Notorious
On a Tuesday in January I was sitting in a Zoom meeting and I was feeling frustrated. This was a planning meeting for a major event. The topic of discussion was a question of logistics which fell under my area of responsibility. While my input was being sought, everyone was sharing their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. No one in this meeting was doing anything wrong. The simple fact is that sometimes it is frustrating to be flooded with the thoughts and opinions of others when you are the one who has to make a decision. When it is resting on your shoulders, it isn’t always helpful to have a bunch of other voices in your head.
And so I was frustrated.
The combination of a situation such as this and my personality left me with two choices for how to handle that moment. I could, 1) tell the meeting that I was frustrated and needed to step back and take time to think about the question at hand or, 2) rage into the full on passive aggressive sea monster that lives inside me at all times, stop responding to anyone’s attempts to converse, and in general shut down the meeting with my horrible attitude.
On this Tuesday in January, I opted for number 1. When it was next my turn to speak I said, “I am really frustrated. I need to think about this and come back to it later.” No one objected or insisted the conversation continue. They accepted what I said and the meeting moved along to another subject.
And yet the moment the confession of my emotions escaped my lips, I felt instant regret. The stream of consciousness running through my mind at the time went something like this:
I should not have said that, that was so unprofessional. They’re going to think I’m weak. They’re going to think I’m too emotional to handle this work. They are going to think I’m too emotional because I’m a woman. And then they are going to walk on eggshells around me and I will never get another honest word out of any of these people because I’m a big, dumb, overly emotional woman.
I wish that were an exaggeration, but the speed and severity with which I berate myself needs no embellishment. But this was not an exercise in low self esteem. This was a genuine fear of not being taken seriously because of my gender.
Last week my forever work wife Krystina and I went to a play called All Things Equal. It was a one woman show about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, about her life from childhood through her years on the bench of the Supreme Court. I have long admired Ginsburg; I have a pair of socks that feature her face and say SUPER DIVA. There is an air freshener hanging from a lamp in my kitchen that says DISSENT. Before the play I already knew a fair amount about her and her career and I knew I was going to enjoy the show. I had no idea how much I needed to see that show.
I’m not going to try to summarize the remarkable life of the Notorious RBG, as she is lovingly known on the internet. I am ill equipped to do her life justice when there are films and books and her own writing that speak for her much more profoundly. But I will say what it is I admire about her: she was relentless. She spoke her mind and backed it up with her vast knowledge of law. And she fought tirelessly for equality before the law, most famously gender equality, but equality in general as I understand it.
In short: she didn’t care if people got tired of her or disagreed with her. She stood by what she knew to be true.
Image lovingly stolen from the internet…
As I watched the actress walk through RBG’s life on stage, relief washed over me like a wave. From the moment in that meeting that I said I was frustrated I knew I had done the right thing, even though I immediately second guessed myself. By saying how I felt and what I needed, I was setting a boundary. People are allowed to and should do that, regardless of gender. I know this to be true.
Over the course of her life, RBG fought for change via the law. Many was the time that people argued against her citing cultural norms as their rationale. Women stay home and are caregivers, men go to work and are breadwinners. Therefore it was fine that a man wasn’t eligible for the caregivers tax credit (Moritz v. Commissioner). That was an argument based at least in part on culture.
Social change can come about in a number of ways, but RBG’s life makes me consider two main ways: 1) changing the culture, leading to a change in laws or 2) changing the laws leading to a change in culture. RBG would have certainly argued that changing the culture without a change in laws would be meaningless, but one must admit that sometimes the culture changes faster than the laws can keep up and so laws change after the culture has already shifted.
The point is this: watching the play about RBG’s life reminded me that culture remains a factor in the lived experiences of women. Since RBG’s early days in law school, leaps and bounds have been made in bringing men and women closer to equality before the law. (Here I will pointedly not diverge into a discussion about Roe v. Wade, but rest assured I HAVE FEELINGS ABOUT IT. I will also not discuss pay disparity. Note that I said “closer to equality”, not actually equal.) While both the law and the culture have changed significantly, there are still cultural assumptions in place, buried deep in our brains, taught to us by a society that is slow to catch up.
I didn’t second guess myself because I have low self esteem. I second guessed myself because of the stereotypes that live in my head and in the world, such as that women are too emotional. Women are not as capable. Women aren’t built for the workforce or to handle difficult things. I, as a woman, will be judged for my behavior more harshly than a man would be judged. I will be thought of as a bitch rather than a strong leader. People will walk on eggshells around me if I am notorious for showing my feelings. I did not make up any of these assumptions, nor was I carefully taught to believe these things. In fact, I was raised in a household of two daughters: never once were we taught that we couldn’t do or be anything because of our gender.
No, I picked up all of those little thoughts and deep-seated stereotypes from our culture. From television and movies. From experiences at school of teachers treating girls differently from the boys. From phrases that still live in the vernacular: “don’t be so girly, such a sissy, such a pussy…”; all female connotations, all negative connotations. From my own lived experience of being ignored or told to calm down or disregarded as over-opinionated or, yes, overly emotional.
I felt relief because I understood that I hadn’t overreacted. It was totally reasonable to expect someone to think of my behavior the way I feared if we’re all living in the same culture where I learned all those assumptions to begin with. I felt relief because I recognized that there is not a law that says those things about women, that is the culture, and the culture can and will change.
Mostly I felt relief because I realized that in my own small way, I have already been doing what I can to shift things in the right direction. Normally, in non-professional environments, I am completely at ease in sharing my feelings, discussing my needs, setting my boundaries. I would love to say that this is through great effort, but it isn’t. Seriously: have a mental breakdown and see how your behavior changes. I put my own needs first for my own mental health and I do not care how I am perceived or if anyone thinks me weak. That being the case, I can promote and demonstrate the concept that talking about feelings is human, not exclusively female. I can do that in professional spaces even if I must put my doubts to the side first. I can do that unapologetically, relentlessly, and because I know it to be true that emotional does not equal weak.
In January on a Tuesday I was worried about becoming notorious for being too emotional, for talking too much about feelings. Now, thanks to a little reminder from RBG, I am hoping that is exactly what happens and I hope that I can shift the narrative even a tiny bit along the way.
