A Woman's Guide to Claiming Space

Stand Tall. Raise Your Voice. Be Heard.

Eliza VanCort

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781523092758
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Mental Health & Wellbeing

For too long, women have been told to confine themselves-physically, socially, and emotionally. Eliza VanCort says now is the time for women to stand tall, raise their voices, and claim their space. Women fight the pressure to make themselves small in private, professional, and public spaces. VanCort, a teacher, consultant, and speaker, provides the necessary tools for women to rewrite the rules and create the stories of their choosing safely and without apology. VanCort identifies the five key behaviors of all Space-Claiming Queens: use your voice and posture to project confidence and power, end self-sabotage, forge connections, neutralize unsafe spaces, and unite across differences. Through personal narrative, research, and actionable strategies, VanCort provides how-tos on combating challenges, such as antimentors and microaggressions, and gives advice for building up your old girls club, asking for what you're worth, and owning your space without apology. Bold, fun, and enlightening, this book is birthed from VanCort's incredible story. Having a mother with schizophrenia forced VanCort to learn to be small and invisible at an early age, and suffering a traumatic brain injury as an adult required her to rethink communication from the ground up. Drawing on these experiences, and those of real women everywhere, VanCort empowers women to claim space for themselves and for their sisters with courage, empathy, and conviction because when we rise together, we rise so much higher.

PART 1
CLAIM PHYSICAL SPACE

Bow to No One!

Claim physical space with your voice and your physicality.

And where she stood, she stood tall.

—THE LUMINEERS

We all know that woman who walks into a room and just has that something that turns heads. It’s not necessarily that she’s gorgeous or rich or famous, although let’s face it, those things don’t hurt. Primarily, it has to do with how she carries herself. We also may know people who might be beautiful or rich or famous who make themselves small, almost blending in with the walls.

A large part of how men command respect is physically and vocally. They claim massive amounts of space like it’s their damn job. This goes well beyond manspreading and taking both arm-rests. Women have been given the message that if we take up too much space with our bodies and voices, we are impolite, over-stepping, or—gasp!—unladylike. This, of course, is a setup. If we don’t claim space, we are invisible. If we do, we are too confident, strident, bitchy, or bossy.

The chapters in this part will teach you how to claim space by harnessing the power of both your body and your voice while inoculating yourself against damaging pushback.

To claim physical space for yourself is to claim the armrests—at least one of them! Allow your shoulders to expand rather than contract, and use your voice in ways that say in no uncertain terms that, when you speak, you deserve to be heard.

I have two careers that I love. I teach communication skills, and I run an acting studio specializing in the Sanford Meisner technique, which is all about the minutiae of human behavior and the nuances of communication. My acting students are consistently dumbstruck by how transformative a simple postural adjustment feels. I’ve also seen women in my communication workshops cry with relief after unlocking the power of their voices. The way we move in space is deeply rooted in our history. The way we carry ourselves has a profound impact on who we are, and on our emotional life.

A Personal History

Claiming space with my body and voice has been one of the most challenging, and most transformative, experiences of my life. My childhood was tumultuous, thanks in no small part to my moth-er’s paranoid schizophrenia. By the time I turned five, I was a hesitant, scared little girl. I spent a lot of my time alone, hunched over, quietly hiding behind my long curtain of thick, wavy, black hair, only peeking out occasionally. I lived life as if I were sneaking a look at a scary movie, waiting for the jump cut.

I telegraphed a message like a big neon sign with my body language: “I’m really scared and I’m damaged. Please pretend I’m invisible.”

As was apt to happen, kids read my sign and honored my wishes, steering far clear of me. So I was a lonely little girl, spending a lot of time surreptitiously watching other kids have fun together while I played make-believe solo with my dolls. Yet, deep down, I just didn’t feel like this was me. At school I’d watch my classmates laugh and play and scream with glee on the playground. I still remember how much I wanted to be one of them!

Then one day in fourth grade, two little girls skipped up to me while I was alone on the swings at recess. “We saw you were playing by yourself and wondered if you wanted to play with us.”

It felt like something out of a movie—I almost expected the heavens to open up while the music swelled and really flattering, warm sunlight hit our cheeks. This moment would change everything! I wanted to say, “Yes, yes, yes, I do! Thank you, thank you, thank you for asking!” Instead I looked away shyly and said in an almost inaudible whisper, “Yes, I’d like that.” With that, they both moved to either side of me and climbed onto the swings. As I swung higher and higher, sandwiched between my utterly perfect new friends, I was convinced they were saving my terrible fourth grade life. They sort of did.

