I read a lot about women and public speaking, and post my finds first on The Eloquent Woman on Facebook. But I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. Here's what I've been reading lately:
Trolls. In your face: Anita Sarkeesian is a frequently trolled speaker--her topic is sexism in video gaming--and this must-read explains just what that feels like for this seasoned speaker. Uncomfortable read, but essential.
Hovercraft for speakers: A public-speaking woman must be dangerous if her husband has to hover over her while she gives a speech...in this case, Melania and Donald Trump.
Another silencer: The new White House communications director undercut his press secretary by suggesting she needed more hair and makeup help--on national TV. When we're directed to consider a woman's appearance, research shows, we view her as less competent.
Perhaps you do not expect a keynote address from a high-level international symposium on coastal resilience, a climate change issue, to make the cut for Famous Speech Friday, even if it is given by the wife of the Prime Ministerr of Japan, Akie Abe.
But this 2014 speech, given at the Ford Foundation in New York, recently made headlines after U.S. President Donald Trump gave an interview to the New York Times and brought up his dinner partner at a G20 summit of world--and her English skills. From the interview transcript:
TRUMP: So, I was seated next to the wife of Prime Minister Abe [Shinzo Abe of Japan], who I think is a terrific guy, and she’s a terrific woman, but doesn’t speak English. HABERMAN: Like, nothing, right? Like zero? TRUMP: Like, not “hello.” HABERMAN: That must make for an awkward seating. TRUMP: Well, it’s hard, because you know, you’re sitting there for—— HABERMAN: Hours. TRUMP: So the dinner was probably an hour and 45 minutes.
Where does the speech come in? Within hours of the interview being posted, the speech--delivered in fluent English, except for the short reading of a poem in Japanese--surfaced on the Internet. This led observers to the conclusion that the First Lady of Japan may have pretended not to speak English to avoid interacting with Trump.
But Women in the World pointed out that Abe had already met in more intimate settings with the President and First Lady of the U.S. on a state visit to America, having numerous conversations with each of them. Since neither Trump speaks Japanese, we might conclude that everyone spoke English. If so, Trump has managed to not only lie about her English skills, but to dismiss and silence the first lady of Japan by suggesting she is not the multilingual leader that she really is.
As for Abe, some observers suggest the snub during dinner was intentional, and a form of "nasty woman" pushback against Trump--speaking, whether during dinner or into a microphone, being a choice women can exercise. From The Guardian:
But these smaller acts of defiance – whether a handshake ignored or a conversation avoided – are significant too, performed as they are by women on the world stage. Such snubs are not the actions of mutely servile political wives but sentient, ideologically engaged women who are making their feelings known in the best way that they can.
Laying aside for the moment why a U.S. president needs to insult the wife of another world leader, what about the talk? Speaking from the perspective of a nation that experienced a major tsunami, Abe talked about the sea rise and the proposals to build gigantic 48-foot-tall sea walls, discussing the pros and cons of the proposal without advocating for one or the other. She advocated a preference for balanced approaches that dealt not only with the concerns of the moment, but future impacts. What can you learn from this famous speech?
Make use of poetry: Abe takes the time to read a short poem in Japanese, "so you can sense its distinct rhythm," since the Japanese language is nothing if not rhythmic at its heart. She then translates it as "The forest is longing for the sea/The sea is longing for the forest." It's a moment of connection and color in this speech, something you can emulate in your next speech. I'll be adding this one to our list of 7 famous poetic speeches by women.
Connect the poetry to the policy: The sea walls, of course, would separate the forest from the sea. Early in her speech, she describes Kensennuma, an area hard hit by the tsunami. Before the disaster, it was known for its seafood. Abe noted "the fish and shellfish, fresh and tasty as they may be, are dependent upon the land, or more precisely, the nourishment flowing downstream into the inlet from the mountain forests. Without them, the woods in the mountains, the water in the inlet cannot become enriched, and cannot grow its famous oysters. In Kesennuma at one point there emerged a group of oyster farmers who take the sea-mountain interplay so seriously that they took to the shore and began planting trees in the mountains."
Have a non-standard start and finish: So often, our public officials are talked into pro forma, typical, throat-clearing starts and mundane endings for their speeches. Not so here. Abe begins with "Among the many problems Japan faces, there is only one, at least to tell you about today." Yes, that gets your attention. And her ending--"Please give us your wisdom and ideas"--is perfect for a conference of experts. Starts and endings are places to be strong, to give emphasis, and to alert the audience of what's ahead in your speech and in the discussion to follow. Don't waste them on trivialities.
