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OPINION & EDITORIAL

Do women silence their own opinions?

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Also by Kate Maternowski:

Religious education offers values, not indoctrination (November 28, 2007)
Tuition could use high-cost strategy (November 14, 2007)
Photo evidence right for Madison renters, landlords (November 2, 2007)

by Kate Maternowski

Monday, December 3, 2007

Women are significantly outnumbered in leadership roles across many sectors — the corporate world, elected governmental positions, academia and so on. We’ve heard the statistics time and again, and they are not surprising anymore.

While some would say this fact screams deliberate discrimination, other factors necessarily play into the notably small female representation in highly visible, highly opinion-focused roles. When asking why women hold only 16 percent of U.S. Congressional seats, one also has to ask why women are less likely than men to run for those offices.

It could be the case that women do, in fact, face more hurdles than their male counterparts in seeking leadership positions, or that a corporate and political world currently dominated by men is intimidating and uninviting to potential female participants.

It could also be the case — and the issue warrants discussion — that women are generally less drawn to very visible positions and duties that call for them to be opinionated and candidly ambitious.

Editor & Publisher in 2005, for example, reported that only 24.4 percent of the columnists at eight major news syndicates were women; the female columnist staff at The New York Times News Service numbered just 12.5 percent at that time.

Again, numbers like these may immediately hint at employer bias favoring men for jobs in the op-ed department, but a more telling statistic from Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post is worth noting. According to Mr. Hiatt, 80 to 90 percent of the op-ed submissions The Washington Post receives come from men.

If women are hesitant to voice their opinions and are reluctant to take on roles that not only allow them but require them to be vocal about important issues, underrepresentation is likely to follow.

To be sure, this trend is not limited to far-off leadership roles in big business and major national newspapers. At this newspaper, for example, I am the only female columnist on the opinion staff and, admittedly, had to be coaxed into committing to weekly column inches. Indeed the opinion editors here are open to taking on female writers, so my solo presence indicates that other females on campus might share my reluctance.

It would be difficult to dismiss the possibility that the newspaper statistic and this reluctance stem from a tendency in women to not want to put themselves — their opinions — out in the path of potential critique, dissent or attack.

In a recent editorial piece for The New York Times, Verlyn Klinkenborg discussed an encounter with female college writers and her challenge of their hesitations to be more confident and opinionated in their writing. Their concerns, she said, allowed her to see "the cultural frame these young women have grown up in." She could "hear them questioning the very nature of their perceptions, doubting the evidence of their senses, distrusting the clarity of their thoughts."

Ms. Klinkenborg invited her young female audience to realize their opinions do matter; It is unfortunate that women sometimes need that reminder, but the culture of polite, self-negating silence surrounding women can lead to a regrettable gap in public dialogue.

Yet there is more to this issue. Even when this gap in public dialogue is filled with women willing to be vocal and opinionated, too often women feel confident only in writing about women’s issues.

On the Oct. 21 edition of Meet the Press, for instance, Tim Russert hosted an "extraordinary group of ladies," as he put it, and moderated a discussion that revolved, for the most part, around women’s issues and the upcoming election.

During the interview, Judy Woodruff commented on Hillary Clinton’s impact on the presidential race, saying, "She’s influenced the way we cover the campaign. You have an all-women panel here this morning. We could call you an honorary skirt."

Why would an all-female panel be any less relevant to an issue not related to women? Or, more generally, why do women feel more safe, more confident, more compelled to write and opine primarily about women’s issues, and why is it often expected that women will do just and only that when they indeed choose to be vocal and opinionated?

An individual’s gender is simply not relevant when discussing many of the major political, economic and social issues affecting modern society, and women have as much a stake in the conversation as do men.

Inviting women to participate on discussion panels is one thing; giving opinion section column inches to women is one thing. Women acknowledging their opinions and taking initiative to make themselves heard is another, and, whether or not female reluctance to publicly vocalize their opinions is actually as pervasive as some suspect, it is something that warrants attention.

Kate Maternowski (kmaternowski@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in English.

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Anonymous (December 3, 2007 @ 9:20am):

Who cares?! Let 'em watch The View.

Anonymous (December 3, 2007 @ 9:37am):

Just wait until the Moslems take over - you'll be in a burka and not even able to drive, much less vote or express an opinion. It'll be more a dog collar or the lash than a glass ceiling you'll have to worry about.

Anonymous (December 3, 2007 @ 10:27am):

This is why I have problems with femininity - it is stereotypically weak.

And 9:20, are you that insecure about your own masculinity that you need to make a sexist comment? This is the 21st century, not the Dark Ages.

Anonymous (December 3, 2007 @ 1:06pm):

9:37-- and fear of one fundamentalism is used to justify another.

Anonymous (December 3, 2007 @ 3:10pm):

1:06

WTF? Where in that comment do you devine "one fundamentalism is used to justify another."

I'm a militant athiest - I don't support "fundamentalism" of any religion. I'd be happy to return to a matriarchy where the uncles are the male role model.

Anonymous (December 3, 2007 @ 11:19pm):

Moslems sure don't want women expressing their own opinions, or writing about facts either.

***

Ms Nasreen fled her homeland after being accused of blasphemy for her 1994 novel 'Lajja' or 'Shame,' which depicts violence against minority Hindus by Muslims in Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

The writer - who has received death threats for her work - has lived in Kolkata since 2004, after spending time in Europe and the United States.

http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Asia/STIStory_182971.html

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