Interrupted Women, Interrupting: Excuse Us, We're Speaking

It's about time.

To be a woman is to be interrupted.

In boardrooms and family rooms and courtrooms, women's actual voices are often cut short – their thoughts and ideas demonstrated to be less important than what their male counterpart has to say.

We learn it from infancy, really. Watching our mothers interrupted. Watching how they respond to it, how they wait for a chance to resume their thought. How they re-insert themselves into a conversation without calling attention to the fact they were interrupted - so as not to embarrass the man who interrupted them.

We see successful women that we admire, interrupted. We see how they respond to it - by biting their tongue, "turning the other cheek." Perhaps laughing about it later. Perhaps not.

No woman - no matter how powerful she is - is immune. A while back researchers determined that female Supreme Court justices are interrupted far more often than their male counterparts, both by their colleagues and by the people that are trying to persuade them.

Think about that for a second. The advocates interrupting these women - these Supreme Court justices - want those very same women to rule in their favor. They are standing before these women, pleading their case.

But they just can't help themselves.

As the researchers who looked at interruptions on the Supreme Court put it, "there is no point at which a woman is high-status enough to avoid being interrupted."

Of course, we know that to be true.

“Excuse me, I’m speaking.”

Image Credit: BelenMedinaArt in Charlotte, North Carolina (Etsy store here)

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Interruption takes different forms, of course.

Pregnancy – even when planned – is the ultimate interruption.

Although describing pregnancy as an “interruption” unacceptably sanitizes it because there are no words to describe the physical experience of pregnancy, let alone childbirth.

A caveat that I am a mother, and I wanted to be one. I love my son intensely, incredibly, fully. And my pregnancy was uncomplicated (we’ve been trained to call it “easy,” though no pregnancy is easy) and desired.

But let’s speak frankly. Pregnancy is disfiguring. It rips you apart from the inside, making space for something that's you but not you. Every day is discomfort, as your stomach muscles split apart and your tendons stretch and your bones change alignment. Then it rips you apart again in different ways, to give that not-you you a chance at the outside world.

All through pregnancy and childbirth, you're ripped apart. Slowly. Methodically. Constantly. And then all at once.

I have often wondered if one of the reasons men are so much more likely to argue for abortion bans is simply that they have no concept of the reality of pregnancy. Instead, they’ve got a fictionalized, ready-for-tv version, where women skip through pregnancy and emerge bright faced and taut-tummied from the hospital's Baby and Mother wing – with energy to spare and a smile to share.

It's like an old film reel that's been blurred with vaseline. You can see the outlines, and some of the picture is still there, but the raw reality is obscured and replaced with a soft halo of light.

Our society is so squeamish and in denial about the physicality of childbirth that when a company specializing in postpartum products cut an ad portraying the reality of the days and weeks post birth, it was rejected by ABC for being "too graphic." (You can watch it here: https://www.mother.ly/postpartum/this-is-the-frida-mom-ad-the-oscars-banned/)

You bet childbirth is graphic.

Deliveries can be so traumatic that some women – many women – suffer from PTSD. Forcing someone to go through that against their will is the cruelest punishment I can imagine.

That did not stop red states from banning abortion as soon as they could possibly do so.

The denial of reproductive rights for women is no longer a theoretical issue. It’s a reality of daily life in red states (and, if they have their way, in all states). Women have died as a result of these abortion bans. Others have had their lives, their bodies, their families, irrevocably altered against their will.

We as a society suffer for these women's absence - imagine all of the ideas stifled, careers stunted, and advancements postponed because the female minds capable of moving humanity forward in such exciting ways are being ... interrupted.

And forced to think of more primal things, like survival.

So it was a breath of fresh air yesterday to see a male, Republican-appointed judge in Georgia strike down Georgia’s 6-week abortion ban, saying plainly “[w]omen are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote.”

I was stunned that a judge was willing to say those words. I think that says a lot.

Image credit: Women Interrupted App, Portraits of Silence

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When I am interrupted, I feel a strange mix of annoyance and anger. My outward response, however, is to smile and either pause for a moment or wait for the man (it’s almost always a man) to take a breath so that I can re-insert myself in the conversation.

And for a long time – before the 2016 election, and especially while Roe was still in place – women seemed to react to politics generally and proposed abortion restrictions specifically in a similar way: more angry than annoyed – but certainly respectful.

At least, I reacted to politics that way. And I know I’m not alone.

Now the stakes are vastly, wildly, tangibly, different.

So it's no wonder that now we see women's voices across our country reach a crescendo that is beginning to resemble a collective primal scream.

