I am so obsessed with David Letterman’s Netflix show in which he interviews various prominent personalities in the world. I recently watched the episode with Ellen in which she so candidly spoke about her childhood trauma being sexually abused at the hands of her stepfather. The thing that stuck with me most was when she talked about women not having a voice.
So often we are made to feel small. We can’t speak up because we are too bossy. We must smile and offer opinions, but nothing too over the top. It’s okay to dismiss a romantic advancement but don’t be too pushy or you’re not that pretty anyways. Women are constantly taught to stay in our lane or be knocked off the track.
I’m a confident, very opinionated - woman. And yet there are still many times in which I have to stop and question when I should speak up. How much I should say. The tone I take. First and foremost for my own physical safety. But also because how I respond matters. It matters in relationships, at work, in public - how I use my voice is scrutinized in every setting simply because I am a woman.
Some people wonder why we are now having so many women speak up about sexual harassment and assault. They say we have to be making it up because how is this “all the sudden” happening everywhere we turn? Men are “afraid” to be around women at work and in bars because they “don’t want to be accused of being a bad guy.”
This stuff isn’t new. It’s been happening for hundreds of years. We just haven’t been able to use our voices to say stop. We have been belittled to the point of questioning whether or not we did make something a big deal. Maybe we were mistaken. Sure it was bad but I’m okay now so is it really that big of a deal? We talk ourselves out of feeling offended or taken advantage of or abused because we don’t get the voice that men do in life.
When people in the spotlight come forward, when everyday women use their voices to say no more, women collectively get to raise our voices. We get to all feel like it’s okay to speak a little louder. Turn up the volume on the representation.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, America was not built for women. Women are not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. And so society as we know it was not built to keep women in mind. We don’t get a voice according to the forefathers.
Women were not given a voice in the world. And so we started out silent. But we are finding our voices now. And I sure as hell hope we continue to turn the volume up.