In short, it was a poetic, nuanced, smart policy speech...in fluent English.
Abe's remarks begin at about the 2:18 mark in the video below:
If this blog has a mission beyond making sure everyone gets the skills they need to be a great public speaker, it's this: Women speakers, whether they're giving a speech or speaking up in a workplace meeting, need to know about the silencers being deployed against them, and how to get over, around, and through them. And Donald Trump's recent sexist ploys--one violently graphic about TV presenter Mika Brzezinski, one flirty and coy with Irish journalist Caitriona Perry--are good demonstrations of this very common technique.
The incidents are two sides of the same coin. Two decades ago, a pair of social psychologists, Susan Fiske and Peter Glick, distinguished between what they called “hostile” and “benevolent” sexism. Hostile sexism manifests itself in derogatory or threatening comments about a woman’s appearance, capacities, or behavior. Benevolent sexism, by contrast, manifests itself in praise or chivalry that nonetheless reaffirms a woman’s subordinate status. Telling your female coworker that she’s ugly is an expression of hostile sexism. Telling your female coworker that she’s pretty is an expression of benevolent sexism. Sexually assaulting a female colleague is an expression of hostile sexism. Suggesting that a female colleague needs help carrying her bags is an expression of benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism may be more antagonistic and aggressive but benevolent sexism also conveys the message that women should be valued for their appearance, and that they are not equal to men.
The more a woman conforms to traditional gender norms, the more likely she is to experience benevolent sexism. The more she threatens them, the more likely she is to experience hostile sexism.
Though one is labeled "benevolent," neither type of sexism is kind or nice. The article goes on to note that both are expressions of male power. And I would add that they tend to have the effect of silencing women, for a variety of reasons. The man (or sometimes the woman) is counting on you to not "make things difficult" by objecting, and with benevolent sexism, may be trying to get you to thank him for doing it...so the focus is no longer on what you might want to say. You may not wish to draw the attention to yourself that the comments or action are drawing to you. You may just want it to stop. And you also know that bringing it up won't win you lots of friends, male or female. So you stay silent. In a hostile work environment, where benevolent and hostile sexism are rampant, you may silence yourself simply to avoid unwanted attention or being shut out of opportunity in the industry. This New York Times article on women in the tech industry coming forward about sexual harrassment puts it bluntly: "Saying anything, the women were warned, would lead to ostracism." The author also shares why a focus on a woman's appearance--hair, makeup, facial or body features, and wardrobe--are effective as silencers, as we've seen recently with Hillary Clinton, Amal Clooney, and Angelina Jolie. From the article:
Viscerally, Trump likely understands what the research shows: that focusing people’s attention on a woman’s appearance makes them value her abilities less. For a 2009 study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Nathan Heflick and Jamie Goldenberg asked one group of college students to write about Sarah Palin’s appearance and another to write about her “human essence.” Then both groups were asked a series of questions about her. The students who had written about her appearance rated her as less competent. In a different study, participants told to focus on Michelle Obama’s looks deemed her less competent, too.
Wonder no longer why U.S. Senators like Hillary Clinton or Kirsten Gillibrand have favored wearing the same black pantsuits over and over. They want their competency out front, not this brand of sexism.
Savvy speakers keep up with my wide-ranging reading list on women and public speaking by following The Eloquent Woman on Facebook, where these links and articles appear first. I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. It's a great way to expand your public speaking knowledge:
Style me for speaking: Wardrobe Oxygen has a good series on what it's like to work with a personal stylist. She did so here for a major fashion blogger conference she was attending, but many speakers consult stylists for high-stakes talks like TED and TEDMED and TEDx talks.
More documentation that women speakers are overlooked: Yet another study in which we learn that a particular scientific specialty (here, neuroimmunology) tends to choose male speakers over women...
(Editor's note: Leonoor Russell, a speechwriter from the Netherlands, calls this speech "a joy to watch," something we often forget about speeches. They can be fun, funny, and joyous, even in a staid parliament setting. I asked Russell to write about this speech for Famous Speech Friday.)
