I watched a TED talk that insists women could be better. They should be more like men. We’re raising our girls to be perfect, and we’re raising our boys to be brave, says Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code. Girls need to be more like boys, she suggests. They need to take more risks and demand jobs they are unqualified for. It works for the boys.

It’s a worthy goal to identify what holds girls and women back and to offer encouragement. Surely we underestimate the potential of girls and women in our culture. We actively stifle their potential. We should identify changes in their behavior and in our system that hold them back.

But. I am also tired of people urging women to behave more like men at their worst. Saujani describes how, in an experiment, 5th grade girls, especially the smarter ones, give up on “an assignment that was too hard for them.” I’d argue it’s a waste of time struggling against something they can’t do, an assignment specifically designed to be impossible for them. Recognizing that might even be termed smart because that’s not “giving up,” that’s sensible. Just as it’s possible to be persistent without being foolish, it’s possible to be sensible without being a coward.

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