when a man wants to change to be assertive, so obviously they can talk to people and explain that they’re changing their behaviors so that people know what to expect when this change happens. And some people are not going to like it. I think it works. It’s a little bit easier in personal relationships than in professional ones.
Paulette Dale
It takes people by surprise when all of a sudden you start to change. It can take people by surprise and they’ll overreact. But guess what? They’ll get used to the new you.
So be prepared for that reaction as well. Not necessarily being confronted in a negative way because they liked you better submissive. They might react with surprise, because it’s a side of you they haven’t seen before. So just be prepared for that. You can’t avoid it.
Ivna Curi
Going back to your previous point if somebody does react negatively, it doesn’t mean they don’t like you. Just because somebody seems to get upset, it doesn’t mean they started to dislike you forever. And they’re never going to want to talk to you again. That they don’t want to be around you. They’re not going to love you. It just means, in that moment they’re frustrated. Just let them deal with it. It’ll pass just like you get frustrated and it passes.
Paulette Dale
Exactly it will. And if it doesn’t, then they’re part of the circle that Ivna talked about before, where maybe you want to try to choose a different circle or, or call your circle, be a bit more discriminating about who you keep inside of it. But very often it will pass. They’re just taken by surprise and they need some time to process.
Like I said, the new improved you.
Ivna Curi
And I think that’s definitely something that helps as well, if people do want to learn to be more assertive, a great way of doing that is surrounding themselves with more assertive people. So just learn by osmosis a little bit.
It takes people by surprise when all of a sudden you start to change. It can take people by surprise and they’ll overreact. But guess what? They’ll get used to the new you.
Anything else you’d like to share?
Paulette Dale
Well, thank you. You could just Google me, Paulette Dale and plenty of stuff will come up. And if you Google Paulette Dale Trump, you will see the videos of me telling the president of the United States he has a great smile and telling him he’s handsome in front of 14 million people on national TV.
Of course, I have an extensive LinkedIn profile. So, please connect with me. My connections know that I will always respond. I’m always honored to be contacted by anyone and to answer your questions.
What I’d like to leave you with is one of my favorite mantras, which has to do with comfort zones. And it is, “step so far outside of your comfort zone that you have trouble finding your way back.”
It takes people by surprise when all of a sudden you start to change. It can take people by surprise and they’ll overreact. But guess what? They’ll get used to the new you.
Sign up for our Weekly Newsletter “Nice With Limits” for confident communication tips and inspiration to boost your career!
We take your email seriously and will never sell or share it.
“Step so far outside of your comfort zone that you have trouble finding your way back.” – Unknown
Do you consider yourself assertive when you communicate? Does it help you feel more confident?
Great article 🙂