The U.S. Open Final was distressing on too many levels to count. This game felt like a bad dream — one where I was suffocated by the reality that, for women, power, success, and prestige might not matter as much as we’d like to think. Watching Williams, arguably the embodiment of female athletic prestige, be belittled by a chair umpire as the whole world watched felt like an all-too-familiar humiliation that all women and girls watching would recognize as well. After all, Saturday’s game was added proof that no matter how hard women work — how successful we become, how unmatched we are in our achievements, how famous and powerful our names are in the world — if we forego our niceness, we risk losing it all.