Discipline is the art of not betraying yourself. – Marcus Aurelius
It happened again. A woman I know, in a local rec center locker room, apologized for taking her shirt off in front of me. Sorry?! What are you sorry for? We’re in a locker room, I just got out of the pool, you’re just going in, what you just did was perfectly normal, and expected! Sheesh. She laughed. I rolled my eyes.
Please, ladies, women, dames, broads, girls, chicks: stop fucking apologizing. And, I promise to try to do the same. Yes, I do it too, though not for engaging in acts and behaviors that are perfectly consistent with where I am and what I’m doing.
When do I apologize most frequently? Well – are you sitting down – I find myself, still, adding an “I’m sorry” in conversation before expressing an opinion. Gaaaaaa!!!
It’s maddening, and it’s a betrayal of myself. I read and I am well-informed on a variety of subjects – not all subjects, for sure – but, politics, government, world affairs, women’s rights, where almost all the guns being used by gangs in Haiti to terrorize their fellow citizens are coming from (Florida, of course)…and more. Cars, no. Chemistry? Oh hell no. How to slow cook a side of beef? No, but I can and will google it if the need arises (it won’t).
“I’m sorry but I think” – why do I do this? I do this because for decades it pissed people off (starting with my mother) when I presumed to know that the fuck I was talking about. Male teachers. Male fellow town board members, peer male classmates and male professors. And yes, a few women along the way, women who help uphold male standards (it’s better to be silent, ladies, when a man is speaking, and all the rest of the time, too!) and my mother’s point of view. Ah, mother.
And, I think, I have come to believe, that apologizing makes it worse, for me but also for them, as it inflames them. Why? Because at bottom, they know (my mother absolutely knew) and I know, and they know I know, that I am not sorry for being better informed, quick, articulate, and very likely sharper!
How dare you?! How dare she?! Oh, I dare.
Deborah Tannen’s book You Just Don’t Understand (published in 1990) instructed me years ago to never, ever couch an opinion or a statement of fact in any way when discussing any subject with a man-thing as anything other than a declarative statement. Do not hedge, do not ramble, do not, for Goddesses sake, apologize. State your opinion or fact as boldly as you can, and move on, and believe me, I have tried. There’s just this thing that happens when I see the anger in their eyes, the surprise in their faces, surprise and outrage that the women, the girl, is speaking at all, is allowed to speak. Who let her in here? What is happening?
I shrink. I start to hedge. I feel myself beginning to sweat. Then I start to get angry, which is not good, but is also 100% understandable because why can’t I speak my truth, whatever it is, and not be talked over or ignored (this is all bringing me flashbacks to being in public office, can you tell?!), or worse yet contradicted by someone who hasn’t a clue or worst of all have my idea or opinion repeated by a man and taken seriously when I said the same damned thing 10 minutes ago and was totally ignored?!
Deep breaths. A dear friend said once that discipline was knowing what you want. I want, and need, to be able to live with my self-respect intact, and without apology, without hedging and hawing, bowing and scraping to a real or imagined ‘higher power’ who is very easily pissed off, it seems, by my speaking my truth, because my truth is mine, and sometimes it’s even the actual truth.
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. – attributed to Marcus Aurelius