Does This Punctuation Mark Make Me Sound Like a Bitch?
I don’t text that much. In fact, you can find me actively trying to avoid texts by letting my phone stay dead for three days. I even turned off iMessage on my computer. But on the off chance that I need to make in-person plans with an actual human, a friend has big news to share — because talking on the phone is so last decade—or it’s 1:30am and I’m drunk, the English BA in me takes note of texting patterns. I can usually tell who’s texting me just by syntax, capitalization, and punctuation.
Recently, I had to start contacting real adults (age 22.47+) via email, and my penchant for excessive exclamation point usage was glaringly obvious for the first time in my virtually communicative life. I typed “thank you.,” with a period. And I felt rude — dismissive even. In all actuality, that’s how real adults type when talking to other real adults in a professional setting. You probably already knew that. But I’m slow on the uptake.
I picked up on a pattern though: even in emails, women use exclamation points. Men really don’t. Then, I Googled “gendered usage of exclamation points,” and my suspicions were confirmed.
Why women exclaim and don’t state
Somewhere along the line — perhaps just picking up on my friends’ texting styles — I started to equate periods with disinterest. They’re like the “k” of punctuation. I noticed that a lot of the articles I read on the subject in my 2am internet black hole were dated 2014, which sounds about right in terms of a noticeable shift to unnecessary deployment of exclamation points.
Here is a relevant Onion article entitled, “Stone-Hearted Ice Witch Forgoes Exclamation Point.” It has a screenshot of an email whose body reads, “I had a great time last night. Nice to get together. We should do it again sometimes.”
Yikes.
I read it in the most flat, sarcastic tone imaginable. I would have at least used an exclamation point at the end of each sentence — maybe even two or three on the last one.
This has become especially relevant when emailing higher-ups in my job search. When I say “thank you” with a period, I feel like it doesn’t sound grateful enough, but an exclamation point might be construed as overeager for someone more grammatically traditional. (For the record, I think I have a decent handle on grammar even though I don’t always practice it — starting sentences with conjunctions and all that mess.)
I know I’m not alone when I say that I have extreme issues with self-assertion. I’m much more self-assured on the page than in person. If a potential employer and/or any human being catches me off guard and I have to deviate from my small-talk script, I end up just laughing a lot, unnecessarily smiling, apologizing for breathing, avoiding eye contact, grossly mispronouncing words, rambling, stopping thoughts short of completion, and shrugging my shoulders to try to be as unnoticeable as possible. #justgirlythings
The exclamation point is the virtual version of the female apology and our constant fear of being held back because we come across as “bitchy,” which is the female equivalent of the male “taking something seriously.”
But the attitude among some people is, “well, this is just how you have to lean-in.” Thanks, Sheryl Sandberg, for forever giving me a term to resent. “You can play with the boys as long as you cater to their conceptions of how you should act and look.”
Feigning enthusiasm is something women get pretty fucking good at, treating men with kid gloves because not couching our disagreements with them in endless variations of “but that’s just my opinion,” “you don’t have to listen to me,” and “I’m sorry” can be detrimental to our reputations and even dangerous.
It’s like when I get told to smile more not just by men on the street but by authority figures as well. It’s like when I refused to give a guy a high-five, and he said, “Fuck you, bitch.” It’s like when my sixth grade Spanish teacher told my mom that “I am intelligent like my dad, and it is just so unfortunate that my unpleasant demeanor is going to hold me back in life” all because I sat with my arms crossed in class and wrinkled my eyebrows when I was concentrating. God forbid I concentrate during my classes.
That stuff sticks with us. If we aren’t constantly doe-eyed and softly smiling, it’s off-putting (even to other women!). In the world of virtual communication, the exclamation point is how we translate the internalization of that double standard.
Sure, using exclamation points is trendy, but it’s an obligatory trend now that it has proven its longevity. People are so used to women feigning enthusiasm in real life and in texts that anything other than overt approachability is viewed as “bitchy” now.
Fear of rejection intensified
The lingering symptoms of my social anxiety can basically be summed up into one fear: rejection. A lot of my behaviors stem from preempting rejection and trying to mitigate it even at the expense of my true personality, which is outwardly unemotional. If I’m liberated from social constructs, I am the incarnation of the resting bitch face.
When I receive a text with no capitalization and no exclamation points, my first thought is “oh shit, what’d I do to piss this person off?” or “this person must hate me.” By expressing this fear to the (mostly) men who text like this, I realized this is not the case, but I still can’t shake those initial feelings of rejection. Also, I know that when I don’t use exclamation points in texts, it’s an attempt to express a negative emotion, and since I’m a woman, it works. For men, it’s just another day at the office.
I had the same response to emails even though they usually come from real adults in a professional setting. (But when they came from female students, there was the same level of smiley emojis and exclamation points as a text message.) “Oh shit, this professor is super annoyed that I asked a question. I am such an inconvenience to this world. Why do I even try?”
Again, I objectively know this isn’t the case, but the double standard obscures when I should feel rejected and when I should feel like I’m simply engaging in a normal conversation.
Some of you might be thinking, “Get over it, woman!” But I think that stems from an overestimation of how much I consciously convey these fears. The aforementioned body language that indicates discomfort or insecurity is largely out of my control unless I stay 100% aware of it 100% of the time. It’s a knee-jerk reaction based on years of internalizing that women need to look approachable, hospitable, and enthused. Even though I am usually none of those things.
Perhaps the façade contributes to my discomfort. Women must be “on” at all times because god knows we aren’t always — or ever—really feeling bubbly.
Damned if we do; damned if we don’t.
But of course, there is criticism for being too enthusiastic as well. Namely, that it’s unprofessional and makes us hard to be taken seriously.
So is there a happy medium between Kamala Harris and the women who founded The Skimm (who are all amazing, btw)? I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say no, especially in a professional setting.
I once asked a guy friend why he doesn’t use exclamation points or emojis, and he said, “that shit is gay.” (This, coming from a progressive male friend) I didn’t know syntax had a sexual orientation, but ok. Obviously problematic for many reasons, it just goes to show how the things we expect from women are seen as emasculating if men do them. But on the flip side, our expectations for women make it easer for the world to not take us seriously.
Proponents of the “exclamation usage is unprofessional” sentiment need to consider how they simultaneously reinforce the feeling that we need to use them when they call Hillary Clinton “shrill” or “cold,” when they call Kamala Harris “hysterical,” or when they call Samantha Bee a “scold.” Any woman who dares to speak like a “man” risks being written off as bitchy. Any woman who dares to speak in a way that conveys the internalization of the above statement risks being written off as ditsy.
The exclamation point debate is a proxy for the larger issue of women being policed for their tone instead of the content of their speech. It’s ridiculous. But people don’t seem to realize they’re doing it.
“Aren’t you being a little nit-picky?”
No. These attitudes are used to criticize women and to contribute to a culture in which Donald Trump can be elected as president.
They are used to write off women’s very valid opinions and lead to culture of interrupting women, taking credit for their ideas, and seeing assertive women as violating their natural tendency toward being quietly emotional and reticent women as being unfit for the workplace.
When women have to worry about how they are coming across, it distracts them from focusing on the content of their words, whereas men can just confidently bullshit their way into powerful positions.
It again begs the question of when non-wealthy-white-men are going to be treated like people instead of blank screens onto which we can project our stereotypes of how they should behave? It’s not about an exclamation point, but I’m content with using it as an example of our double standards of tone policing as grounds for dismissal of women’s speech and not for men’s.
But, like, that’s just my opinion. Sorry. You don’t have to listen to it!!!!!!!!!!! :)
