The problem with bravery

I've been told I'm brave many times. I can't remember a single time it has felt good.

“You’re so brave!”

I increasingly loathe this phrase. The more time I spend observing this earth, the more it irritates me when someone dares call me brave.

Growing up, I don’t think my parents used this kind of language with me. If there was something I was scared of, they’d reassure me I don’t have to be scared, that they would be there, that I was strong enough to do whatever it was I needed to in that moment. If I did something particularly bold, I might be told I was gutsy. But not brave. Brave is such a strange word. A lazy word. A word that could be better expressed by other words. Less toxic words.

Being brave means you do something despite fear or danger. It is valorizing. It associates you with perhaps courageous men (of course it’s men) fighting battles despite the risk of death. It’s supposed to make you feel good about yourself. So why doesn’t it?

When it’s used as encouragement, my problem with it is that it is ultimately manipulative. It leaves a lot unsaid. It uses associations and your desire to identify with all the right values, to make you do someone else’s bidding. Sometimes, it’s for your own good. Many times, it’s for someone else’s good.

Most times, I feel there could be better words to truly express how we feel. Words that aren’t inherently drenched in the stench of patriarchal ideals that somehow reduced resilience to a caricature of itself as a macho aesthetic.

Encouragement

“You’re so brave!”

I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase too. Maybe when you were a little kid and you agreed to let the dentist look into your mouth. Did it feel good to hear this phrase? You didn’t really have any other choice than to go to the dentist. It still sucked getting your teeth drilled into, didn’t it? But you did it anyway, you’re so brave! Rewarding you with this badge of honor was a way to get you to do something you didn’t want to. This time, it was for your own good. But at other times, as you grow up, it won’t be. If I were to offer a different wording, it might be “you were responsible for your health today, and I’m proud of you for doing that even if it was uncomfortable.”

“You’re so brave!”

When you were a teenager, you might have been called brave for asking your crush out, or daring participate in a school play when you have horrible stage fright. And you still felt that pit in your stomach right before walking up to your crush regardless of whether they said yes or no. You still felt that pit right before going on stage, whether or not you ended up embarrassing yourself, earning a standing ovation, or simply doing well enough to not draw attention to yourself under those bright, bright stage lights. Nobody made you do it this time, but you still did a scary thing. You did it because you wanted something, and to get it, you were willing to make the effort, to feel some discomfort. Is it bravery, or is it ambition? Is it bravery, or is it pushing yourself to explore your limits? Is it bravery, or is it learning to trust yourself?

“You’re so brave!”

For standing up to a bully in defense of a classmate. For calling out your peers when they indulge in hateful rhetoric they are most likely parroting from someone else. Is it bravery, or is it a sense of confidence that you can help make the world more just? Is it bravery, or is it a visceral reaction that you have to injustice? Is it bravery, or is it a sense that bullies are only projecting strength commensurate with their insecurities, which you know you don’t share?

“You’re so brave!”

To take up arms and be willing to give up your life, your family, your dreams so that your country, your emperor, your democracy, your empire, the one you serve, may expand, endure, encroach, entrench, engulf, enshrine. By the time you’re old enough to enlist or be drafted, you have fully internalized that bravery is valor. It’s value. Without it, are you worth anything? Bravery has taught you to do uncomfortable, scary things. Things you don’t necessarily enjoy doing, but things that ultimately bring a reward. The reward of honor.

Compliment

Then there are times when bravery is used as a compliment.

In those cases, I often find that it comes with negative subtext that might very well be subconscious, but I can feel its presence nonetheless. Compliments are always relative to the complimenter. Unsaid after each compliment is an “I statement” revealing much more than may have surfaced to the consciousness of the utterer themselves.

“You’re so brave!”

For leaving your home country and moving across the globe to study in a country that speaks your second language, in a climate totally different from what you’re used to. The unsaid phrase? I could never do that. Which ultimately means “there has never been a time in my life when, after weighing the pros and cons of leaving for another country, I came to the conclusion that leaving everything behind was the best option”. Indeed, “you’re so brave” is a compliment from a position of privilege. The privilege of being born where the opportunities you seek are. There is nothing wrong with that, but our appreciation for our place in the world is too often obfuscated by vague signaling words like “brave”.

