You have made it in your career and proud of your achievements. Or maybe you are scaling the ladder of success and doing just fine! You are an intelligent woman who has something valuable to say but when you open your mouth to speak, you are talked over, ignored or rudely interrupted. Frustrating yes, infuriating always but just to let you know you are in very good company. Women have made into the bastions of power in corporate Australia, into boardrooms and into the highest levels of government. But even with this success, when they speak, why are sometimes still being talked over, ignored and interrupted.
This week Senior minister Anne Ruston was asked if culture for women had improved in the liberal party. Before she could say three words, Scott Morrison interrupted her and went on to answer for her.
Then we have the vision of Scott Morrison and every single government frontbencher turning their back on Tanya Plibersek while she was speaking.
Julie Bishop was looking back at her pollical career explained that she’d put forward a new policy or initiative and then:
“Nothing. Halfway around the room, a guy will say exactly what I said. Exactly my idea, exactly my initiative, and the others will say ‘Brilliant, what a genius idea’.” Julie Bishop
Do women need to change so they can be heard?
Do we need to speak louder? Change the tone of our words? Become aggressive and bang the table so that they will all just shut up and listen?
Actually, no, no no and no!
It is the workplace that needs to give space for women’s voices and opinions to be heard not women who need to change.
There is a wonderful piece written in “The conversation” by Michelle Ryan, Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology, University of Exeter, about how much we victim blame women and how we disempower them by asking them to change while doing nothing about the workplaces that are actually the source of disempowerment. Check it out.
Empowering women is not about changing them. It is about giving women permission to recognize the injustices in their own world and the courage through the power of the collective to change it.
So what can women do while we wait for the change in workplaces that sometimes feels like that it will never come.
Persist, persist and persist and then persist some more
In 2017, the United States Senate voted to silence Senator Elizabeth Warren's objections to the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions as U.S. Attorney General. Senator McConnell was speaking in favour of the motion to silence Senator Warren when he said:
Senator Warren was giving a lengthy speech. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
The expression “Nevertheless, she persisted” was then adopted as a battle cry for women everywhere who felt they were being silenced.
As you are trying to get your voice heard, in some spheres of work, there will be undoubtedly be resistance. You do need to persist. Say it again and if you are still not being heard, say it again and again.
Eventually, the resistance will basically give up! And because you have something intelligent to add to the debate, people will then start to seek out your opinion. But you need to say it first and be heard!
If you are the one in a leadership position, give women space to speak.
This is true for both female and male leaders. It is workplaces that need to create an environment where women are given not only the space to speak but also the space to speak without being interrupted and talked over.
At the end of the meeting go around the table and ask everyone’s opinion. Even if you are not the one in leadership, if a woman has been interrupted or spoken over, point out that you are interested in hearing her full opinion and ask to hear it. By doing so, you are re-affirming her right to be heard.
Support women that do speak out and command space in the debate
Any change in workplaces will only take place if women command space in the debate and call out instances of where the behaviour is not acceptable.
It was disappointing that Tania Plibersek did not call out the rudeness of Scott Morrison and his front bench or that Anne Rushton did not in some way provide commentary on her right to be able to answer questions which are actually directed to her without being talked over. There are forces at work here in both political parties that stops women “rocking the boat”. The same forces also stop women calling out this behaviour in their workplaces
But there are women who will call out their right to be heard. We need to support them.
Women like Maxine Waters, a US congresswoman who made famous the term: ”Reclaiming my time” when US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin was monopolising the time allotted to her question.
The statement: “When you are on my time, I can reclaim it” is a forceful reminder that women can reclaim ownership of the time that is being taken away from them.
It is time to for women not only to reclaim this time but also to reclaim all their words, thoughts and achievements which history has whitewashed from existence. Time that has been wasted by all the interruptions and others monopolising our time as well as women's space in history.
Fake it until you make it
Vice Presidential debates are usually boring affairs. But there was one phrase from Kamala Harris that lit up the twitter stratosphere. Tired of being interrupted, she simply said to Vice President Mike Pence:
Mr Vice President, I’m speaking
When he interrupted her again, she said:
I’m still speaking
With those simple statements, we reclaimed her right not only to speak uninterrupted but to be heard.
Not all of us can be like Kamala Harris, with decades of prosecutorial and political experience behind her but we can take the confidence and conviction that she used to firmly reclaim her time during the debate with the now famous line: Mr Vice President, I am speaking and "fake it until we make it."
Even if we are nervous as hell, act with the same confidence and conviction.
Practice those words “I’m speaking”.
Practice the look.
Practice the command in her voice over and over again until the spirit of Kamala Harris, is in your words and use them next time you are interrupted, cut off or ignored.
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