In Elle magazine's, It's Time For Women to Break Up with Being Polite, writer Brijana Prooker interviewed dozens of women on the subject and found that due to the high stakes of the pandemic, most of us are ready to turn the page on being polite. In the article, Dr. Leela Magavi, Hopkins-trained psychiatrist and Regional Medical Director for Community Psychiatry, explains that girls and women being polite—often at the expense of their safety and wellbeing—is learned behavior.... 'Over time, young girls evolve into women who prioritize other individuals’ comfort and emotions over their own.'
Brooker's interviews include a woman who found her background and male-dominated business environment kept her from "confronting rude behavior" until she realized keeping quiet "meant risking my family and my mental health," and the disability rights activist, who says "niceness is a trap laid to get marginalized people to stop standing up to oppression"
Prooker concludes, that change "is not going to happen overnight. A pandemic is not going to magically undo decades of learned behavior. But in an era where all hell is breaking loose, where women are choosing sweats over Spanx and fresh faces over foundation—minimizing and concealing ourselves be damned—we can and should resolve to break up with politeness, once and for all."