Malala Yousafzai - to many simply known as 'Malala' - is a Pakistani activist for female education. At age 11 she started writing a blog for the BBC about her life during the Taliban occupation. Originally, the blog was anonymous. But in the three years that followed she started doing more and more public performances, which led the New York Times to do a documentary on her.
Her public criticism of the Taliban's restrictions on girls' primary education caused Malala to receive various death threats. In 2012, a Taliban gunman shot her in the head as she rode home on a bus after taking an exam. The attempted murder was unsuccessful, but nevertheless left her very badly injured.
A traumatising event like this would silence the bravest of hearts; but instead Malala chose to let her voice sound louder than ever before. She continued her activism and started giving speeches all around the world. At age 17, Malala became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate.
Last April, the Canadian government awarded Malala an honorary Canadian citizenship. In a moving, inspirational (and funny!) speech to the Canadian House of Commons, Malala accepts this rare honor. The speech is a joy to watch.
The speech touches on a number of highly political issues.
On immigration: "Welcome to Canada is more than a headline or a hash tag. It is the spirit of humanity that every single one of us would yearn for, if our family was in crisis. I pray that you continue to open your homes and your hearts to the world's most defenceless children and families — and I hope your neighbours will follow your example."
On education: "Education is vital for security around the world because extremism grows alongside inequality — in places where people feel they have no opportunity, no voice, no hope."
On emancipation: "We can gain peace, grow economies, improve our public health and the air that we breathe. Or we can lose another generation of girls."
Her most important message: "I used to think I had to wait to be an adult to lead. But I've learned that even a child's voice can be heard around the world."
What can we learn from this magnificent speech?
Be in control of the situation. After about 5 standing ovations in 10 minutes, Malala warns the audience that she is only on page 7 of her speech; so that they had better pace themselves before they get tired. A brilliant tongue-in-cheek remark that immediately puts her in control of the situation. She alone sets the pace for her speech and determines when and where there will be a pause. A remark like that requires confidence. What we can learn from this is that when you radiate confidence on stage, you put the audience at ease. Your listeners will feel comfortable, knowing that the speaker is in full control of the situation.
Don't be afraid to keep it light. Despite the many weighty issues she addresses, Malala still manages to keep the speech light. She hilariously refers to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's age, tattoos and yoga-practice. She then uses her joke to make a serious point: "While it may be true that he is young for a head of government, I would like to tell the children of Canada: you do not have to be as old as Prime Minister Trudeau to be a leader!" By doing this, Malala manages to strike the perfect balance between playful gags and sincere gravitas.
Write from the heart, speak with skill. This is a skill I had never recognised as such until Denise pointed it out to me in a speech from Michelle Obama. Showing emotion when you talk about personal experiences in a speech is a good thing, but you must always make sure you don't let that emotion distract from your main message. It is better to put your emotions in when you are preparing the text in advance. But when you read it out loud, you must to so with skill and tact. The audience will know a heartfelt message when they hear it.
Malala masters this to a T. She refers to the fear she felt when she used to go to school and how she would hide the books under her scarf. When her mother tears up, Malala continues with a steady voice. This is impressive, given the horrible experiences that she has had to endure. (And don’t get me started on the fact that she is 19 years old and standing in a foreign parliamentary plenary hall filled with dignitaries.)
I hope to listen to many more of Malala’s speeches in the future.
Denise adds: Don't miss the amazing opening, after her thanks to various dignitaries. You can see the full text of Malala's speech, and watch the video here or below. You'll have to wait for three ads, but the speech is worth it:
Hillary Clinton took her break after the 2016 election, then emerged slowly, an outing here, a speech there. But around the time of U.S. university commencements--a time when speech-making is especially frequent for leaders of all kinds--I started noticing the jabs suggesting she should, well, shut up.
I wasn't surprised, but I was pleased that some others started to notice. In Why Democrats need to listen to Hillary Clinton, Nancy LeTourneau notes, "by suggesting that she needs to shut up and go away, it’s clear that these folks aren’t interested in listening to what she has to say." Paul Waldman turned it around, starting his article this way:
Follow all those links and yes, you'll get articles in that tone about Hillary Clinton, not Biden, despite the fact that both of them have been giving plenty of speeches and interviews in the same time period.