“You’re so brave!”

For having an emergency heart surgery at 22 and not having a complete meltdown about it. Well, it’s not like I had a choice if I wanted to live to see my next birthday. Scientifically, stress was not going to increase my chances and was more likely to slow down my recovery. It was also not going to help my support network feel any more calm, and I needed them calm. So it really wasn’t a choice was it? No, I wasn’t brave. I did what had to be done, and the complimenters would have too if they were in my shoes. I think they mean sucks to be you! which I don’t entirely deny.

“You’re so brave!”

For leaving your job in Silicon Valley to become an artist. I think this was when this phrase really started to irk me. When I was in a gracious mood, I would think that they completely misunderstand the calculus of my decision. It’s understandable. From the outside, it looks like I’m giving up a 6-figure dream job for a highly unpredictable artist lifestyle. What they don’t know is that I’d been in therapy for 9 months prior struggling with anxiety disorder, unable to retain any food I ate at work, and felt trapped in a dream I never asked for. They’re thinking about it from their calculus, not mine. From my view, it was a no brainer. A carefully planned exit out of the golden cuffs.

When I’m in a cynical mood, I think it’s just a nice way of saying “I think you’re nuts but you do you”.

“You’re so brave!”

To still be wearing a mask and setting firm boundaries when it comes to your health and minimizing COVID risks. What they’re not saying is I don’t think I could resist the peer pressure. Or it sucks that you have health issues, and I’m glad I don’t. Which is very misinformed by the way, because you don’t have to have pre-existing conditions to be vulnerable to disabling forms of long COVID.

What they’re not saying is our government wasn’t willing to invest its political capital, didn’t think its population was caring and smart enough, to have better public health campaigns that could protect us all from diseases that cost us billions of dollars of lost time, lost revenue, and medical expenses every year. Where’s the bravery in that?

“You’re so brave!”

For speaking truth to power, for standing up for justice when so many others don’t.

This can have a positive subtext to it when it’s about acts of allyship to other communities of which I am not a part. That is thank you for supporting our cause when so many others won’t. While it’s nice, my immediate thought is often “but why aren’t they though?”

And in those cases, I would be remiss not to recognize the privilege which affords me the ability to be vocal about injustice in ways that others might not be able to. My next meal doesn’t hang in the balance of a fickle employer whose political views I rail against. The worst that can happen is I might lose some friends and business. I will be fine.

But when I am talking about my own oppression, and this compliment comes from someone who is largely unaffected by it, this compliment has a tinge of I don’t know what it’s like to feel like I have to talk about my people’s struggle. Marginalized people aren’t “brave” for speaking up. They hardly have a choice if they want things to improve. They can either become part of the hegemonic beast, or try to pluck out its fur one by one if that’s what it takes.

Matter of perspective

Bravery is in the eye of the beholder. The calculus looks different from the other side, it always does. What looks like choosing danger by the observer might look like choosing the small but meaningful shot at something better by the “brave” one. What looks like an unexplainable choice, might be a no brainer to the one making it. What might seem like a hard choice, might be no choice at all.

But even beyond being in the eye of the beholder, I’d argue that “bravery” is a mask. A myth. A choice the observer would rather not make for themselves. Maybe it isn’t right for them or they have better options. There’s nothing wrong with that, I just wish we could acknowledge it more.

Inadequate

It’s really that bravery is an inadequate word to express the way we view someone’s choices, what choices we think we would make in their stead, and what these choices say about us. It’s a way to side step the shame we’ve been taught to have about the privilege we have, because it has become privilege we hoard. It’s a lie we tell ourselves to keep going, and the lie that others tell us when they need us to keep going. Bravery is a myth. And it belies the uncomfortable journeys we never took. Either because we didn’t want to, or because we didn’t have to.