When you have privilege, don’t waste it on playing small

Sometimes survival means shrinking strategically. Other times, shrinking just means losing.

Last week I wrote this little note post about being brave enough to show up in your full style. Basically: stop hiding, wear the thing.

And then my friend

Xue

left a comment calling out how that was a privileged take (essentially, but she was a lot more thoughtful in her comment).

And, she’s right.

Because for a lot of people, “just be yourself” isn’t cute Pinterest wisdom. It can actually be dangerous. Sometimes literally—like risking violence. Sometimes professionally—like being taken less seriously. Sometimes socially—like being iced out of your community.

I didn’t expand on that in my original post (it was short), but it deserves its own space. So here we are.

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Why people flinch at the word privilege

People get prickly when you bring up privilege. It’s like you’ve just accused them of being a bad person.

But privilege isn’t about being good or bad. It’s not even about what you’ve done. Most of the time, it’s just who you are. And you don’t get to opt out of that.

Here’s my example. I grew up in India, in a Brahmin family—the so-called “highest” caste. For years, I thought caste didn’t matter anymore. My parents had married across castes, India had technically abolished the system. Surely this was over, right?

Nope.

See, you don’t have to announce your caste. Your last name does it for you. And while I can’t map out every door that’s swung open for me because of that, I’ve definitely felt the subtle shifts.

One time on a plane, I sat next to a very fancy lawyer. At some point he asked my name. Then: “So, are you Brahmin?” I said, “yes”, wondering what that had to do with anything. And boom. The vibe changed. Suddenly I was getting free legal advice like we were old family friends. Nothing about me had changed but the signal my last name sent, that changed everything.

That’s privilege. Sometimes it is visible (color of skin), sometimes it is invisible but still present (like my example above).

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But it’s not one-size-fits-all

Privilege isn’t a stamp that follows you everywhere. It shifts depending on where you are and who you’re with.

• If I’m applying for a job in India, my caste might give me an edge. But walking home at midnight in Delhi is different. A man of any caste has more privilege than me because he’s not worried about his safety in the same way.

• A senior Black colleague once explained it perfectly: at the office, his title gives him more privilege than me. But if we’re pulled over by the cops? Suddenly I’m the one with more privilege.

It moves. It flips. It stacks.

So the better question isn’t “Do I have privilege?” (Spoiler: yes, somewhere, you do. If you are reading this, you do.) The real question is: what do I do with it when I have it?

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Where style comes into this

This is bigger than style, of course (understatement of the year). But style is my sandbox here, it’s where I test all this stuff.

Because yes, sometimes “bringing your whole self to work” is total nonsense. There are real stakes. Black women still get dinged for wearing braids. Muslim women face discrimination for wearing hijabs. Queer folks deal with casual (and not-so-casual) policing of how they present. That’s not imagined.

But other times the barrier isn’t the system—it’s internal. It’s us, editing ourselves down when nobody’s even asking us to. The hologram I want to break us out of when we can, and for those who can, is that this is changeable.

When I did this, it changed the game for me. For years, I dressed smaller than I actually wanted to at work. My office is super chill, no one cared. But I still kept myself quiet through my clothes. Just in case.

And then one day I stopped. I wore what I actually wanted to wear. And—shocker—nothing exploded. In fact, it made me better. My confidence showed up before I even opened my mouth.

And because this comes up every time I talk about this—while I do have status or title privilege at work now, that wasn’t always the case. I embraced my style at work way before I got the title privilege I have today. It was at least 3 promotions ago.

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Knowing the difference

Here’s the tricky part: sometimes holding back is about survival, and sometimes it’s about fear.

And honestly? It’s not always easy to tell the difference.

First, I’m not dismissing the “fear of being different” as if it’s nothing. Feeling ostracized by your community is a real consequence. Humans are wired for belonging. Being iced out hurts, even if it’s not life-or-death.

But if your inner knowing hasn’t given you a clear answer yet, one way to figure it out is by taking small risks.