I recently reconnected with one of those friends, Joan Ramage MacDonald. Joan is Professor MacDonald now, and she is still an exceptional human. She had no idea how impactful her seemingly small act of kindness had been.

Joan didn’t know that the moment she and Joanna pulled me into their little circle of thoughtful, caring girls was the moment I began to learn how to make friends and be a friend. But it had made a huge difference, and after that my confidence slowly grew.

I pulled my hair back enough to see just a little better. I stood up just a little straighter. I smiled more. I laughed out loud. I ran to the swings at recess, rather than walking quietly along the fence, hoping I didn’t bump into anyone. Eventually I started to appear on the outside like the person I felt I could be on the inside. I became more confident, and my body and voice reflected that confidence to the world. While all of this was happening, my parents put me in therapy. I can point to Joanna and Joan, and years of therapy, as the two pivotal events on my journey to presenting to the world as the woman I wanted to be.

If you have a critical meeting, or a career-altering keynote, or an interview for your dream job in a week or even a month, you don’t have time to wait for a Joan or Joanna to save you, and therapy takes years. In high-stakes situations like these, quick and effective solutions are needed.

Here’s the fascinating thing I discovered as an actor, and more dramatically as an acting teacher and communication coach: you can do this process in the opposite order, and with markedly faster results. You don’t have to feel more confident on the inside to look more confident on the outside. Learn to present with authority, and even if initially you don’t feel that way, you will be transformed.

The reason for this is twofold:

1. Our physicality and our emotional life are deeply interconnected. Externally present confidence and power, and in short order you will feel better internally.

2. People treat you the way they perceive you. When you present more powerfully and confidently, you will be perceived that way by others. Act like you’re scared, and they’ll treat you like you’re weak and fragile. Act with authority and you’ll be treated with respect.

The chapters in this part will give you concrete tools to transform your external self—your physicality and voice. This will change the way you’re received and, in turn, treated by others.

This stuff is powerful, and it works.

I have seen client after client transform their entire lives after learning just one of the skills from these chapters. Women who couldn’t get hired have received multiple offers after changing their approach to a handshake. Self-proclaimed “terrible negotiators” have negotiated huge deals, or higher pay, with a combination of mirroring and vocal adjustments. And women who weren’t taken seriously suddenly have found themselves heard and respected after a simple postural reset.

Learning to claim space confidently and effectively with your body and your voice is straightforward and easy to understand. That said, adopting these skills may not feel comfortable at first. That’s OK—just dive in and practice. Eventually, you will move from “This feels like it’s just not me” to “Oh my God, I finally feel like the total space-claiming boss lady I’ve been working to be.”

POSTURE

A Brief History of My Breasts

In fourth grade I began developing breasts at seemingly lightning speed. I legitimately worried my breasts would grow so huge that one day, whilst walking the busy halls of my middle school, I would lose my balance and tumble forward, my books and my hopes of ever being cool simultaneously crashing down around me. (Thankfully, this did not happen. I never did, however, achieve my goal of being a cool middle schooler.) Going from flat chested to curvy, on top of being taller than almost all of the other girls, made me feel deeply, profoundly uncomfortable in my own skin. To hide my body, and to be shorter and smaller than the boys, I began to stand a bit like that creepy, scraggly white-haired guy in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Thankfully, years later, I happened upon a two-year acting program in the Sanford Meisner technique, the technique I fell in love with and have spent most of my career teaching. I wasn’t slumping like The Rocky Horror Picture Show guy at this point, but my posture wasn’t stellar. My Meisner class was a posture game changer. Meisner teaches something called “physical adjustments” to help actors create a character.

Physical Adjustments

A person changes something external about herself (body or voice), triggering a radical internal change (inner emotional life).

I soon discovered that the characters I worked on in class with good posture always felt more confident. This happened predictably, no matter the character. Once I figured this out, I decided I wanted to live my life feeling that way and began standing straight not just on stage, but off.

The impact was immediate and staggering. Men did not harass me as much on the streets. I was interrupted less. I was even given more time in auditions! Overall, I was simply treated better and with more respect. My subsequent confidence boost created a wonderful feedback loop. Stand straight, get more respect, work even harder to stand straight consistently. Rinse. Repeat.

I’ve kept up my good posture ever since, and I have no doubt my posture is part of why people tell me I project authority. Now I border on obnoxious when it comes to preaching about better posture. Change your posture, and both your body and self-esteem will thank you. Change your posture, change your life!

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