These brave women made a difference by speaking out. I didn’t know all of them personally, but I saw them testify in Washington, speak on television, or deliver statements to the press. As a young woman, I responded to the power of their words and the raw emotion that revealed a determination and vulnerability much like my own.
Bella Abzug poked fun at herself when she said, “I’ve been described as a tough and noisy woman, a prize fighter, a man-hater, you name it. They call me Battling Bella, Mother Courage and a Jewish mother with more complaints than Portnoy.”15 Abzug frequently used humor to get her point across. Paraphrasing President Theodore Roosevelt, she said, “Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.”16
Fifty-some years later, I’m not so sure. I’ve noticed that few women share their unique perspectives. Moreover, women often second-guess themselves and, when challenged, fail to successfully defend their positions or deflect criticism with humor.
Are women who speak out criticized (and discounted) because human nature tends to fear the new and unfamiliar? Or is it because these women challenge our perception of how women are supposed to behave? Judging from history and personal experience, I’d say it’s both. Women’s fear of public speaking involves more than our own inhibitions. We’re overcoming centuries of programming about our rightful place in society and what’s expected of us.
Thankfully, there have always been courageous women who lead the way and do what’s considered unladylike, immoral, and even illegal. The list includes Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi, and Ernestine Rose, an early suffragist who served as the role model for Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
There have always been courageous women who lead the way and do what’s considered unladylike, immoral, and even illegal.
In a time when women were rarely, if ever, engaged in public speaking, Susan B. Anthony traveled the world advocating for women’s rights, and gave seventy-five to a hundred speeches a year. I doubt I could have withstood the withering criticism and ridicule she received, including the accusation that she was destroying the institution of marriage. Thankfully, Anthony persevered and was able to see sweeping change during her lifetime—in 1920, women were given the right to vote in the United States.
But it was Elizabeth Cady Stanton who, according to Anthony’s biography, “provided the ideas, rhetoric and strategy” while Anthony “delivered the speeches, circulated petitions, and rented the halls. Anthony prodded and Stanton produced.”17 Their partnership activated each other’s skills.
One speaker who has inspired me and many others in this century is Malala Yousafzai. When she was only eleven years old, this young Muslim woman stood up for the education of girls in Pakistan when the Taliban forbade it. Even after she was pulled off her school bus, brutally shot in the face, and spent months in a coma, Yousafzai didn’t stop.
Less than a year after the attack, this teenager spoke at the United Nations, calling for worldwide access to education. In 2014, she shared the Nobel Peace Prize as the youngest-ever Nobel laureate. It’s remarkable to me that someone so young has such maturity and insight. Yousafzai said, “When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.”18
In repressive societies around the world, women such as Yousafzai know they can be killed or ostracized for expressing their views and yet they do it anyway. I don’t know how they brave extreme danger to be out front. But because they do, their passion inspires us and their words motivate us. They change the course of history.
Their passion inspires us and their words motivate us. They change the course of history.
Yet today, do women prefer working behind the scenes, believe they can be more effective by speaking less, or fear a backlash? In 2011, Victoria L. Brescoll, associate professor of organizational behavior at Yale School of Management, asked business professionals to evaluate the competence of executives who voiced their opinions more or less frequently.19
She found that male executives who spoke more often than their peers received 10 percent higher ratings of competence. But when women executives spoke more, both men and women punished them with 14 percent lower ratings.20 What the research also reveals is that when it comes to leadership skills, although men are more confident, women are more competent.21
Other studies demonstrate how silencing women deprives a company or organization of valuable ideas. Anita Woolley, a professor at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon, partnered with professors from M.I.T. and Union College to test the value of teamwork and find out whether some teams were smarter than others, as measured by how well they performed a variety of tasks. They found that smart teams had three defining characteristics: members who participated more equally in discussions (i.e., no single person dominated), members who scored higher on reading the emotional tenor of their colleagues’ faces, and more women than men assigned to the team.22
But we’re not there yet. Ethan Burris, a University of Texas researcher, found that when women challenged an old system and suggested a new one, team leaders viewed them as less loyal and were less likely to act on their suggestions.23
Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, put Burris’s findings into perspective in an opinion piece co-written with Adam Grant for the New York Times. They wrote, “Even when all the team members were informed that one member possessed unique information that would benefit the group, suggestions from women with inside knowledge were discounted.”24 In addition, they wrote that research shows “women who worry that talking too much will cause them to be disliked are not paranoid; they are often right.”
So while we move past our own insecurities and what holds us back from becoming powerful speakers and communicators, it’s important not to place all the blame on ourselves. We are making progress—just not quickly enough, in my opinion.
There are hopeful glimmers. In the music industry, 2014 was referred to as the year of confident, unapologetic young women. Singers such as Ariana Grande, Meghan Trainor, Taylor Swift, and Iggy Azalea would never be called shy or passive.
Meanwhile, female comediennes including Amy Poehler and Tina Fey have mega-star careers as writers, performers, and show runners—with three Golden Globe Award hosting gigs under their belts.
In early 2016, Samantha Bee premiered her talk show, Full Frontal. After twelve years as the longest-serving regular correspondent on The Daily Show, Bee decided to venture off on her own. Her sharp political humor has found a new home and her position as the only female late-night television host has the potential for great influence. Yet it’s no accident that in her very first episode, she includes a skit where reporters only ask what it’s like being a woman in a world of male talk-show hosts.25 In a February 14, 2016, interview in the New York Times Magazine, Bee was asked: “Which do you think men find more threatening: a funny woman or an angry woman?” Note her response: “I think angry women are so easy to dismiss as crazy or shrill. It’s harder to dismiss a funny woman.”26 Amen, sister.
There is a top-ten list of female TED speakers, which means women are well represented when it comes to conveying innovative ideas, insights, and experiences. Two of my favorites are Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s speech “Stroke of Insight,” about surviving a massive stroke,27 and researcher Brené Brown’s presentation, “The Power of Vulnerability.” Brown has a genuine, self-effacing quality that makes her easy to listen to and helps her