Do modern women really need a book to tell them how to stand up themselves?

Of all the hundreds of self-help books that piled up on my desk when I worked on Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1970s and 1980s, only two can I recall with absolute clarity. So many were (as now) more padding than profundity. 

The first is Susan Jeffers’ renowned Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway. The second is Anne Dickson’s A Woman In Your Own Right: Assertiveness And You, published in 1982, which introduced women to the notion of being ‘assertive’, both in and out of the workplace. A concept which even today many still grapple with, but back then was ground-breaking. 

This book spoke to me because I often tripped myself up, veering between speaking up too forcefully and not speaking up at all. I’d go so far as to say that in some ways the book helped me to become editor of Cosmo three years later.

Linda Kelsey (pictured) reveals how Anne’s Dickson’s 1980’s book A Woman In Your Own Right is being republished

While I knew I was good at my job, as the deputy editor it hadn’t occurred to me I could succeed my confident, outgoing female boss. But I had a copy of Anne’s book at home and would rehearse scenarios in my head to help me come across better. 

The book went on to be a huge success and even featured in an episode of EastEnders. Incredibly it hasn’t been out of print for 40 years. 

This week it was re-issued in time for International Women’s Day. There’s no doubt we’ve made giant strides towards equality over the decades, but in some ways this advice is even more pertinent today. 

Not necessarily because modern women are timid wallflowers but because many of us seem to get the wrong end of the stick when it comes to assertiveness. 

Today’s screechy young women run counter to Anne’s tenets of assertiveness, which are about going for what you want without leaving anyone else humiliated or belittled. 

Back in the 1980s, most women lived in terror of being labelled domineering, bitchy or ball-breaking. In no small measure because that’s what we were called when we asked for what we wanted — whether a pay rise or suggesting our husbands might do some housework. 

After several years of feeling put down by my own domineering partner, and suffering in silence, I went to the extreme of walking out. 

Anne helped me understand that asserting myself was an alternative to bombast or slipping into passivity — and would get better results. And even if I didn’t get exactly what I wanted, at least I felt I’d made my point effectively. 

At Cosmo we signed Anne Dickson up to lead assertiveness training courses, which we offered through the magazine. On dozens of Saturdays over several years, 50 readers at a time were taught through roleplay how to deal with situations they found tricky. From mean bosses, to saying no, to demanding friends and stating preferences in the bedroom. 

There’s a world of difference between that assertiveness and the me-centric self-promotion common in today’s workplace, which takes little account of colleagues and often fails to foster co – operation. The subtlety and inclusiveness of Anne’s message seem to have been lost. That’s why 40 years on, her book is needed more than ever. 

This book helped me survive the City’s lewd macho banter, hate mail and life in politics 

by Baroness Ros Altmann, former Pensions Minister 

Former Pensions Minister Baroness Ros Altmann (pictured) says that Anne’s book transformed her thinking and she suddenly realised that most women struggled with insecurity

Embarking on a City career in the 1970s, I was surrounded by men. Lewd, macho banter or propositioning of female staff were commonplace. I was usually dumped with ‘less important’ jobs while men were handed exciting roles. It seemed that was just how things were and you either put up with it or left. 

Then I read Anne Dickson’s book and it transformed my thinking. Suddenly, I realised that most women struggled with insecurity and underconfidence, overly seeking outside approval, which damaged both their careers and relationships. 

The book taught me the importance of standing up for myself — respectfully and nonaggressively. I learned how to say ‘no’ with humour and explanation, rather than excessive apology or defensiveness. All the way through my career, the book’s lessons helped me. The cut and thrust of politics and journalistic scrutiny can undermine your self-belief. This book has helped me survive trolling and hate mail. 

It was reading Anne’s book that encouraged me to speak at conferences rather than hide in a corner. 

I recall a conference, full of men, where the speaker answered the question I had submitted and then asked the ‘gentleman who raised this excellent point to stand up’. I wanted the ground to swallow me as I rose to my feet — and the whole audience burst out laughing. But I managed to maintain composure, quietly thanking him and gaining respect. 

The book’s lesson about making the first move was enlightening. I initiated meetings with bosses, proactively explaining how my investments were outperforming others’ and calmly negotiating promotion or pay rises.

In subsequent decades, women have made huge advances, but there is more to do. There remains a‘broken rung’ on the first step of the managerial ladder, with senior management still male-dominated. 

Add to that growing online pressures and we might just need the book’s lessons more than ever.

TOSH! WOMEN DON’T NEED MALE TRICKS 

By Amanda Platell 

UK-based writer Amanda Platell (pictured) says that she thinks Anne’s book irrelevant for modern women, who don’t need to be told how to assert themselves in the work place

As a young journalist in the 1980s, I read Anne Dickson’s book and thought then, as I do now, what utter tosh! 

Her underlying premise that we downtrodden women must learn the language of men to succeed reinforced the already outdated concept that women were the weaker sex, innately submissive, that we needed ‘man skills’, such as assertiveness, to survive and thrive. 

