Speaking Up: The Double Bind of Women’s Voices in Business

“It took me quite a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to be silent”

― Madeleine K. Albright

With only a week to go until the end of my degree, I find myself where many have stood before, at the base of their career ladder. In Covid-19 world, even getting a grip on that ladder is a stretch. Being a woman who wants to get through the door into male-dominated tech spheres… I might as well be Elasti-Girl. I recently reached out to successful women in my life from various fields, to gain some advice on how they got to where they are now, and how they would have done it differently. The key take away from all those conversations was that women should speak up, and jump in.

As a media practitioner, my job is to communicate. On a more personal level, through many a back-handed compliment, I’ve learned that I talk a lot. It’s been on every single one of my report cards from primary school, and it’s a running joke that that’s the reason I became a writer — so I could continue churning words out even when there isn’t someone to listen. However, as I’ve gotten older, and moved through higher-education learning, I’ve found myself trying to be quieter, in case my talkativeness is read as overly dominating or annoying. Maybe it’s also because I’ve picked up more on how those back-handed, slightly patronising ‘compliments’, like “you’re quite the Chatty Cathy, aren’t you?”, are usually a veiled attempt at telling me to shut up. When I was younger, I had confidence in sharing my ideas and prided myself on being outspoken. Now I worry that I’m too talkative, that my ideas might not be as valuable as I thought, or that maybe I’m simply too much.

Catching up with friends who had graduated the year before me — powerful, knowledgeable, outspoken women — many of them told me that they’ve encountered the same insecurities within their professional spaces, and sadly grown quieter because of it. They explained that due to their junior positions and the stereotypes, they worried that if they spoke too much, or were too loud in their ideas, that they wouldn’t be taken seriously. There were also fears about mispeaking, not being prepared enough or coming off as unqualified. None of my male friends seemed to have expressed the same concerns.

I struggle to find that line between being outspoken and being talkative; between talking freely and boldly, and talking too much. Talkativeness is a trait that is stereotypically attributed to women, though I find that quite ironic when most mainstream media fails to pass the Bechdel test… if we spend as much time talking as believed, it certainly isn’t all about men. So speaking with women at the peak of their careers all telling me that I should speak up and jump into conversations more seemed counterintuitive until I started doing my research.

Women are more likely than men to receive the feedback that they ‘don’t speak up’ in meetings, and the more outnumbered they are, the less they speak. Dale Spender, in her book ‘Man Made Language’, found that in a mixed-gender group, whether the metric was measured in minutes or words, men always talked more. Furthermore, women’s contributions were viewed as “equally balanced” when women spoke 25% of the time or less. When women spoke as little as 30% of the time or more, they were perceived as dominating the conversation.

In the small amount of time we get a chance to speak, whilst also being told we talk too much, we’re very often interrupted. There have been countless studies that have examined the phenomenon that men consistently interrupt women. A study done by Slate found that men interrupted others twice as often as women did, and were three times more likely to interrupt women than other men. The only instances of women interrupting men, rather than each other, were by women in senior positions. The majority didn’t even realise they were doing it.

So it’s tough to get a word in edge-ways, and even if you do, you may seem too talkative or dominating. And don’t forget to not hedge your words or upspeak, because if you come off as unsure, people may doubt that you know what you’re saying, giving further fuel to opportunities for others to interrupt or mansplain. There is a constant double bind in speaking up as a woman in the workplace.

Reflecting on my conversations, I realised that speaking up and jumping into opportunities was what got these successful women into their top-level positions today and that their advice to me was to do it sooner. So how do we speak up and jump into the conversation, and how can allies help?

1. It’s impossible to be overly prepared at every step, but first and foremost is confidence. One of those women told me that, with age, she has learnt to no longer be intimidated by her position or gender. If she believes she has something valuable to contribute she does so, and doesn’t care what people think of her. There’s an over-quoted saying: women will only apply for an open listing if, and only if, she meets all of the requirements for a job or project, men will do so with only 60%. Don’t doubt yourself.
2. When someone is interrupted in a meeting, regardless of their gender, we should be able to step in and just give a simple “sorry, she wasn’t done yet” or a “hold on a minute, we’ll get back to you, I just want to let her finish her point”. As I said, we’re often unaware of how many times a conversation gets interrupted — in that Slate study I mentioned before, they tracked an average of an interruption every 2 ½ minutes! But now that you’re aware of it, try looking out for it in your next meeting. We all know how frustrating it is to be stopped mid sentence, and it’s always nice to be reminded that there are others in your court.
3. Reach out to the women in your meetings that seem quiet and ask them what they think. Some of the women I spoke to said they do exactly that, as a way of offering others a leg-up through the glass ceiling. Another piece of advice I was given is to set a goal for myself to pitch at least one idea in every meeting, and ask two questions, to ensure that I’m actually part of the conversation rather than just a bystander.

For women to have better representation within the workspace, we need to represent ourselves, each other and our ideas. Remind yourself of this, speak up and jump in.

Written by: Steph Dvorak

Steph is a Cape Town based writer and media practitioner who specialises in pieces related to gaming, mental health and modern relationships. From a multicultural background that took her from South Africa to Mauritius and the Czech Republic, Steph writes from a unique perspective, having studied law and anthropology before delving into tech journalism. She loves coffee and her beagle, Basil.

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