I always find it easier to speak up for other people than myself. One of the tricks I use when negotiating is to imagine I'm negotiating a salary for someone else so it stops being about me.
I'm also terrible at doing this, too. I think you're right though - it is easier to do it for someone else! But when you're in a confrontational situation that you haven't sought (unlike a salary negotiation, which you have probably sought), it's more about the "seat of your pants" type stuff, in which I tend to try to avoid escalation and/or the confrontation itself. Of course it's always easy to come up with "well I should have said x" or "I should have kicked him in the y" after it's over.
Seat of your pants type stuff is hard. It can help to go over all the "shoulda saids" afterwards so that you are a little quicker on the draw the next time. It also helps me personally to remember that just as I was socialized to behave a certain way, so were men. Many of them are happy to be given a different option for how to interact with women, assuming I give them the benefit of the doubt, treat it like a bad habit rather than a personal sin, and give them some option better than letting me abuse them instead of letting them abuse me.
Intended to be helpful, not critical. Have a great day and thank you for participating.
Yeah, to be fair, I am getting a bit better than I was 10 years ago about this stuff. I'm now far more likely to call someone out on bs than I was back then. But it's taken a long time and a lot of skin-thickening to get that courage up.