By the age of 29 in 1989, I was the deputy editor of a national newspaper. Had I called in my army of shoulder-padded senior female staff and told them I was sending them on ‘assertiveness training’ they would have laughed in my face and suggested a drink in the pub after work instead. 

And so they should. Given the 1980s was the breakthrough generation for career women, by the time Anne’s book came out in 1982 it was based on bygone tropes. We already had our first female PM in Margaret Thatcher. 

I’ve run companies and newspapers and headed up a huge team as William Hague’s head of comms. The last thing my female employees needed was assertiveness training. Nor were they shrill or aping aggressive male behaviour. 

A professional woman’s confidence comes not from speaking like a man, but working like one. And that means damned hard, and without special pleading for our sex. 

What worries me most about Anne’s revisited concept is its irrelevance. It might have applied to my mum’s era, but it doesn’t to me or subsequent generations. 

Far more challenging in 2022 is the existential threat facing us as to what a woman really is — what right we have to express our views of womanhood without having our careers cancelled and our reputations demolished by the trans lobby. 

What women need now is a self-help book on how to proudly speak up for ourselves about what it is to be a female, born with a womb in a society that seems determined to erase us. How to articulate compassionately and without judgment the belief that, however much the trans community must have rights, they cannot hijack our bodies, nor our safe places. 

Anne is fighting a war that I believe has already been largely won. Yet there are greater societal battles ahead for us. And who better to lead us than another brave female author. A Woman In Your Own Right written by J.K. Rowling, now that’s a book I’d love to read. 

I GAINED COURAGE TO LEAVE HUSBAND 

By Liz Hodgkinson 

When I read Anne’s book, I was married with two teenage sons and a good career. Yet I lacked the ability to stand up for myself without getting red in the face, angry or bursting into tears. 

I had not learned to be assertive. As it was, if I ever raised my voice my then husband called me Sybil, after Basil Fawlty’s shrill wife in Fawlty Towers. I didn’t think I was in the least like Sybil. 

I wanted to be nice and feminine — and yet not let other people, especially men, walk all over me. But how? Anne’s assertiveness was the answer. I learned to take no notice when my husband called me Sybil, asserting myself without being offended.

As it happens, it was only a few years later that I found the courage to separate from him. 

I am sure that learning to be assertive was a major factor in this decision and helped us to conduct an amicable divorce with no shouting matches. 

Many years later, I am perhaps the most assertive person I know and have gained enormously in confidence. 

May the new edition of the book inspire assertiveness in a new generation of young women, who can still often be fearful and too timid to speak up.

Some of our gains have actually made life harder 

By the book’s author Anne Dickson

Anne Dickinson (pictured) says that in 2022 women still struggle to identify and ask for what they want

Since I wrote my book, we have become familiar with the idea that we ‘ought’ to be more assertive. Yet in 2022, women still struggle to identify — and ask for — what they want. They still find it difficult to be heard or to say no. 

It feels dangerous to admit that, beneath the gloss of confidence, we can still feel vulnerable. There’s an understandable fear you could end up getting crushed. 

But if we can become more open about our vulnerabilities, at least with other women, we might rediscover the sense of camaraderie that proved such a powerful force when my book was first published 40 years ago. In the early 1980s, women spoke openly about their difficulties, fostering the shared purpose which powered the assertiveness movement. 

There’s an unfortunate sense that having been ‘given’ our seat at the table, we can’t now start complaining about the parts of that we find hard. 

Meanwhile the stereotype of an assertive woman remains the office bitch — someone seen as having got on because she’s as hard-hearted and combative as the men. The shoulder pads might have gone, but that caricature endures. 

Younger generations of women may have a stronger sense of independence and of their rights, but discrimination and sexual harassment laws haven’t altered how a woman often feels. 

That gremlin that sits inside her head, still asking: ‘If I know what I want, what will people think of me if I say it out loud?’ continues to get in the way. Some of our gains have actually made things harder. Officially equality is supposedly achieved. But sexist behaviours still persist and directly challenging these when you encounter them remains incredibly difficult.

It isn’t possible to legislate against a woman’s over-dependence on the approval of others. The adult education institute where I first conducted ‘assertiveness training’ in the late 1970s considered the term too feminist and only offered my course once I agreed to call it ‘confidence building’. 

Back then, traditional female roles remained tied to children and the kitchen sink. Working women were routinely refused mortgages, sometimes only granted one if they had a male guarantor. Women didn’t have to dig very deep to find issues to rail against. They just weren’t quite sure how to go about it. 

I was working as a psychosexual therapist — teaching men and women how to improve their sexual relationships — when I realised if women weren’t able to communicate what help they wanted around the house, how could they tell their partner what they wanted in the bedroom? 

I wanted to teach women how to communicate their needs clearly and with feeling, but without aggression. You can make things so much better just by learning how to make yourself heard. What women want still matters; and what we don’t want still needs to be heard.

A Woman In Your Own Right — The Art Of Assertive, Clear And Honest Communication by Anne Dickson (£10.99 and £5.99 e-book, Duckworth) is out now. Interview by Rachel Halliwell.

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