Translator: Mannen Asefa Reviewer: Denise RQ
Hello.
I'm a woman,
and speaking,
rocking the double X chromosome right here.
That's how I roll.
I always thought that feminism was something they'd fixed in the 70s.
You know, like they had a big bonfire,
and they threw all of these bras on it,
and everyone grew luxurious armpit hair,
and then it was just solved.
They'd done it; sexism was over.
They were like, "That's great, will meet back here on Monday.
We'll tackle racism and homophobia. See you guys then."
And I thought this is great.
This is wonderful.
I can just be a brain with legs.
It turns out that's not actually the case.
It turns out we still need feminism, it's still doing things for us.
There's a moment in every life
when you become aware you're playing through life,
not just in 'person mode', but in 'lady mode.'
Which is a fun mode,
better outfits.
You can wear dresses, they're just big shirts,
and suddenly, you look good.
But otherwise, there are subtle difficulties.
There are all these unexpected tasks that you have to perform.
The moment when you realize,
"I'm playing through this in 'lady mode' and not 'person mode',"
they give you this metaphorical manual.
When you read through it, with all these instructions,
you begin to wonder
if someone was confused somewhere along the line.
It seems like you're a sort of superhero, or a mutant, or a werewolf.
They keep holding you accountable for other people's comfort.
It's like Cyclops.
He has to wear this visor all the time, or he will melt people with his vision.
That's my understanding of it from the X-Men.
With women it's things like that, but for talking.
They are holding you accountable
for how comfortable the people around you are,
which is weird because you are not a couch.
(Laughter)
You're not a sweater.
That would be a normal setting to hold somebody accountable
for how comfortable you make them.
There are all these instructions.
If you ever wear leggings to school instead of pants;
they have to shut the whole place down,
they send you home;
Montana tried to pass a law against wearing leggings as pants.
This is a fact, this happened.
They think the sea is going to rise, and people are going to riot and panic.
You have such power.
Or if you are walking down the sidewalk,
and you won't smile when a guy asks you to,
he follows you for blocks.
He's like, "Why aren't you smiling? You are ruining my day."
You have such power.
Or if you're in a meeting,
and you just state your opinion in a straightforward manner.
People panic!
They are like, "Why are you so bitchy?"
(Laughter)
"Who upset you?"
"Who urinated on your breakfast of choice?"
"Why are you so unreasonably angry?"
Jennifer Lawrence did this once,
and everyone around her just flipped.
As a consequence of this great power we wield,
most women have learned how to speak two languages,
or like four, you can be fluent in languages,
but the second language is something I like to call "Woman in a Meeting,"
where you take your thought and you crochet a verbal sweater for it.
(Laughter)
So the edges don't bump anybody,
or poke them or make them uncomfortable.
Let me give you a little example of this.
You try to say a good manly phrase like, "Give me liberty or give me death!"
You put that into a woman in a meeting, and it comes out,
"Well, Dave, I just think liberty would be terrific,
but of course, the alternative might be awful;
frankly, just in my opinion, just take it for what it's worth."
Or if you're trying to say, "Let my people go!"
It comes out, "Well, Pharaoh, have you given any consideration?
I don't want to butt in here, Dave.
I just-- if you gave some consideration to maybe not holding people?
Just a thought. Just a thought, I don't know.
Maybe we covered this."
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Or if you're like, "I will be heard!"
It's like, "No, no Dave, you go ahead."
(Laughter)
There is actually a cottage industry, apart from this,
of critiquing how women talk.
It's not just "Woman in a Meeting" speak.
I think some people on the Internet think
we are doing this on purpose to amuse ourselves,
like we go into meetings,
"I'm going to speak this way, just for funsies."
They have all these articles being like,
"If you just remove 'just' from your vocabulary,
the workplace would be solved.''
Oh, no! I just said it.
Oh, no! I just said it again.
Oh no, I keep saying it!
There are all these articles that if you listen to them,
you can't ever use vocal fry, or up talk,
or end your sentence in a question, and you can't use baby talk,
and you certainly can't say 'sorry, '
and you certainly can't say 'just, '
and definitely no saying 'just sorry.'
And by the time you're done with it,
you're just growling and beating your chest,
or silent,
which could alternatively be the point.
When I first noticed this phenomenon,
I wrote about "Woman in a Meeting Speak,"
and I got deluged with all these emails from women in all kinds of walks of life:
in the business world, science world
I got a letter from a lady scientist who was like, "This has happened to me.
People have said, 'You don't use enough smiley faces in your emails'."
(Laughter)
Why are we making our lady scientists type smiley faces into their emails?
This is not a good use of anyone's time.
Especially not when they could be doing science.
That's what gives us lights and sounds.
I'm unclear on how science works, let's go back to the talk.
(Laughter)
Not because I am a woman, just because I am an English major.
When I hear all of these things that we have to do,
just to get into the room, just to sheath our tremendous power,
I'm reminded of this quote from Ann Richards, the Governor of Texas,
where she used to say,
"Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did,
but she had to do it backwards and in high heels."
I think that's sort of where we are;
it's not like we are not dancing.
It's great to be up there and dancing, in the room and in that meeting,
and working outside the home,
and hey, we can own land and property, that's terrific;
we can vote,
we aren't being married off at 14 and thrown into dungeons,
and if we are, that's human trafficking, and there are laws that cover that.
(Laughter)
But at the same time,
there are all these little accommodations we are constantly being forced to make.
Not big deal accommodations, not things that will keep you down forever,
just an added level of difficulty
when all you want to do is play through your day in 'person mode, '
and you're being forced to play it through 'lady mode' again.
And I think there's a not too hard of a fix to this.
Mostly, the fix is just letting people know it's happening.
Because when I've written about this,
I've gotten responses from 50% of the room being like,
"Yes, I've done this, I'm a woman, this has happened."
The other 50% of the room being like,
"I've never noticed a woman doing this in my life.
This has not been my experience. What ladies are you hanging out with?"
You just have to let people know this is going on.
This is happening.
This is sort of a makeup problem.
The number of times guys say, "You look wonderful without makeup."
And I'm like, I'm wearing makeup.
(Laughter)
How I look without makeup is me wearing makeup.
This is makeup.
It's a problem like that.
It's something where once you see it, you can't unsee it.
Like sexism in laundry commercials.
(Laughter)
They are ruined forever.
And once you notice it, you can start adjusting,
you can say, "Hey, wait a second,
if a woman doesn't put a smiley face in an email,
it's not because she is upset,
it's because she is a person sending an email.
I can't believe I have to go through this.
If a woman doesn't put an exclamation mark
at the end of her sentence,
it's because she is a person sending an email.
It's not rocket neurosurgery.
(Laughter)
Once we figure this out, everyone will be in a better place.
We'll stop wasting time; adding sentences,
we won't have to download these apps that remove 'just' from your emails,
take out the exclamation points,
although, admittedly, my emails look like a forest of exclamation points
with words wandering lost among them.
We won't have to do any of that anymore because people will notice it,
and will stop;
and we can all play through our days in 'person mode.'
And the next time a little girl wants to get out there and dance,
she can do it forwards, in flats, the way they intended.
Thank you.
(Applause)