A Woman's Silence

A photo of him in bed with a naked woman flashed across his phone. He covered the panic in his face with a sip of beer.

I kept my mouth shut.

A parent called me a pathetic excuse for a coach and delighted in my smallness. Took pleasure in the power he emitted over a young female without support.

I lowered my eyes.

“It’s not as bad as you’re making it seem, hun. If you hire a lawyer you’ll probably lose.”

I never sent the paper trail of evidence.

These memories haunt me at night. Why didn't I say something? Why didn't I lash out with the venomous retort that they deserved? When did I learn that my voice was meant to be silenced and tucked away into the confines of a pink diary? My words not to be read by anyone but my snooping mother. I don’t recall the lesson on female voices in grade school, nor my parents explicitly teaching, “Thou shall not speak their mind nor stand up for themselves in times of difficulty.”

A woman's silence is learned through the things not spoken. It is absorbed through the words we label the women who dare to let their opinions out of the cage. We watch the women in politics who demand their spotlight and we listen, eyes wide, as they are called attention whores. Man haters. Shrill. Bitchy. We don't want those names taped across our backs. So we stay polite. It’s better than being mocked.

We tell our daughters that their voices matter, and then we cut them off when they explain what they need. We see our mothers interrupted by our fathers and watch their thoughts slip out the back door, unacknowledged. We stay silent, eager to keep the peace, while our brothers talk politics and raise their voices. We nod as the boys in the classroom act out and interrupt and are called “hyper” and “energetic.” We bite our lips when the girls who do the same are labeled “bossy,” “high maintenance,” and “condescending.”

How do we unlearn the subconscious messages that we’ve ingested since the day our mothers slipped a pink cap over our big bald heads? The same messages our grandmothers shoved in their pockets. The messages their grandmothers swallowed and then regurgitated.

We unlearn through practice. Through trial. Through communication and patience and understanding.

It's Women’s Work. That’s the mantra I repeat to myself every time I return home for the holidays and fall back into the gendered norms of my childhood. I’m the princess. The boys have loud discussions. I stay quiet and keep the peace. Neutralize the opposition. Be likeable. It's difficult to break these norms, because it's easier to just let things go. But letting things go allows these cycles of silence to be repeated.

We can turn to the women who are trailblazers. Dare to support them and to learn from them. We can research the trustworthy sources and use their guidance as a platform to model for our families and our peers. Deepa Narayan, an international advisor on poverty, gender, and development, researches how women are bred to be silenced in India and other countries. In her TED Talk, Narayan expands on the dangerous effects of muting women all over the globe. She explains:

Every habit is a learned habit, so we can unlearn them and this personal change is extremely important. . . . But this doesn't change the system that crushes millions of other women. So we have to go to the roots. We must change what it means to be a good woman and a good man, because this is a foundation of every society. We don't need elastic women, we need elastic definitions, for men too, and this big societal change cannot happen without men's involvement. (“7 Beliefs that can silence women—and how to unlearn them”)

Change is a slow and fickle being. It’s the small shifts of the mind. It's the brave comment at Thanksgiving dinner. It's trying again and again until someone hears you.

We need to teach girls that if they are interrupted in the middle of their thought, it is okay to command the attention back. More than okay, in fact, it’s what they should do. However, the responsibility does not fall on men to let women have their turn... nor on women to demand the mic at any given opportunity. The responsibility falls to the community. If someone criticizes a woman for speaking her mind, challenge them. Ask they why it bothers them. If you applaud the male president for being “outspoken,” a “bull horn,” and a “go-getter”… but you find most female politicians “unlikeable” and “rude”—stop and question the roots of your thinking. If you believe in equality, reflect on the subliminal messages that you emit to the world when you stay silent. When you interrupt. When you shrug your shoulders. When you let things go.

It’s time to set fire to the idea that loud women are distasteful and disgraceful. It’s never too late to say, “I’m speaking," as Kamala Harris did last week in the Vice Presidential debate. It's never too early to hold the nation accountable, as Emma González did after surviving yet another high school shooting in 2018.

At age 29 I’m still trying to find my strong voice. And I’ll keep trying. Even when I fail. If I don’t call out a sexist comment until it's too late. If I laugh at a joke that isn’t funny in order to make a man feel better. I try again. I rehearse my words so that, next time, I’ll be prepared to react with venom instead of forced giggles.