I have a tendency to pose my opinions as questions: “Was that essay a little underreported?” “What do you think about tacos for dinner?”
I don't do this with issues I've thought through thoroughly or feel passionately about -- social justice and most other political topics, who should win the Academy Award for Best Actress, the many merits of eating gluten -- but with discussions-in-progress, those daily quibbles that require quick decisions rather than the deep contemplation necessary for assuredness, I prefer to be open. It's a way of acknowledging that I don't fully understand the other side of an argument yet. A way of granting my fellow converser some leeway.
I didn’t realize until recently that this tendency is distinctly feminine, akin to using wishy-washy adverbs like “completely,” or qualifying a request with an undermining “just,” as in, “I just think my viewpoint matters.” Conversationally, women are more prone to whispering than shouting, more likely to tip-toe than stand our ground. Consequently, we’re less likely to have our voices heard; managers are less likely to grant us raises, and even doctors are less likely to treat our medical concerns as genuine.
There’s been a recent call to action, possibly spawned from the important but limited creed of Lean In, for women to speak more assuredly at work by disallowing ourselves the language habits we were socialized to develop. Affixing an unsure “maybe” or “just” to our requests has made for an uneven playing field in the workplace, where bold assertions drive success. How are we supposed to compete with “do this now,” no whimpering “please” included? Our self-doubting language -- our well-meaning exclamation marks and adverbs -- doesn’t stand a chance.
Which is why awesome woman entrepreneur Tami Reiss, CEO of Cyrus Innovation, created a Chrome extension that alerts women of their wishy-washy language usage. It functions a little like spell check -- any utterance of “sorry,” “I think,” “just,” “actually,” and other such doubt-ridden words and phrases are marked with a squiggly read underline, urging the writer to scrub her email exchanges of anything but certitude.
While this is an efficient means of confronting a pervasive problem -- women aren’t treated as equals in the workplace and beyond -- it’s more of a bandaid than a permanent solution.
Apologizing about a disagreement serves an important social function, as does professing uncertainty about a problem’s potential solution. These phrases soften the blow of what would otherwise be a stubborn stand-off between assured, disagreeing parties. Creating conversational harmony is a tough job -- one that often results in understating one’s own opinions -- and unfortunately that responsibility has rested on women for too long.
It’s time that men fluff up their comparably combative language a little, so that the balance of making decisions and asking questions can be maintained across both genders.
This means lifting the ban on those quivering, qualifying adverbs, which can actually say quite a bit in their delicate uncertainty. It means praising writing that flinches, as well as the unflinching sort. And, yes, it means saying you’re sorry -- even if you don’t feel entirely responsible for whatever you’re apologizing for.
It’s a spectrum, of course. Apologies need not be doled out for every minor offense. But don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, the answer to conversational equality, lies somewhere in the middle, where feminine and masculine speech patterns converge?
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