My mind keeps coming back to my class last week, and how women are so often talked over or told to be quiet that they just naturally clam up.
It's a screenwriting class, so the session was set up like a writer's room and we were all brainstorming. This girl consistently had the best ideas for each part of the exercise, but she only spoke up once. The rest of the time, she put her thoughts in the chat, and the teacher never once looked at it.
So my obnoxious ass went "oh, I love what [her name] had to say in the chat just now! *repeats her idea*" "I like what [name] said! *repeats*" "hey, [name], I don't think he saw what you wrote. Could you read it off to him?"
She said she didn't want to dominate the discussion. I told her the best idea should win and if it consistently comes from her, so be it. The rest of us should step up and try to match her, not drag her down to the least creative (usually me XD I'm tired) student's level
We are both fem-presenting and I struggle with speaking up for myself, too, but I hate seeing it in others. I hate seeing women talked over, dismissed, shutting down and making themselves smaller for someone else's benefit or comfort. Black women (like her; I don't know a graceful way to mention that she's black and I'm white without it sounding weird and virtue-signally) especially are so often ignored and their contributions either dismissed or stolen and...nope. Not happening. Not with me around. It's a hell of a lot easier to speak up for someone else, somehow. So I let my inner Loud Fag Raised by a Single Mom out in full force and made sure the smartest woman in the room (zoom but whatev) was heard.
Y'all, the way she smiled by the end of that class... ❤️😭🥰 made my whole week (she is so pretty holy shit 😍). I hope I had a little something to do with that. I love making people smile.