Again, the shutting up of Sen. Harris was noted--as was the commonplace nature of this experience for all women. Susan Chira, writing in the New York Times, quoted Laura R. Walker, chief executive of New York Public Radio: “I think every woman who has any degree of power and those who don’t knows how it feels to experience what Kamala Harris experienced yesterday....To be in a situation where you’re trying to do your job and you’re either cut off or ignored.” And, from the Post: "Women of color 'understand what Kamala Harris is dealing with,' Tanzina Vega, a CNN reporter who covers race and inequality, wrote on Twitter. 'Raise your hand if you’ve been shushed, silenced, scolded, etc.'" Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and co-founder of Ellevest, shared That time I was told to sit down and shut up at Citi. So here we are again, discussing the silencing of women. And while 2017 appears to be on point to set some kind of a record in this department, I have to remind myself that it's "same as it ever was." As Mary Beard said at the very start of her wonderful lecture on The public voice of women, part of our Famous Speech Friday series:
I want to start very near the beginning of the tradition of Western literature, and its first recorded example of a man telling a woman to ‘shut up’; telling her that her voice was not to be heard in public. I’m thinking of a moment immortalised at the start of the Odyssey.
You'll find examples every week on this blog--so many that I've considered changing one of our top features from "Famous Speech Friday" to "Famous Silencing Friday:"
Bette Midler gives a long acceptance speech at the Tony Awards and the male host shames her for it.
In Hawaii, Rep. Beth Fukumoto loses her leadership post when she refuses to do what her party insisted on: That she remain silent, rather than disagree, on the topic of Donald Trump.
And that's just my short list of prominent and visible silencings in 2017, so far, darlings. But if it can happen to women who appear to have clear platforms for making themselves heard, we know it's happening to you.
I found a recent example that shows you're never too young to be silenced, if you're female. This 12-year-old girl is shown in the video below telling her Mormon assembly in Utah that she is gay...and is asked by one of the white men presiding to stop speaking mid-speech, after he turns off her microphone:
She's 12, people, and learning early in life what lies ahead.
As you can see at the end of the video, Savannah pulls an Elizabeth Warren and delivers the rest of her speech on YouTube. As I asked in Why (and how) you should publish your speeches: "If you give a speech, but don't take steps to publish or preserve it afterward, did you make a sound? The answer could be contributing inadvertently to silencing women all over the world." We live in an age when self-publishing couldn't be easier, and I hope more women who've been silenced--and those who get to speak--will take up this advantage so they can be heard not just once, but for all time. That little video went viral, and got Savannah all sorts of support.
I see three trends. One has been persistent throughout recorded history: Women get silenced, in many ways, over and over and over again. The second is that each successive generation of women hears these stories and thinks, "But that won't happen to me," charges out into the world, and eventually finds out that, indeed, the same thing has happened to her. Over and over again.
The third comes and goes in different periods of history: People are talking about that silencing, shining a spotlight on it.
We seem to be in one of those periods of talking about it, so let's talk, eloquent women. Keep calling it out...on the spot, if you can. Find other platforms. Keep noticing when it happens. And if that happens to be in your workplace meeting, rather than the U.S. Senate, speak up and say, "Actually, I would like Jane to finish her thought," or something that will keep another woman's voice on, rather than switched off. Keeping the pressure on may help raise a few more women's voices, and we can't have enough of that. (Creative Commons licensed photos of Kamala Harris by aSILVA and of Hillary Clinton by Kyle Taylor) Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, or follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.
Savvy speakers keep up with my wide-ranging reading list on women and public speaking by following The Eloquent Woman on Facebook, where these links and articles appear first. I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. It's a great way to expand your public speaking knowledge:
Why speak? GE Digital's Beena Ammanath shares Why I speak at conferences, a good reminder to reexamine your motivations for speaking.
She wasn't speaking. Another woman legislator, Rep. Ilhan Omar, America's first Somali-American legislator, had just spoken against a public safety bill before the Minnesota state legislature.
But Rep. Melissa Hortman, the body's minority leader, had taken the measure of the room, and didn't like what she saw...or more precisely, didn't see. Most of the white male legislators had left the floor of the state House of Representatives for the cloakroom, where a card game was in progress. It's another way of silencing women speakers, by denying them an audience.
So Rep. Hortman moved to force them to come back to the chamber to listen to their fellow representatives, particularly the women of color who were speaking. And she made plain what the situation was: “I hate to break up the 100 percent white male card game in the retiring room, but I think this is an important debate,” she said.
