Instead of shutting down controversial women speakers

In doing research for this blog, I've been reading Deborah Kops's fine book, Alice Paul and the Fight for Women's Rights: From the Vote to the Equal Rights Amendment. The book relates that, around 1908, Paul went to Birmingham, England, to study. She decided to see suffragist Christabel Pankhurst give a speech at the university. Here's how Kops describes the scene:

...as soon as Christabel Pankhurst began her speech that day, unsympathetic students shouted, blew horns, sang, and generally made so much noise that no one could hear a word she was saying....When the head of the university learned, to his horror, what had happened, he invited Pankhurst back and made sure the audience stayed in line.

That had a real impact on Paul, who went on to help American women win the vote. And so many decades later, it impressed me with the thought, "What if that had been done for Ann Coulter at Berkeley?", thinking of the recent silencing of the conservative speaker, who withdrew from speaking at the University of California at Berkeley under threat of violent protests. I also thought of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who recently gave the commencement speech at a historically black university, facing a crowd of students, many of whom jeered or turned their backs to her. And of Linda Sarsour, the Women's March co-founder, who faces a campaign from the conservative right that's trying to unseat her as the City College of New York commencement speaker before she ever takes the stage.

You don't have to agree with these women or their views to understand that these are ways of silencing women speakers. And silencing women speakers seems to be a theme of 2017, whether it's shutting Senator Elizabeth Warren down on the floor of the Senate or Michael Moore chewing up women speakers' time at the Women's March on Washington. It's nothing new, but it's a persistent tactic.

A couple of readers demanded tips for what to do when facing down an angry crowd. But I don't think this calls for tips, nor for things women speakers must fix about themselves. This is a problem of our society. You certainly may not agree with what I have to say, but you also are free to ignore it, as opposed to trying to change me, or the writing, or my ability to publish. Public speaking, too, is a series of choices. The speaker chooses what she wants to say, and you choose whether to listen. But that doesn't mean you also must silence her, and it doesn't mean she needs to fix anything about herself or her speech. Let's let her speak. Speakers aren't forcing their views upon you, just airing them. You can choose whether to listen or leave.

Today, most of us look back at Pankhurst and Paul and think of their speeches as heroic efforts to gain equality for women. That equality surely demands that we give women of many viewpoints their platforms and let them have their say. I am sure that those who fought for suffrage--a movement that felt that a vote is part of your voice--did not fight for it only on behalf of women with whom they agreed.

I find instructive the early 20th century solution that Alice Paul saw in action. Motivated to hear Pankhurst, she went to both speeches: The one she could not hear, and the one she could. When we silence speakers, we're also silencing the audience members who want to hear them. As for Pankhurst, so important was it to get her message out, she gave the same speech twice. She knew to expect resistance, and spoke, anyway.

You need not agree, and your results may vary. But if we want women speakers--including ourselves--to have platforms, consistently and with equality, we need to let them speak.

For more on the current struggle to let controversial speakers speak, read my post on the Moderating Panels blog, When the moderator meets the mob: @AKStanger speaks out. It's by a woman moderator who attempted to help a conservative male speaker continue his presentation on a campus, and got herself injured in the process. Despite that, she writes movingly of the need to avoid silencing the speakers we don't agree with.

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter or track when others tweet about the lack of women speakers on programs via @NoWomenSpeakers. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.

Famous Speech Friday: Virginia Woolf's 1931 "Professions for Women"

British author Virginia Woolf has always been a muse of mine. As a woman writer, her A Room of One's Own provided me with inspiration and courage, as well as a sense of the barriers women face. And, just as that book was based on speeches, its intended sequel, "Professions for Women" began as a speech to a women's group, which invited her to speak about her profession.

