Is No The New Yes?

This post is by guest blogger, Mary Schmidt, Marketing Troubleshooter.

Michele Miller recently posted How Much Do You Really Care? in which she discusses the new CVS "For All The Way You Care" campaign, which is targeted to women as caretakers.   The lead on the CVS site is:

We know it’s in your nature to care.

Now we’d like to hear your story.                 

Share it here and connect with others just like you.

Aside from the fact that most caretakers are going to be too busy to "share" - why would they want to...on a corporate website, with people they don't know. 

It's reality that women are often the caretakers - in family and business.  We suck it up, smile, say "yes" and add yet another task to our list.  However, that does not mean we want to be defined soley as  caretakers - and this CVS campaign just smacks of patronization and exploitation to me.  (Read Michele's post for her insight and there are also some great comments.)  We can indeed bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan...and then whack ya with the pan if need be. There are as many different types of female personalities and perspectives as there are women.   

Which brings me to "Is No The New Yes?"  I'm reading Happier, by Tal Ben-Sharar, Ph.D. - based on his class in positive psych at Harvard.  One of the tools he offers is sentence stems.  You complete a stem and use that to determine how you can be happier.  One of them is:

"If I am willing to say yes when I want to say yes and no when I want to say no..."   

We women generally have difficulty saying "no."  I mean, we're supposed to be the warm, fuzzy caretakers - right?  So, what would happen if we learned to say "no?"  I submit that that it would open a whole new world of "yes" to us - in life and business.  Not try to do everything - and instead do things about which we are truly passionate.  Better for everyone.

What do you think?