Angry, one of her male colleagues rose to brand her remarks as "inappropriate," that marvelous vague epithet so often leveled at women speakers who speak their minds. So Rep. Hortman made a little speech in reply, saying, in part:
I have no intention of apologizing. I am so tired of watching Rep. Susan Allen give an amazing speech, Rep. Peggy Flanagan give an amazing speech, watching Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn give an amazing speech, Rep. Rena Moran give the most heartfelt, incredible speech I’ve heard on this House floor, as long as I can remember, watching Rep. Ilhan Omar give an amazing speech ... and looking around, to see, where are my colleagues? And I went in the retiring room, and I saw where a bunch of my colleagues were, and I’m really tired of watching women of color, in particular, being ignored. So, I’m not sorry.
Her refusal to apologize caused a furor of opposition from those white, male colleagues, but Rep. Hortman held her ground. What can you learn from this famous speech?
If you see something, say something: Using even a short speech to describe what you see around you can be both simple and powerful, as speaking tactics go (and it's well suited to the fishbowl of a legislature and to extemporaneous remarks). The evidence of your eyes is testimony of a different sort.
Say it plain: While the reactions focused on how "inappropriate" it was to single out white men, Hortman's remarks had both accuracy and force going for them, because she said plainly what was happening.
Use the floor to lend visibility: Rep. Hortman didn't just use her remarks to call out the absentee legislators, but to note the speaking skills of her colleagues who are women of color, a gracious gesture that underscore her point that women speakers were being ignored.
[The report] also said that workplace rules governing sexual harassment and other prohibited behavior should extend to offsite conferences and meetings. “It should not be necessary to draft separate policies for these events,” it added dryly.
You'll find that in section VIII., item A, under "EEO Policies" in the Holder memo linked above. And they're right: You shouldn't need a code of conduct for offsite vs. on-site meetings of your organization. But women in any workplace might want to check on a few policies of their employers just now.
Why? Because codes of conduct help women speakers to speak in a setting that is free of harrassment, one of the more aggressive ways of silencing women. And I'm betting you don't know what your company or organization requires, if anything, of meeting participants, so you should find out. Codes of conduct are often a focus when we talk about attending conferences, but you'll have many more meetings that take place under your own organization's auspices, so why not have codes of conduct articulated there, too? Questions you might want to ask include:
Do we have a code of conduct for our organization in general? Is it clear that the code applies to any meeting in which our employees and visitors are participating? If not, why not?
Do we have a code of conduct for our meetings, including those with visitors? For our offsite meetings? If not, why not?
Have there been complaints of harrassment at any of our meetings, onsite or offsite, internal or with visitors?
If we have policies, what are we actively doing to make employees, managers, and visitors aware of them?
You might get some pushback or questions about why you're raising this issue just now, and Uber has given you the perfect cover to do so. "I've been reading about all the issues at Uber, and I want to make sure none of that ever happens here. The attorneys who did the review made specific mention of company meetings and offsites as situations that should have a code of conduct, so I wondered whether we had one, too," is all you need to say. That'll get their attention. And if you want to be sure there's a record of your request, follow up your conversation with an email, and keep a copy.
What happens if your request is ignored? That's what happened when I complained to my longtime conference about harrassment. Instead of addressing the problem, they consulted an attorney. The following year, attendees were required to tick a box when registering, promising not to sue the organization. That told me all I needed to know, and I stopped attending. You can take your skills elsewhere, too, or you can make that part of a further complaint. It's called "voting with your feet," and many have suggested riders do the same with Uber to make their disapproval known.
We often wonder whether we can make a change in an area as big and amorphous as this one. But if every reader of this blog asked her human resources office about this policy, you'd start seeing change. Feel free to forward this blog post if you like. And if every reader of this blog attending meetings hosted by other organizations--not just formal conferences--asked, "What is your code of conduct for meetings?" you'd find eventual change there, too. Let's use Uber's very public misconduct as a lever to make meetings more hospitable for women speakers, shall we? (Creative Commons licensed photo by Lucas Maystre) Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, or follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.
