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Definition of "self-assertion" [self•-as•ser•tion]

  • Determined advancement of one's own personality, wishes, or views. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "self-assertion" in a sentence
  • "This is an enterprise whose domain encompasses the politics of identity, of religious zeal, of race or class or national resentment, of victimization, of cheek and self-assertion."
  • "We may have two political wings but inordinate celebration of the individual self is not confined to either; it has become a cultural norm that suggests insecurity beneath exaggerated self-assertion, and not for irrational reasons."
  • "That's particularly stirring in a crucial moment of self-assertion—"Am I a machine without feelings?" she begins—with Michael Fassbender's forbiddingly handsome Rochester."