The word is power.
We Tell Our Selves is about collectively changing the language and perceptions of women’s identities and power, and fortifying the work for equity, justice, and freedom.
We’re also into cognitive and social sciences.
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We’re all in the habit of centering harm.
But new cognitive science says that centering power—the benefits and existence of women’s power—pushes people to value women more and fight harder for equity and justice. If we want more power for women of all identities, we need to change our language, our brains, and ultimately our cultures to reflect that women’s power is real, growing, diverse, and necessary.
Cognitive reality is all about the headlines.
Repeated information is our reality. Human brains love being right, so they look for reality confirmation and try to reject the conflicts. It’s all comfort and habit, and it’s very efficient, but it means that a big part of us (our brains) naturally resists believing that things can change. Or that things should. Even if things are bad—bad for women, bad for everyone.
If instead we got together and said:
Women are democracy, science, culture, business, society, history, and more. Women can and do overcome racist, heteronormative, ableist patriarchies. Women are builders and leaders, hold power, exercise power, and are powerful.
And said over and over as loud as we can:
That women of every identity build and exercise all kinds of power in all different sectors and make progress all over the world to the benefit of everyone. And anything that stands in the way is an aberration. We would build a reality that accurately perceives women’s power as vital, pervasive, and completely normal.
The world would expect women’s power.
Brains would positively correlate women’s identities with power. More people would naturally and vigorously reject a world that failed to reflect women’s power.
We Tell Our Selves is busy commissioning first-of-its-kind intersectional cognitive science studies, translating findings into actionable techniques, and getting that information to people like you to help fortify the important work that you do.
Gather your friends and colleagues for an in-depth workshop to apply what we’re learning to what you’re doing. Free, fascinating, and useful!
