Being a woman means never having to say sorry

06 January 2016 - 02:39 By ©The Daily Telegraph

A new e-mail tool has been launched to help women "stop apologising" in e-mails. "Just not sorry" is a new Gmail plug-in that scans your e-mail drafts to highlight words such as "just", "sorry", "I think" and "I'm not expert".The idea is to help women "stop qualifying their message" and" diminishing their voice".It is the brainchild of software developers Cyrus Innovation as part of their Female Founder initiative and is available as a free plug-in to download.Creator Tami Reiss explained that she was inspired to develop the tool after noticing a group of successful women "softening their speech in situations that called for directness and leadership".She wrote on blogging site Medium: "When someone uses one of these qualifiers, it minimises others' confidence in their ideas."The plug-in launched last week and has already been downloaded more than 27000 times.Reiss told CNN Money: "We had set a goal of 10000 downloads by the new year. We hit that mark on the morning of the second day."The tool works by underlining words in e-mails that could undermine the writer's message.Hovering your cursor over the highlighted word brings up a quote from a successful woman to deter you from using it. Examples include: "'I'm no expert' undermines your idea and displays an overall lack of self-confidence" - by veteran business journalist Lydia Dishman.Another, from women's leadership expert Tara Sophia Mohr, reads: "'Just' demeans what you have to say. 'Just' shrinks your power. It's time to say goodbye to the justs." ..

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