To describe the struggles of her profession--that is, how difficult it is for a woman writer to express opinions in a world dominated by men--she chose a metaphoric character. Woolf describes her intent to write a book review of a male author's book, and says:

I discovered that if I were going to review books I should need to do battle with a certain phantom. And the phantom was a woman, and when I came to know her better I called her after the heroine of a famous poem, The Angel in the House. It was she who used to come between me and my paper when I was writing reviews. It was she who bothered me and wasted my time and so tormented me that at last I killed her....She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish. She excelled in the difficult arts of family life. She sacrificed herself daily. If there was chicken, she took the leg; if there was a draught she sat in it--in short she was so constituted that she never had a mind or a wish of her own, but preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others. Above all--I need not say it---she was pure. Her purity was supposed to be her chief beauty--her blushes, her great grace. In those days--the last of Queen Victoria--every house had its Angel. And when I came to write I encountered her with the very first words. The shadow of her wings fell on my page; I heard the rustling of her skirts in the room. Directly, that is to say, I took my pen in my hand to review that novel by a famous man, she slipped behind me and whispered: "My dear, you are a young woman. You are writing about a book that has been written by a man. Be sympathetic; be tender; flatter; deceive; use all the arts and wiles of our sex. Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all, be pure." And she made as if to guide my pen....Had I not killed her she would have killed me. She would have plucked the heart out of my writing.

Strong words, but they reflected perfectly Woolf's own experience. She was born in the Victorian era in 1882, growing up in a male-dominated household. Her first novel had been published 16 years before this speech, which followed the liberating era of the 1920s, and took place in the run-up to World War II. It was a time of change, and she gave voice to that change.

What can you learn from this famous speech?

• Have a strong point of view: Too often, speakers--and women speakers--have as their goal not to offend anyone. They purge opinion from their speeches, and the results are pale, boring groupings of platitudes. Woolf not only embraces her viewpoint, but makes it violent and memorable. To her, this was the ultimate struggle, and you can tell.
• Get your audience to see something in their mind's eye: Part of the speech asks the audience to imagine the writer, pen in hand, and describes the scene so that her hearers can get a mental picture of what her work is like...and the conditions under which she has to battle the angel. The images you put in your audience members' minds will always be more memorable than any slide or photograph. It's a great technique to build audience engagement.
• Use metaphor to create a character or personality: I don't see enough speakers turning the forces they are describing into metaphoric characters, real personalities the audience can picture and relate to. But it's an effective tactic here, allowing Woolf to describe the Angel of the House as a person, making it more recognizable and familiar.

You can read the text of the speech here; it is an abbreviated version of what she delivered to a chapter of the National Society for Women’s Service on January 21, 1931. And now, this powerful speech also has inspired an illustration that excerpts parts of it. Signature first published this illustration in Nathan Gelgud's It's Time to Re-read Virginia Woolf's 1931 'Professions for Women' Speech, and kindly provided permission for me to reproduce it here for you. Enjoy!

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter or track when others tweet about the lack of women speakers on programs via @NoWomenSpeakers. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.

What made this one of TED's most popular talks in 2016?

I was pleased, but not at all surprised, to see Judson Brewer's TEDMED talk from 2015 about "an easy way to break a bad habit" on TED's list of the 10 most popular TED talks in 2016, with more than 6 million views and counting. Brewer was among the TEDMED speakers I coached in 2015, and I think there's much to learn from this talk, for researchers contemplating TED-style talks, and anyone else who wants to understand the form. You can find out more about the substance of this talk in his soon-to-be-published book, The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits, available now for pre-order.

Here are 6 things I think make this talk work well. Congratulations, Judson!

