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CULTURE CLASH (WOMEN’S ISSUES)
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FOR CENTURIES, A DEFINING FEATURE OF BEING A WOMAN IS HAVING A SECOND-CLASS VOICE IN ANY ROOM, (IF YOU CAN GET INTO THE ROOM, BUT THAT’S ANOTHER ISSUE). Women inherit a societal playbook that teaches subservient silence and nonverbal compliance while working with a reduced allotment of verbal space in a conversation. Speak less, smile more. 16
As a woman I often experience and witness women fight to be heard, not get talked over, or be dismissed for talking too much. As a woman, I also witness this effect and behavior with transgendered women and effeminate men. So let’s rethink and expand our definition of women as the target of this discrimination. The scope of the term women is capable of including non-dominant, male identities. The term women is flexible and incorporates effeminate characteristics. However, for all that women includes, it does not seem to include our voice. There is a deep growl growing in the absence of women’s voices. Can you hear it? It’s the grinding of teeth, swallowed howls, and subvocalized rebellion of millions of women’s missing voices. C U LTU R EC L A S H G A LV E STO N . C O M • M A R /A P R 2 0 2 2
