And women are accused of talking too much?

Last year at a University of Windsor conference marking the coming 20th anniversary of Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, social justice activist Judy Rebick and I got to talking about why so few women stand up and speak their minds publicly.

Maybe we just want to be liked? Maybe we just want to avoid conflict? Maybe we think we have nothing to say anybody wants to hear? Maybe we've been told to shut up and look pretty too often? Maybe we know ''our place?''

Now obviously, not all women are like this. Otherwise, we wouldn't have prominent opinionators such as The Star's Rosie DiManno, Chantal Hebert and Carol Goar and The Globe and Mail's Christie Blatchford and Margaret Wente, CBC's Heather Mallick and a gaggle of great broads in the U.S. including my heroine, the late Molly Ivins. Plus there are outspoken women politicians -- but percentage-wise, not as many as there are men -- and other activists, such as Maude Barlow. That's without going into so many of the bloggers I link to on the left.

And nobody accused Ann Coulter or Rachel Marsden of being a shrinking violet.

But clearly these are the exceptions. Otherwise, the world would not be run by men.

Today I stumbled on this story, on Salon's Broadsheet.

Lindsay Campbell, the host of a daily Web show called Moblogic, makes her living by conducting man-on-the-street interviews, and she recently had something to get off her chest: Women just aren't talking to her. Her show, which bills itself as a "running conversation about the news," consists mostly of interviews about current events, and, according to her, female interviewees just aren't stepping up to the plate.

Campbell made a video about it, showing all the women who won't speak, or let their men speak for them. Check it out -- and no, sorry, I can't do anything about the very brief car ad.

So, I wonder. Did all those women say no because they were having bad hair days? Did they have no thoughts? Were they just too busy? Were they afraid of being punked? Or as Salon asks, were they just too smart, knowing how video can be used and abused?

Maybe some of everything.

But I know one thing. If we don't speak up, nobody will ever hear us scream.

 

Comments

[sooey]

Women think there's more at stake than there is, so they're afraid of giving the wrong answer.

The question I have is, why isn't that considered the good thing instead of the other way around?

So much of what we view as positives attributable to men don't seem positive to me anymore. But we're still trying to change women into men.

[johnnykap]

Antonia, I'll tell you one woman who could never be accused of talking too much: your ole pal, Ann Coulter. I, johnnykap, am actually going to be seeing her speak live this coming Wednesday at Furman University. I saw your ole PM Kim Campbell speak there a few years ago. I'm predicting Ann's speech will be better.

[Antonia]

Sooey, it's not about changing women into men.
If more women spoke out like you do, there'd be less injustice in this world.
And more laughs.

[sooey]

Aw, thanks. Sadly, if I ran into one of those on-the-spot reporters I'd be more likely to test out my hysterical laugh on camera than to speak out against injustice.

I just can't be trusted to go for the good attention over the bad attention, anymore. I blame the Internet.

[...pat.]

Ah, Johnnykap, you listen to that bile and you'll have enough to digest a dozen fatty porkbellies...

Antonia, I wish I understood why.
Women seem to worry more about not getting the facts right. Something similar, maybe, to what they've discovered about how men and women differ when applying for jobs. Men look at the laundry list of qualifications and figure "heck, I've done some of these, I may as well apply" and women look at the list and thing "I don't meet all of these qualifications. I shouldn't apply."

How has this happened? What in our genes or our breeding is telling us we need to be 100% correct before doing something/voicing an opinion?

I've never seen lack of knowledge hold a man back from voicing his opinion. Right, Johnnykap?

[Paul]

hmmm.. I wonder if the person doing the interviewing was a man, would women react differently? Guess more study is needed.

On a totally unrelated subject, I want to say a big THANK YOU for listing the link to Margaret Wente's columns at the G&M. (the links are hit and miss, sometimes bringing up articles from other columnists, but if you persist reloading the page, eventually, Marg's piece will display - this is probably some glitch with the G&M's site - or maybe an illegal link that only works sporadically.)

As you probably know, people like myself who refuse to pay to read a columnist, have been locked out from her wit and wisdon since the G&M locked out non-paying subscribers. I mean, let's face it, she is essentially 'blogging' like so many others, yet she (or her employer) feels the need to charge for her words.

This is too bad, cause I used to enjoy reading her. But, I am already paying one weekly subscription for The Star, so I really can't bring myself to paying for another news outlet.

I used to read her columns way back, when she wrote for The Star. Matter of fact, I actually clipped them out and scrap-booked them for about a year. Will be interesting to go back and compare her writings of today to back around 1984.

[Kat]

Given how many "gull" interviews are out there (Talking to Americans, anyone?), and given some of the questions we heard in the clip ("Is Hillary Clinton a monster?"), I'm surprised *anyone* wants to be approached by an on-the-spot reporter these days. The assertion is that we're afraid to speak in public. Maybe we're afraid of being publicly humiliated in a dodgy context? And since this is still a sexist world, is it that crazy for women to worry more about being humiliated and manipulated than men? If someone came up to me with a microphone and a camera person and asked me if I thought Hillary Clinton was a monster, I'd tend to assume they're not bona fide and blow them off too, and part of my job involves speaking to large groups of people whom I don't always know.

In the Slate article accompanying the video, it was pointed out that the wishes of all the women in the clips to *not* be on camera were all violated by putting together this segment. I think those women may have been right to think the interview was an opportunity to be ridiculed and that it should be avoided -- after all, look at what happened.

[D. Allen]

Maybe, just maybe, women are more decisive at overcoming time wasters. They are the first to say good-bye to phone solicitation and know instinctively if their opinion is really going to make a difference. They may actually not have anything vested in an opinion on many subjects .. it's a waste of emotional time. Whatdayathink?

[johnnykap]

Look at ...pat trying to find something to blame for the lack of success that some females experience. It's breeding. It's genetic. Yet in her very post, she acknowledges that the role model for success exists (men). And what about the females who have been successful? Were they bred by different means?

It simply comes down to a lack of desire. Desire is the root of all achievement. You women simply don't want to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve maximum success, ergo, you moan about it and try to blame society (the end result being feminism, something that actually holds you back from achieving success, which is 180 degrees out of phase with its stated objectives). I think it's great that most of you have that attitude, since, whether you like it or not, we live in a competitive society. You're voluntarily removing yourselves from the playing field.

[sooey]

Success is a a male term with a male definition that has to do with making lots of money.

[Rachel Marsden]

Hey there,
I saw this item when you linked back to my website (thanks, BTW). I really don't know why more women don't speak their minds - it doesn't seem to be a "right vs left" thing, as you rightly point out, but rather a gender thing. For some reason, women of all political stripes have been taught that it's "proper" or perhaps even "classy" to smile and nod and not rock the boat, and allow the menfolk to engage in verbal jousting. From Joan of Arc onwards, those who fail to heed that image have been labelled as "crazy", "unbalanced", or at best a "ballbuster". If that's the choice - crazy or wallflower/doormat - I'll gladly take the straitjacket, thanks. Women shouldn't have to be relegated to merely mediating the exchange of ideas between men (which is often the case, and is viewed as the sole means by which women can actually achieve some sort of power in society). If more spoke their minds, I'm fairly sure the world would look much different than it does. But actions have consequences - and that often means that you have to be prepared to be disliked.