Rosalind Wiseman: Respect Is Earned, and Dignity Is a Given
Rosalind Wiseman works with youth for a living, and is deemed an expert on the subject. Youth all over the world inspired her lecture I attended, about mean girl culture, its roots, its effects on our society and all of us individually, and how this all applies to our lives. Rosalind also advises us that youth and children need our own advocation and empathy, especially those in crisis but definitely also every single other kid- every one of us deserves to have a social emotional life, and struggles, and to talk to trusted adults about them!
Something Wiseman said that really stuck out to me was “People learn early that maintaining a relationship is more important than how you are treated in a relationship”. I was definitely sitting in the auditorium thinking about how I’ve lived my whole life thinking this way, to a certain degree. And hey, this might be my conditioning, but I do think maintaining relationships is important in most situations, but I also recognize and absolutely believe that if you are not receiving respect or being treated well in a relationship, you have every right to leave that relationship and maybe you should!!
Another key point in Wiseman’s lecture, talked about as well in the Q&A portion, was conflict resolution. Most of the time, when you’re attempting to maintain a relationship, or you are required to, you need to have conflict resolution skills. You need to be able to “acknowledge that conflicts are difficult, but normal, and can be worked through”. You can’t just walk around hurting your friends, coworkers, family members, any of their feelings, you need to make them feel valued and dignify them even in times of conflict. “Identify key moments to support them” even if you’re not on the same side of the issue yet, or even if you part ways on the opposing side.
As this was a lecture titled “Mean girls”, a lot of Rosalind Wiseman’s advice mainly applied to how to work with women and girls, and how to deal with issues as a woman or a girl. Something she leveled with us about is that a lot of women act the way they do because they’re scared of what other people will think of them. Specifically other women and girls, their peers. This is a huge problem because “women showing anger and frustration are worried people will label them as mean”, so we are taught to be docile, and bottle all of our frustrations up. This goes hand in hand with the maintaining relationships aspect of Wiseman’s talk. Both of these issues teach people to avoid conflict at all costs, and not how to handle it properly.
The most important thing Wiseman talked about, and mentioned over and over again, was that every person deserves dignity. Young girls, old women, everyone, even the person you might have conflict with. She said “Respect is earned, dignity is a given. Dignity is non-negotiable”. As long as we live according to that principle, we are off to a good start in keeping long, healthy relationships in all aspects of our lives.