few months ago, my 10-year-old daughter and I went to our neighborhood cafe. At the counter, the owner greeted us with her typical effusion of warmth and welcome. Instead of greeting her in kind, my daughter looked on with a stony expression and ungiving eyes.

My face flushed. I was embarrassed and incensed by what I perceived as blatant rudeness. You could at least smile, I thought.

When we left, I pulled my daughter aside and gave her a firm talk about respect and manners, but her face dropped and she looked like she might cry. I quickly realized that she was in a bad mood, and totally unaware of her external affect. I felt bad for not approaching the conversation differently – I had assumed she recognized her impoliteness, that she was taking a stab at playing "sulky irreverent teen".

That's when it hit me: by dictating that she should comport herself contrary to how she was actually feeling, I was reinforcing society's attempts to mold girls and women into automatons who reflexively try to please everyone but themselves. It's ironic, because I had written an entire book to warn her about doing just that: Ugly: A Letter to My Daughter. I knew these types of messages often lead to what psychologist Mary Pipher writes about in Reviving Ophelia: a "split self" that often results in the creation of a "false self" in line with gendered expectations.

Psychologists and studies indicate that an over-investment in people-pleasing and the quest to appear "nice" are emotionally costly. They amplify stress, impede individual fulfillment and self-actualization, and can lead to self-alienation.

I had to ask myself: isn't my daughter entitled to be in a bad mood? To not mirror someone else's happy disposition? Why should she fake a smile or express enthusiasm she doesn't feel? Surely being raised to participate in these gendered theatrics is where the "split" Pipher talks about begins.

Don't get me wrong – I don't think manners are trivial. Smiling, holding the door, greeting people and expressing gratitude nurture mutual respect and affection between friends and strangers alike. But a lesson in politeness can so easily tip into encouraging servility in girls.

I've spent most of my life people-pleasing. It wasn't until the last few years of my 40s that I started resisting that urge.

But before then, how often had I violated my own feelings, boundaries and wishes to ensure I was likable? How often had I said "yes" to plans I didn't really want to partake in or echoed a sentiment I didn't entirely agree with?

My deep – nearly existential – desire to be likable came, in part, from feeling abnormal and believing I could hide my queerness with 24/7 agreeability. Concealing my lesbianism in situations that felt unwelcome – or worse, unsafe – I'd adopted the affectations of femininity in various ways. As long as I remained feminine in my extreme likability, I could offset the internal and external cultural messaging that lesbians are angry, ugly freaks. But nothing made me realize the extent to which I wanted to be liked as when I started substitute teaching at public schools in New York City at the age of 48.

The first time I stood in front of a classroom buzzing with unimpressed kids, I desperately, stupidly, pathetically wanted them to like me. I felt like an awkward teenage girl again, trying to adapt to 10-year-old notions of cool. I softened my voice and overworked the muscles in my face to evince a perma-smile, even when students were being loud, disruptive and disrespectful.

I felt angry, but knew better than to yield to a displeasing scowl or a voice tinged with fury.

As feminist journalist Rebecca Traister put it in her brilliant book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger: "Women's anger will be – as it has long been – cast as ugly, unappealing, dangerous, something to be shut down or jeered. Nothing, we have long been assured, is more unattractive in a woman than anger."

Think of all the language used to describe – or rather, dismiss – an irritated or furious woman. She's difficult, aggressive, challenging, crazy, a witch, a bitch, a Medusa, a hellcat. Her "upset" is pathologized – and it's enough to make any woman reach for the social ease of likability.

For me, as a queer person whose gender isn't fully aligned with traditional femininity, I felt that expressing my anger would only amplify my aesthetic inadequacies. Being cheerful was a way to soften my less conventional presentation and manner – to sidestep the "angry lesbian" trope and the ugliness other people ascribe to it.

Furious outbursts and chronic expressions of anger are never acceptable in a classroom, but neither is quietly enduring inappropriate behavior. The days of stiff smiles and a voice dripping with syrup began grating on me. I didn't want to tacitly teach children that misbehavior and disrespect would be greeted with a silent, acquiescent smile. I needed to get comfortable with my authority and their displeasure, fast.

I started watching seasoned teachers manage their classrooms and I noticed the most effective educators followed four core practices: they give clear directives about what behavior is and is not acceptable at the outset and throughout the school year. They address transgressors immediately after they have defied a classroom rule, every single time. They balance discipline with affection and encouragement. Finally, they are not punitive.

In return, they earned more than likability – they earned students' respect and trust. I adopted these practices and even started applying them to my life outside the classroom.

s I've gained more experience, turned 50 and experienced the many daily assaults of perimenopause, I've grown less patient and less concerned with popular opinion. These days, I raise my voice, clarify my boundaries and express discontent with insolence.

Now, instead of going along with what other people say, I'm more assertive. "Thanks for inviting me, but I feel like nesting today," I might respond during an exhausting week. Or, to friends who pick restaurants closer to their neighborhood than mine, I might redirect: "Hey, can we meet somewhere in the middle?"

The likability norm still has its hold on me. But what's really helped me get comfortable with the discomfort of not people-pleasing is wanting to model for my daughter the OK-ness of disappointing others or setting them straight. And I've started to see her do the same: she told a boy who liked her that she only wanted to be friends. At a slumber party, she took out a book while her friends played Roblox. On a family vacation, her cousin wanted to play inside, but she wanted to go to the beach – so she went by herself.

It's not easy to disappoint people or go it alone, especially in the face of resistance; women often face gaslighting, retaliation, even violence when they refuse to accept mistreatment. In those moments, do I feel like the strands of my hair have transformed into snakes and that I've just sprouted a face full of warts? Yes. Do I care? Less and less, especially when I see my male colleagues, with their broad shoulders and deep voices, command attention and respect to a degree I'm denied. This is, of course, a symptom of a sexist culture – one we have no hope of changing until we stop over-prioritizing everyone else's pleasure and comfort above our own.

And ultimately, I don't care how people respond to my assertiveness. What matters to me is that I'm demarcating my limits, which is critical to my own dignity and self-respect. But dropping the mask of accommodation and self-denial doesn't just affect the individual. The more we all do it, the more it feels OK to express our full humanity – our likability and our disagreeability, our beauty and our ugliness.