1. Time management: Clocking in at 9 minutes, 16 seconds, Brewer's talk is complex and compact. Mind you, he's talking about multiple studies and their results, not just one. But with careful editing, we learn just what we need to understand his topic. That work comes in during the scripting process, with edits made as practice and coaching require.
2. The premise comes in early: Good TED talks focus on just one big idea and get it on the table early. Often, as here, that's expressed as a "what if" question. Just after the three-minute mark, Brewer states the core premise of the research, and the talk: "What if, instead of fighting our brains or trying to force ourselves to pay attention, we instead tapped into this natural, reward-based learning process...but added a twist? What if instead we just got really curious about what was happening in our momentary experience?" You'll notice he echoes it again at the end, couching it then in terms of how it translates into your everyday life. In other words, the talk uses one-third of its time at the start for the setup, then shares the premise, then spends the rest of the talk giving examples and further shaping the premise.
3. Judicious use of slides in a research talk: If you look closely, you'll notice that when Brewer finishes talking about a slide up on the screen, he moves to a "blank" patterned slide that matches the set. At TEDMED, we try to make sure you get off the slide once you're done talking about its content, and the blank slide is the best way to do that. It gives the audience the chance to focus just on the speaker, rather than divide its attention, and gives the presentation a cleaner look.
4. Clear language throughout: You can show this talk to your grandma or to a kid, and still expect them to understand virtually all of it. That's good communication. Many researchers scoff about using simple language, saying they don't want to "dumb it down"--a remark that's insulting to the audience's intelligence. Clarity should be the goal for research talks.
5. Just enough personal touches: If you wince at the thought of adding a personal story to your TED-style talk, Brewer gives an early example of how to do it briefly. He talks about how difficult he found it to meditate when he first began to practice, adding just enough of a personal touch. Newsflash: Your personal touches don't have to be long, hand-wringing, divulging stories...unless that's what the talk needs. Just like slides and props, stories and personal details have to earn their keep.
6. Good stance on stage and natural gesturing: Brewer doesn't move around much, and most speakers don't need to move. He shifts stance and looks at different segments of the audience, and his gesturing is random and natural--just as it should be. It has a calming effect that, again, lets the audience focus on the talk.

You can learn how to create your own talk of TED quality in my London workshop on April 3. Find out more and register here, and watch the video below for Judson's talk!



(TEDMED photo)

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter or track when others tweet about the lack of women speakers on programs via @NoWomenSpeakers. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.

King, Hamer, Ginsburg, Obama: Speech collections & a memoir

Women speakers often are left out of collections of "major speeches." But of the four recent finds I've made in speech collection and a memoir, three are by important women speakers. I'll be adding these to The Eloquent Woman Booklist, my collection of useful books about speeches and speaking as featured on this blog. Add these to your speaking shelf:

• Ruth Bader Ginsburg: My Own Words, by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, collects her speeches and writings; if you buy the audiobook, you can hear recordings of her delivery of many of the speeches. Ginsburg's humor and thoughtfulness are on display here in a way the court bench does not always permit. This is the first volume of Ginsburg's autobiography, and I'm so delighted she began by releasing her influential speeches.
• Fannie Lou Hamer: The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is, edited by Maegan Parker Brooks and Davis W. Houck, is the first collection of speeches by the noted civil rights activist, including transcriptions of her extemporaneous remarks. While often called illiterate as a means of dismissing her, she was, in fact, able to read and write. And she was one of the most formidable and persuasive speakers of the America civil rights movement. This collection shows why.
• Barack Obama: We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama, by E.J. Dionne, Jr. and Joy Redi, collects key speeches of the most recent former U.S. president, with 26 major speeches. Sam Leith's review notes patterns in the written speeches, adding that Obama's delivery made them unique and persuasive. 
• Coretta Scott King: My Life, My Love, My Legacy, just out this month, collects the memoir of King, who shared her thoughts before her death in 2006 with Dr. Barbara Reynolds. She recalls numerous important speeches, including her 10 Commandments on Vietnam, which we've covered here on the blog. In some cases, the text is shared as well as her recollections of the events of the day, although this is not a collection of speeches. Still a great read.

Get involved in more conversations on public speaking with The Eloquent Woman. Follow our Facebook page, read great quotes from eloquent woman on Pinterest, follow me as @dontgetcaught on Twitter or track when others tweet about the lack of women speakers on programs via @NoWomenSpeakers. Learn how to be a better panel moderator with The Eloquent Woman's Guide to Moderating Panels.