Maybe It’s Time They Stop Thanking Women for Doing the Bare Minimum.
It is getting tiring, cut it out.
Ed Note
“Stop being flattened by the bare minimum.” — Kerrylifecoach.
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So Shall We?
Last year, during my internship as a UI/UX designer, my team (made up entirely of women) completed the design for a full website. We put in long hours and held several meetings to refine our user flow, wireframes, and test prototypes. At the end of the day, we were able to deliver something usable and well-thought-out, even as interns.
When it was time for feedback, we were thanked for being “collaborative.”
We were not thanked for our attention to accessibility, our creative problem-solving skills, or for delivering a great design under a tight deadline.
We were thanked for being collaborative, as if they had expected us to fight and argue with each other just because we were women.
Looking back now, I realised that was a backhanded compliment. One that reduced our technical effort to emotional labour.
We hear this often. Sometimes, you help fix a bug, and what you get in return is, “Oh! Thank you for being helpful.”
You respond quickly on Slack, and they say, “You’re always dependable.”
Meanwhile, your male colleague does the same and gets praised for “taking initiative.”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with women being applauded for being nice, dependable, or even team players. The issue is that these traits often become the main thing we’re recognised for, even when we solve complex problems, and that becomes a subtle form of erasure.
When women are praised for the bare minimum, it suggests we are only exceptional when we are agreeable. It creates an invisible ceiling, because who on earth gets promoted for being nice? Aside from this, it shifts attention away from technical brilliance, leadership, and strategy.
Thanking us isn’t the problem; it is what they choose to celebrate.
We don’t need applause for answering emails or for being “easy to work with.”
What we need is recognition for our expertise.
Thank us for the feedback that made the team better. For how we led the team with clarity. Praise our work, name the value and spotlight our impact.
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