Savvy speakers keep up with my wide-ranging reading list on women and public speaking by following The Eloquent Woman on Facebook, where these links and articles appear first. I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. It's a great way to expand your public speaking knowledge:
While I was out: During my social media and blogging hiatus, on just one day, we saw two high-profile episodes in which prominent women were manterrupted and told women talk too much. Susan Chira summed it up, along with the research, in The Universal Phenomenon of Men Interrupting Women. Read it. Share it. Start discussing it out loud.
Bette Midler, currently starring in the revival of the musical play "Hello, Dolly!" on Broadway, is what they call a triple threat: She can sing, dance, and act. And on the heels of her moment of triumph at the 2017 Tony Awards, having won the award for best leading actress in a musical, host Kevin Spacey reached for joke material from one of the oldest myths in the book about women in public speaking: That they talk too much.
Midler, like many a top-winning actor whose prize comes at the height of the Tony Awards show, didn't feel compelled to stick to the 90-second limit imposed this year on acceptance speeches. She did a fulsome three paragraphs of thanks, working without notes to name-check many people involved in the enormous cast of her sold-out show. And just before she got to the windup of her speech, the band tried to drown her out, cleverly using Irving Berlin's "There's No Business Like Show Business," in the part of the song where the lyrics say "Let's go on with the show!"
Midler was having none of it. She surfed the music, continuing her delivery. Finally, realizing the music wasn't going to stop, she interrupted herself, getting cheers from the audience in the hall:
And I just want to say, I want to say, revival...shut that crap off!
Then she continued past the thanks to make the core point of her speech, sans music. It's a good one, worth hearing:
I just want to say that revival is an interesting word. It means that something is near death, and it was brought back to life. Hello, Dolly! never really went away. It has been here all along. It is in our DNA, it is in our national songs that will live forever. It is optimism, it is democracy, it's color, it's love of life, it's hilarity. This is a classic. Come and see it. It's not just me! The whole thing is utterly... this thing has the ability to lift your spirits in these terrible, terrible times. Come and see it.
And lastly, I want to dedicate this, I want to salute the people who actually came before me. The brilliant, brilliant inimitable Carol Channing, who made my life, who was a gift to me. The extraordinary Pearl Bailey, and all of the hundreds of women who came after me and who lit the way, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you all.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, along with her thanks paragraphs, took up just 4 minutes and 10 seconds. Not a crisis in television, nor in public speaking.
In one of his next turns as host, actor Kevin Spacey came onstage with actor Robin Wright, dressed as their characters from the Netflix series House of Cards: President Frank Underwood and First Lady Claire Underwood. In the very short bit, he tells his wife they should leave, and then adds, "I want to get out of here before Bette Midler thanks anyone else." And tellingly, Wright said nothing while onstage, a silent wife witness. See it in the video below: What can you learn from this famous speech?
Sometimes, you need to hold your ground as a speaker: Midler's show is sold out for months to come, and, as such, it's a major money-maker for the industry. She won one of the top prizes of the evening. Her cast and crew are enormous, among the largest on Broadway. No apology need be made for wishing to thank them amply and make a larger point, as the best speeches do. And I doubt a man would be shamed in such a way for speaking too long.
Make that larger point: Midler took a musical that's set as the 19th century gives way to the 20th, and brought it all the way forward to today with her closing remarks, reminding the audience why Broadway works: "Hello, Dolly! never really went away. It has been here all along. It is in our DNA, it is in our national songs that will live forever. It is optimism, it is democracy, it's color, it's love of life, it's hilarity."
Her thanks were a tour de force: Many actors thank a few people well, and many more thank many people poorly. But listen to Midler work her way with relative ease through her long list of thanks. *That* is a bravura performance, and one her work partners surely appreciate.
I love you, Kevin Spacey, and I figure you had that joke set up with a blank where you put Bette Midler up for shame. Next time, think harder. I expect better from you, especially on a night when the rest of your hosting was outstanding. Watch the video of Midler's speech here or below.
When TMZ leaked this photo of comedian Kathy Griffin holding what appeared to be a bloody severed head of U.S. President Donald Trump in late May, the Internet exploded. Griffin was resoundingly mocked and trolled and shamed into apologizing. Pundits and commentators expressed shock and horror. She was widely criticized, with only a few voices coming to her defense. Griffin was dubbed a "tool of ISIS" by many conservative and liberal commentators. CNN and others fired Griffin from lucrative gigs and endorsement deals immediately in the wake of the criticisms.
