Deputy Minister Stella's Message to Women: Stop Being a Nice Girl!

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Deputy Minister for Higher Education, Science, and Technology, Stella Christie, delivered a message to all women at the pinnacle of leadership to refrain from being a “nice girl”. This term implies that women must stop trying to please everyone around them.

“Stop being a nice girl. I am serious; this is my message. These are not foreign words to me. They come from a woman I greatly admire, Maya Angelou, a writer,” Stella stated at the Top Women Fest 2026 on Wednesday (29/4/2026).

Stella continued that women generally tend to apologise in every situation. This is largely influenced by women’s nature of avoiding conflict with anyone.

For example, women often face the fear of expressing disagreement or saying no when reluctant to do something. However, expressing refusal ultimately becomes difficult for women.

“But do not misunderstand; when we only want to please the people around us to be nice. We only want to avoid conflict so that we feel like good people. We will lose our voice, we will lose direction on what is truly right and what we actually need to accomplish,” she explained.

Then, Stella added, such an attitude will instead erase the voices of those who truly need to be fought for but may not be present at that moment.

At the end of her message, Stella reaffirmed the quote from writer Maya Angelou. At that time, she said, “Stop being a nice girl. When you are always agreeable, always polite, and always cautious not to upset anyone. To avoid conflict, you avoid conflict at the cost of clarity and truth.”

From there, Stella advised all women who aspire to be leaders to be themselves and never become someone who is overly accommodating to others.

“So if we want to be leaders, stop being a nice girl and be who you are,” she emphasised.

Thanks to her dedication in the field of education, Stella successfully received the Top Woman Advancing Research & Innovation award at the Top Women Fest 2026. Stella is a cognitive science academician and an alumna of two world-renowned universities, Harvard University and Northwestern University.

Not only pursuing knowledge from the world’s best universities, Stella Christie also joined scientific organisations such as the Cognitive Science Society and produced numerous scientific research works on cognitive science, which form part of her contributions to Indonesia and globally.