Words From My Woman Mouth
Written by Delaney Judson, Edited by Quincey Fireside
Femme 6, by Caroline Bissaillon
I’ve had this happen to me many times and I’m sure that you have too. You are having a Socratic-style seminar and after biting your cheek for a while, you finally grow the courage to share your wisdom with the class. You have been sitting on your insight for the past 4 minutes before realizing that it’s actually worth sharing and you aren’t wasting anyone’s time by opening your mouth (which is something you worry about an awful lot even though you shouldn’t). The professor nods in an approving way, saying “Yes that is a right answer” without having to say anything. Maybe someone responds to what you said and the conversation progresses. No more than two minutes later, the boy who thinks every word he says deserves a place in a well-respected academic journal shares his completely original, groundbreaking idea. He probably begins with “You know, I just thought of this but…” or some other filler before proceeding to repeat what you said no less than two minutes earlier with 50 percent less class and 100 percent more baseless pomp. Sometimes no one says anything and this is mildly vindicating. But sometimes, a chorus of thoughtful grunts and sighs erupts telling you that his voice was predestined to be well received. So what then?
You consider just getting smarter. Perhaps, there is a certain threshold for your vocabulary and insights that no one could ignore or dare repeat. You go back and forth on whether or not getting smarter would act as an appropriate ‘fuck you,’ or if you would, once again, be putting in the effort to compensate for someone else's shortcomings. You feel for a moment like being a woman in academia is a massive group project where you are left doing a majority of the work while the least determined of you still get the credit. But like, you can’t actually be mad about it. That’s just how group projects work. Also, you are, of course, at risk of losing others at the mere thought of your voice pontificating. Smart girl, who do you think you are?
Have they told you yet that your voice is soothing? Or that they want you to read them a bedtime story? Which, if I might add, is distinctly different from the compliment “You should do audiobooks.” Now you may consider taking this as a compliment, or you may hear as I do “When you open your woman mouth, I start to fall asleep; I’m not really listening.”
And if this is in fact the case, — that they will always listen first to the manner in which you speak, followed by what it is you’re actually saying— I think you would make a really great listener. Because of course you are and you don’t need me telling you that. The world you operate in often gives you no other choice. So you’ve become the master of empathy, the virtuoso of the generous ear. Though this is something that seldom gets recognized as it is an invisible kind of sport, it’s free from all sorts of risk. You then may be remembered as a kind of ‘team player,’ instead of the bossy, the brash or, the loud woman.
Because we talk too much. Right? “On average” “studies show” we talk too much. Not that these ‘statistics’ socialize men to tune us out when we speak. Or that as soon as you open your mouth, you can feel the weight of everyone waiting for it to be closed. Or at least, if you’re anything like me, that’s what it feels like sometimes. Because you’ve watched as impatient men unable to wait their turn before their bass booms over your softer speech. Or maybe, because you’ve dated men who have reminded you, ‘you’re doing it again’ when you fall into the ‘talking too much’ statistic. And you’ve gotten good at apologizing for whenever you do. And then you apologize for apologizing. And then you just sit there and you don’t know what to say. Because it’s all that ‘talking’ that got you into this mess in the first place… Right?
I will grant that we tend to talk far more than the years of excruciatingly accurate filmic and literary depictions of women might. If your interactions with women take place in large part with Wes Anderson as your liaison to womeness, then we certainly talk too much. We talk too much as a chair might; for when your furniture speaks but one word, this would be considered far too much. We talk so much that in their reverence, they’ve coined for us our very own term. For we women don’t talk, we whine, we complain, we bitch.
So I would encourage you, next time you find yourself in class with the wannabe no-it-all coasting through undergrad with his intellectual plagiarism and obvious dicklessness, to be a bitch about it. Because I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being careful, considerate, and prudent. Because when I’m in that room every bone in my body screams, “I just said that exact same thing, were you even listening?” And maybe one day, my mouth will too. Because, quiet girl, you don’t talk enough. My silence is not the punishment he deserves.