Like, say the uniform in your circle is Lily Pulitzer sundresses. Meanwhile, you secretly want to be head-to-toe R13. That’s a pretty big leap.

So instead of showing up tomorrow in shredded denim and combat boots, start smaller: swap the heels for Converse. See what happens.

Do people comment? Probably. Can you sit with that? Can you remind yourself: the world didn’t end, I just wore sneakers?

That’s how you build your DGAF muscle. Step by step, risk by risk.

And the stronger that muscle gets, the easier it becomes to tell the difference between “this is actually unsafe” and “this is just uncomfortable.”

The big question to ask here is, “am I being strategic or am I being afraid?”. If you are being strategic, like the comment from

solsticecrown

here:

I work in healthcare, in a high-stakes field, so think a lot about how what I am wearing will impact how my patients will feel about having me care for them. I see myself as creative and enjoy spending time thinking about style, but I also appreciate that those aren’t qualities my patients will want front of mind—they’re looking for somebody trustworthy, dedicated, compassionate, wise. And I want and need my colleagues to see me as those things too. Sometimes that feels like a limitation on my style. But I try and see it as a creative constraint.

Great! You are acting based on what is best for you. But if you are playing small, the energy of that and what that does to your psyche in all other areas of life is just different.

The end result of the two choices might even look the same — black pants, a safe blouse, something that blends in. From the outside, no one can tell if that choice was made out of strategy or out of fear.

But you will know, deep inside.

And that’s the real distinction. Strategy protects you. Fear shrinks you. And the quiet damage that shrinking does to your confidence is exactly what I’m asking you to notice as you start taking small risks.

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Why it’s worth it

So why even bother? Why not just avoid the risk altogether?

Because women lose when we play small.

It’s practically baked into how we’re raised. Men are taught to take risks. Women are taught to be nice, likable, palatable. To not ruffle feathers and to make everyone else comfortable first.

One of my favorite books on this is Brave, Not Perfect by Reshma Saujani (she’s the founder of Girls Who Code). Her whole argument is that girls are raised to be “perfect” — which, let’s be real, is just code for playing small. Be nice. Be likable. Don’t take risks. Meanwhile, boys are encouraged to take swings, screw up, and keep going.

The result? Women grow up terrified of rocking the boat, while men grow up fluent in risk. Saujani’s push is for women to practice bravery in small ways, every day — even if it’s messy, even if people talk.

Which is basically what I’m saying here: you don’t start by burning down the dress code. You start by swapping your fitted blazer for a slouchy one and seeing if you can stand the comments. That’s how you build the muscle.

So every time we take a small risk with style—even if it’s just sneakers instead of heels, or heels instead of sneakers if that is your variation of a risk—we’re doing more than getting dressed. We’re practicing resistance. We’re teaching ourselves that our job isn’t to disappear, it’s to exist. Loudly, if we feel like it.

These small acts stack. And over time, that’s how the needle moves.

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The ripple effect is real

Because of my position at work, pushing the envelope style-wise made others feel like they could, too. I’ve had coworkers tell me, “I only started dressing up because I saw you doing it.”

It’s not that I inspired them, it’s more like I gave them permission.

Same thing with a friend of mine who started dressing up for school drop-off. All the other moms wore sweats (but fashionable, $$$ sweats). She showed up in something more elevated coz sporty sweats just wasn’t her vibe. At first, people made comments. But then slowly, other moms started showing up differently too.

Or maybe it’s you. You live in a city where “good style” = “flattering” and blending in. But you love oversized-on-oversized. You wear it anyway. People stare. And then a 15-year-old girl sees you and thinks, Wait. That’s allowed?

That’s how it spreads. Permission is contagious.

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My takeaway

Sometimes holding back is about survival (smart). Other times it’s just fear dressed up as constraints.

Only you can decide which one it is.

But when you do have privilege? The real question is: are you keeping it to yourself or are you cracking the door open so the rest of us can sneak through too?

And honestly, if you’ve got privilege and you’re not at least occasionally using it to wear the ridiculous oversized pants you secretly love THEN what are we even doing here?!

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