I was left feeling as if I was the only person whose first reaction was to see a double standard at play. Yes, a severed head is a gory, awful image. It's also an image that has been used for centuries in our worldwide culture...often against powerful women. So why, when a woman uses it, is she shut down and shamed?
There were layers of double standards at play here. One was in the world of comedy. For example, comedian Hasan Minhaj earlier in May hosted the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington. Even though the president had said he would not attend, the correspondents' organization asked Minhaj not to roast Trump; normally, roasting the president not only happens, but happens with him sitting right there next to the comedian doing the roasting. In an interview, Minhaj explained why he felt free to ignore that request:
The irony to me was the theme of the night was about honoring the First Amendment, and you want me to censor myself? That to me — I couldn't do it. ... Especially given the fact that the person that I'm roasting, the president, is someone who has so exploited that incredible privilege of free speech. The man who tweets whatever enters his head doesn't even want to honor the amendment that allows him to do it. That to me just blows my mind. So I wanted to make the conscious choice of, Hey, I will roast his merit and I will roast the decisions he's made. I will try to be as tasteful as possible, but I have to talk about this.
Minhaj went ahead with that plan, with no or minimal outcry following. The comedy double standard reminded me of The 'women can't be funny' myth, and the power of making people laugh, in which I quoted Gloria Steinem saying, "...the power to make people laugh is also a power, so women have been kept out of comedy. Polls show that what women fear most from men is violence, and what men fear most from women is ridicule."
So you've seen the ridicule of a man in the image at the top of this post. Here's the violence against women, in its mirror. It demonstrates the gendered double standard at play here. Having written about classics scholar Mary Beard's lecture on women and power for our Famous Speech Friday series, I had this image, shared in her lecture, firmly in mind:
It's a depiction of Trump as Perseus, victoriously holding up the severed head of Medusa as Hillary Clinton, an image widely used in fan-generated promotional material during the Trump campaign, as Beard notes:
This scene of Perseus-Trump brandishing the dripping, oozing head of Medusa-Clinton was very much part of the everyday, domestic American decorative world: you could buy it on T-shirts and tank tops, on coffee mugs, on laptop sleeves and tote bags (sometimes with the logo TRIUMPH, sometimes TRUMP). It may take a moment or two to take in that normalisation of gendered violence, but if you were ever doubtful about the extent to which the exclusion of women from power is culturally embedded or unsure of the continued strength of classical ways of formulating and justifying it – well, I give you Trump and Clinton, Perseus and Medusa, and rest my case.
Let that sink in again: "the exclusion of women from power is culturally embedded...the continued strength of classical ways of formulating it and justifying it." I inserted the link in the quote above so you can see for yourself how these shirts and other products are still available.
Pouncing on Griffin and shaming her so thoroughly, then, reflects something embedded in our culture, just because she is a woman.
Clinton is not the only woman leader to get this treatment, which has been used to depict powerful women over and over again, but depictions of her as Medusa were, as Beard notes, among the "starkest and nastiest" of all. And was there any outcry? Why, no, there was not, save for Beard. Neither did the Trump campaign decry these fan efforts, nor try to stop them.
Imagery is a major part of public speech, and images are important--witness that the severed head of Medusa has been used for centuries, so durable and memorable it is. Comedy, more recently, has been an important area where women have been able to find their voices and say the outrageous, just as men have done for centuries. But when a woman comedian reaches for that durable, memorable, outrageous image, why do we silence her? If only the reaction from the media and the public were as fierce when the severed head was Hillary Clinton's. If only.
Savvy speakers keep up with my wide-ranging reading list on women and public speaking by following The Eloquent Woman on Facebook, where these links and articles appear first. I always collect them here for you on Mondays as well. It's a great way to expand your public speaking knowledge. This week, a short report following my June hiatus from the blog:
Two decisions: While on hiatus, I made two decisions about my social media presence. First, I'm going to stop posting on @NoWomenSpeakers on Twitter, because there are so many good eyes and ears on the task of identifying and calling out conferences with few or no women speakers--something that was not the case when I first started that account. If you follow me there, please follow me @dontgetcaught instead. Second, I'm going to fold the Moderating Panels blog into this blog, so you'll be able to see more coverage of panel moderation right here. The MP blog will stay up as an archive, but any new posts will be on The Eloquent Woman. I love both these projects, and think the changes will allow me to provide you with even better public speaking information in the months to come.