Since that rainy day in November 2016 when Hillary Clinton wore a purple suit and told all of our little girls to keep dreaming, we have seen women standing up and speaking to the impact of a culture that cooks its ruling class in a soup of toxic masculinity where young men are taught that their lives, their ideas and their careers are more important and more valuable than women's - while women are force-fed a diet of politeness and passivity.

Women who have pent up anger and rage - over their own experiences and the system that we've lived in - have flooded into the political process, becoming nominees, pitching in to help candidates, educating voters - recognizing that in order to change our system we have to change who represents us - and that as a group we have the power to do that.

The zoom calls and meetings and postcard parties and conferences that I attend – they’re full of women. This month a whopping 80,000 postcards are being sent out to voters in battleground states, thanks to the efforts of primarily women-led post-carding groups.

Women are owning our own voices, demanding to have agency over our own “cat lady” lives, and flatly refusing to be treated like chattel. We’ve put reproductive rights on the November ballot in 10 states.

We are enthusiastically supporting a presidential nominee who is a strong, accomplished, witty, and joyful woman – who rather than hiding our right to reproductive freedom, has put it at the center of her campaign. In the week after Joe Biden stepped aside and endorsed Kamala Harris, voter registration increased among women by 33%, and among young women of color by 71%. Kamala has raised hundreds of millions of dollars; 60% of those donors are women, some of whom had never donated to a campaign before.

If it was not clear before, it should be now.

We’re speaking.

Let's get to work.

Actions for the Week of October 1, 2024

Here’s the part where – if you are so inclined – we roll up our sleeves and engage in what I like to call Action Therapy. Each Tuesday I share a few “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. You can tuck these actions into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.

Small Thing(s) to Read: Superior Court of Fulton County Judge Robert McBurney Opinion & Washington Post article

First: As I mentioned above, Judge McBurney’s barn-burning opinion striking down Georgia’s 6-week abortion ban is a magnificent piece of jurisprudence. Even better, most of it is written in non-jargon – making it much more accessible to everyone.

The high points include:

• “Whether one couches it as liberty or privacy (or even equal protection), this dispute is fundamentally about the extent of a woman’s right to control what happens to and within her body….

• “While the State’s interest in protecting “unborn” life is compelling, until that life can be sustained by the State -- and not solely by the woman compelled by the Act to do the State’s work -- the balance of rights favors the woman.

• “Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.

• “[T]he liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability. It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could -- or should -- force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.

Bravo. Just incredible. Read it here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25178630/mcburney-sistersong-final-order.pdf

Second: I was really excited to talk to Colby Itkowitz from the Washington Post about the importance of running everywhere. She wrote an excellent piece about Kate Barr, a Democratic nominee for state senate in North Carolina who is running in a super red, gerrymandered district.

She’s made that the central point of her campaign – introducing herself as the “losing” candidate and making the GOP’s extreme gerrymandering a focus. I love Kate’s campaign; I was happy to provide some perspective on the importance of running everywhere, and what we at Every State Blue are doing to help folks running in the reddest, roughest, toughest districts.

Read the Washington Post article here (gift article – no subscription needed): https://wapo.st/3ZKrCP4

Small Event to Attend: Women Wednesdays for Harris!

Come take action in coalition with Women for Harris at a weekly Zoom space! Every Wednesday through the election, thousands of women gather alongside an exciting lineup of speakers and leading activists for inspiration and practical guidance around the most urgent and effective ways to take action this election cycle. These are free events focused on community and action, no fundraising involved. Let’s keep the momentum going until Kamala Harris is in the White House!

Catch up on all past trainings and calls here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePpwWSEK1EkMA8m3JFrPUg

This week’s theme is Making Sense of the Polls & How Women Will Shape This Election - with Angela Alsobrooks, Michelle Buteau, Olivia Julianna, Susie Lee, Lucy Liu, and Maya Rupert

October 2 at 8:30pm eastern. Register: https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/657943/

Small Action to Take: All In For Kamala + Storm Relief Resources

First, Indivisible has created an *excellent* resource. Their All In For Kamala page allows you to just plug in your address to find actions you can take from your neighborhood.

Head over to https://www.majorityovermaga.org/ to check it out.

Second, the devastation that we are seeing in the southeast is heartbreaking. Having suffered rains and flooding described as “apocalyptic” in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, North Carolina in particular is in need.

This live document is a great resource – both to share with anyone who is currently in need of assistance, but also because there are a number of organizations and entities that you can donate to that are providing help to folks on the ground. Thanks to Rural Americans for Harris for sharing it! Check it out here, and please share. (Shortlink: https://bit.ly/wncheleneguide)

Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! If you love what I do and you want to support it, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It means a lot!