The Actual Audacity of People

It’s 2024… are we seriously still telling women to “calm down”??

As an American woman, I’ve been in a perpetual state of slightly pissed for a few years now.

So when I watched the State of the Union address, hung out after to see the Republican response, then picked my jaw up off the floor and penned my thoughts about said response, I knew I’d get some — feedback.

I wasn’t anticipating the outright misogyny displayed so brashly in the comments of said piece.

Did they… even read it??

Tone deaf and sexist

Probably my favorite [not favorite] response to my piece was one in which I was told that perhaps if I wasn’t so angry people would take me seriously and that no one would listen to an emotional woman (I’m paraphrasing, and I did block this ‘gentleman’ after his subsequent comment, so, unfortunately, I do not have access to his comments to refer back to).

Here’s a link to the piece so you can determine for yourself the level of my tone of ‘hysteria’:

I presented what I believe is a well-reasoned, empathetic, thoughtful response from a professional woman living in America.

But merely by virtue of disagreeing with this man’s personal stance and beliefs, apparently, I was “angry,” despite no linguistic evidence of said anger.

When I asked him to point out where I was ‘angry,’ he dodged the question and came back with, “I am woman, hear me whine,” at which point it became clear he had no intention of intellectual discourse but rather desired to insult and denigrate a woman, simply for her political opinions.

But after blocking him and stepping back for a moment, I realized I was angry. I hadn’t been angry while writing the piece, and I affirm that this piece was a well-reasoned, sensible, and thorough examination of how a party of misogynistic hypocrites treats their own best and brightest women and what that means for all American women.

But absolutely, he’s right, I am mad.

I am big mad, as my husband would say.

And why shouldn’t I be?

I am a United States veteran, I gave years of my life in service to my nation, I worked another few years in public service as a government contractor, and I have been consistent in my service to my community, yet on June 24, 2022, I stood helplessly as I, and my daughters, sisters, and friends, all became second-class citizens as our fundamental rights to our bodily autonomy were stripped from us.

My husband has no politician telling him what to do with his body. Neither do my sons.

But I do. Our daughters do.

I looked down at my then two-year-old daughter and realized she now had fewer rights than I’d had for forty years of my life. My then 17-year-old stepdaughter only had access to the medication she needed for hormonal balance because our state is reasonably moderate and not a flaming red bastion of fascist control over women.

So if I, a woman, write a piece about another woman so callously (and weirdly) throwing so many other women under the bus, and the very sexist and misogynistic party environment that set her up to do so, I would have every right to be angry.

And yet, just like with all other situations we professional American women find ourselves in, when faced with mind-blowing sexism and condescension, I found a way to communicate my thoughts and beliefs in a well-reasoned, sensible, and calm fashion.

I’m not sure men would know what to do if we showed them anger. They’ve been so accustomed to ‘their’ women’s quiet subservience that any woman expressing any opinion that differs from theirs is interpreted as anger, when they haven’t seen anger.

Anger would be marching in the streets and burning shit down, as we should.

Anger would be storming the halls of Congress and smashing the balls of every male Republican elected official with a hammer.

Do you see the difference?

Disagreement and expression of opinion is not anger.

These men don’t even recognize female anger because we’ve never truly expressed it.

Professional rage, repressed

Once upon a time, I had a position in a local chapter of a national nonprofit. I was selected for the position after a rigorous four-month, four-interview process. I had presented to the board and demonstrated with rigor my experience in the necessary technical components of the job, as well as the nonprofit fund development portion of the job.

Suffice it to say, I was well qualified for the position.

So when the resident “IT guy” came into my office, hitched up his khakis, placed one butt cheek on my desk, and proceeded to mansplain SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to me… and did so incorrectly, it took all I had to not push him off my desk, hand him a Cyber Security for Dummies book, and shut my office door in his face.

But did I?

Of course not. Because as a professional woman in America, we learn early on that our anger has no place here. We have to swallow it, stuff it down, meekly accept all manner of insult, and find a way to politely express our professional communications while carefully considering the feelings and egos of the men around us.

In fact, working with an overwhelming majority of men in the military, I learned that one of the fundamental aspects of my job was working around the unbelievably fragile egos and feelings of the men around me.

Men are insanely fragile, particularly in the workspace. Disagreeing with a man’s professional assessment or opinion is immediately met with derision, condescension, and disbelief, even when we present clear and convincing evidence that they are wrong. And even when we know we are right and they are wrong, we must still cautiously phrase and frame our position to somehow simultaneously convince him and soothe his ego from the ‘sting’ of being corrected.

It’s exhausting.

Now I feel I must pause here and reaffirm, because of course I do: not all men.

I’ve worked with lots of men who have been completely professional and are gracious and even-tempered when accepting criticism or critique or when presented with evidence that their conclusion, projection, or proposal was not quite on the mark.

But the presence of those men in the workplace does not detract from the multitude of egos I’ve had to navigate while climbing my own professional ladder. When I got my own substantial office with the nameplate on the door, I thought perhaps those days were over.

Ol’ IT guy in khakis showed me on my fifth day of the job that I was, unfortunately, not quite there.

Upon leaving that position and starting my own consultancy, I went up against a man for a contract with a substantial but rather new local nonprofit.

I had over a decade of demonstrated experience and success, along with formal education and credentials. The other guy had nice hair. His only nonprofit fund development experience was a year doing cold calling alumni to fundraise for a local college.

I wore a suit to the first meeting. He wore a T-shirt and jeans, I suppose to give off that ‘Zuckerberg’ vibe.

He got the job, and I watched from not-so-afar (it wasn’t a big city) as the nonprofit crumbled and almost collapsed, and the CEO cut and run, after this idiotic ‘consultant’ absolutely wrecked the organization. I wasn’t so much angry as really frustrated for everyone who worked for and believed in that organization.

In 2022, the organization permanently closed, citing “competitive market and budget shortfalls,” leaving all of the people they served completely in the dust and without valuable services.

Could I have ‘saved’ the organization? I can’t say that with certainty, but I can say I brought with me a wealth of experience, education, and knowledge.

Unfortunately, I also brought a vagina.

We’re always going to be here

No matter how hard conservative men try, women are still going to be here. We’re going to be in your offices, and no, you still can’t call us ‘sweetie’ or make inappropriate jokes.

Sorry, not sorry.

We’re still going to be in positions of leadership; as judges, politicians, doctors, lawyers, professors and researchers, scientists, military officers, pilots, and CEOs. You’re still going to have to answer to a woman from time to time.

Sorry, not sorry.

You can try as hard as you want to control and repress us and our rights, you can strip away from us our options in family planning, and we… will… still… be… here.

If you think we’re angry now, keep pushing us. See how angry we can be.

See how many of us vote. See how many of us run for office. See how many of us assume positions of leadership in our communities, cities, states, and nation, because we are not going anywhere.

We have fought long and hard for equal footing in this nation, and while you may have temporarily knocked us down in that respect, we’ll fight our way back.

Make no mistake: the future of America is a future in which women stand next to men, shoulder to shoulder, and hold equal positions in our society. Either get on board that train or get out of our way.

For the old codger in my comments, I’d like to correct you. The quote is “I am woman, hear me roar,” and roar we will.

Just you wait and see.

My name is Melissa Corrigan, and I’m a freelance writer/thought sharer/philosopher in coastal Virginia. I am a mom, a wife, a veteran, and so much more. I deeply enjoy sharing my thoughts and receiving feedback that sparks genuine, respectful conversation.

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