When a woman has to justify her right to speak
Credibility, anticipated responses and the limits of treating silence as an individual problem
By Flávia Sgavioli
Before presenting an idea, she changes the sentence. She removes a word that sounds harsh, adds an explanation and begins with an apology. After the meeting, someone tells her she needs to show more confidence. This hypothetical scene opens a question that the advice leaves unanswered: which experiences shaped her decision to speak that way?
An inquiry into women and listening needs to follow particular histories and contexts. The word women brings together different experiences of race, class, generation and social position. A professional in a leadership role, a student and a woman speaking within an intimate relationship face different conditions. The question is how each understands the possibilities and consequences of saying what she thinks.
Does speaking more solve the problem?
Victoria Brescoll examined gender, power and speaking time using data from the United States Senate and experiments. Across the studies, power related differently to men’s and women’s speech; concern about negative reactions helped explain the difference. The findings also identified penalties for powerful women who spoke more under the conditions studied. These are situated findings, not grounds for describing a natural disposition shared by all women. [1]
They nevertheless give us a reason to examine the advice to simply speak more. For someone who anticipates an unfavourable reaction, hesitation may involve an assessment of the environment. Taking that assessment seriously allows us to investigate whether the work lies in preparing the speech, changing the conditions of its reception, or both. An automatic response centred on confidence can overlook what happens around the speaker.
Group composition and rules also deserve attention. In experimental research on deliberation, Christopher Karpowitz, Tali Mendelberg and Lee Shaker found that women’s participation and authority varied with the combination of women’s presence and the decision rule. The study invites us to ask how the organisation of a conversation distributes influence. A formal invitation to participate needs to be examined alongside the conditions under which contributions are considered. [2]
Speaking and being recognised
The philosopher Kristie Dotson examines practices of silencing through failures by listeners to recognise and receive the testimony of oppressed groups. Her work allows us to consider an interaction in which words have been spoken, yet the speaker has not been recognised as someone who can contribute knowledge. This is a philosophical account of power and testimony, not a measure of the phenomenon’s prevalence among Brazilian women. [3]
Drawing on this discussion, I propose following the course of a contribution. Does an idea receive a question that allows it to develop? Is it treated as an exaggeration before being examined? Does somebody else have to repeat it before it enters a decision? Such situations can help distinguish having speaking time from having one’s contribution recognised. Episodes need to be analysed in context, without assuming a single explanation in advance.
What happens before the conversation also matters. Someone may rehearse a disagreement while imagining a response she has received before. Trying to avoid another dismissal, she may remove the most important part of what she wanted to say. This is a hypothesis about the relationship between experience and anticipation. It opens room to listen to the meaning of that choice, including when silence was a way of protecting herself.
The individual experience of speaking
A psychoanalytic approach can investigate how someone sees herself when she occupies the position of disappointing an expectation. What place does she believe she needs to preserve in the relationship? What does she imagine losing if she expresses dissatisfaction? These questions require attention to the individual: hesitant speech does not, by itself, reveal its cause. The inquiry needs to consider both the person’s conflicts and the concrete responses she has encountered in relationships.
There is another question for the woman whom others regularly turn to for listening. In a relationship where she receives everyone’s difficulties, where can her own difficulty appear? We can examine how this availability was negotiated, what others expect of her and how they respond when she sets a boundary. This opens an inquiry into how listening is distributed without assigning women an innate vocation for care.
The possibilities of refusing a conversation or facing a negative reaction also differ. Economic dependence, racism and professional position belong in the analysis when they form part of the experience described. A general explanation about self-esteem cannot replace these factors. Developing this research in Brazil will require broader references and attention to differences that the studies assembled here do not fully represent.
In classrooms and organisations, this perspective can guide questions about who is asked to justify their tone and which contributions reach a decision. In close relationships, it can help examine what happens when a woman expresses a need that challenges the role others have assigned her. Understanding the outcome of a conversation requires considering how the other person receives that change.
Let us return to the sentence rehearsed before the meeting. Before recommending more confidence, we can ask what happened on the occasions when she spoke firmly. The answer may change both the work with the speaker and the responsibility of the listener.
References
[1] Brescoll, V. L. (2011; published online in 2012). Who takes the floor and why: Gender, power, and volubility in organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 56(4), 622–641.
[2] Karpowitz, C. F.; Mendelberg, T.; Shaker, L. (2012). Gender inequality in deliberative participation. American Political Science Review, 106(3), 533–547.
[3] Dotson, K. (2011). Tracking epistemic violence, tracking practices of silencing. Hypatia, 26(2), 236–257.
This article is part of Flávia Sgavioli’s research on listening, language and subjectivity.
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