interrupt me one more time
I ask a bunch of men, "Have you ever interrupted a woman?"
Sure,
they say.
But not just women.
I interrupt men, too.
I interrupt everybody.
That's not because they're women.
It's just because I'm impatient/I want to win the debate/that's just how I talk.
I really don't think it's a sexist thing I do.
Yes, it's rude, but it's not sexist.
You don't know me.
I really do listen to women a lot.
(Katie pounds a seltzer water, crushes the can on her forehead)
ok
it's gonna be one of these now
I know you don't, like, hang out behind a chair, waiting for a woman to start talking, and then jump out, throw a blanket over her head, and bellow, "CHADDOM BOMB! No more girl sounds sportsball now."
I know you're not a cave man or a bridge troll. Or, maybe you are. But if you are, then this post isn't for you.
This post is for the men who like the women
they are always interrupting.
I get it. I, too, am an impatient conversationalist. I, too, like to win the debate. And that's just how I, too, like to talk. I prefer to conduct conversations at the rate of an Italian rapper with something to prove.
I bet that if a hidden camera captured you with your boys, and me with my girls, you'd see us both doing a lot of the same things - chattering a mile a minute, finishing other people's sentences, cutting our friends off when we could see the direction they were going and wanted to keep them on our topic.
But if that same hidden camera captured you and me in a conversation, an average man and an average woman, colleagues, you would likely maintain the same conversational personality that you did with your boys, while I likely would not.
Why?
Watch as the screen wiggles and dissolves into...
dream sequence number 1
You're walking into a restaurant to grab lunch. You're the diner. I'm the server.
Server: Hi there, how are you today?
Diner: I'm pretty good, how are you?
Server: Great, thank you! Our special today is gnocchi--
Diner: I actually know what I want.
Server: Great! What can I get for y--
Diner: I'd like the chicken parm, side of cauliflower, and an iced tea.
Server: Great. And--
Diner: (at the same instant) And-- Oh.
Server: Oh. I'm sorry, you please go ahead.
Diner: And I have a call at 1:30, so I'll need to be out of here in about 30 minutes.
Server: That shouldn't be a problem at all. I'll be right back with your iced--
Diner: Thanks.
That conversation feels pretty normal, right? Everybody's doing what they do - the diner places a quick lunch order, the server takes it, somewhere a child is born, and the world keeps spinning right round, baby. Right round.
Now, when you think about the dining experience, whose experience is it, really? I'll give you a hint. Not the server's.
This experience exists to please the diner on his terms. Nobody sees anything wrong with that. This is a standard industry-wide expectation:
It starts when he sits down.
He calls the server and she comes to him.
He gets answers to all of his questions.
He gets exactly what he wants.
It ends when he is done.
The diner is accustomed to inhabiting all the time and space he wants. The diner feels entitled to that space, not because he's "serverist" or because he thinks that he, as a diner, is better than servers, but because that's what he always gets. That's what everybody gets! Them's the rules.
No diner walks into a restaurant thinking, "Gosh, I wonder how I can get what I want for lunch here today. I better really speak up for myself." Hell no! The diner's not anticipating how to WORK the restaurant to get food. He knows for sure, "I'm about to get everything I want. It's guaranteed. I'm the diner. I deserve this."
Then he walks into the restaurant, takes up all of the space in the experience, and does not see how much work the server does, invisibly, cheerfully, to shape herself around him, in whatever space is left over.
Has this metaphorical diner ever thought about HOW to order chicken parm?
Likely that's a hard no. Because even if he ordered chicken parm so wrong that he accidentally ordered chicken parm backwards in biblical Greek, he would get a puzzled look, a smile, and extra help from his server, whose job it is to make sure that he get exactly what he needs out of this interaction. And would he feel bad about needing 20 minutes of assistance to order lunch? No. Because he's the diner. He deserves this.
Now, has this server ever thought about HOW to take an order for chicken parm?
Yes. She thinks about it constantly. Because if she doesn't do it right, she will be punished for it. And if she can't help this person order his chicken parm while he's speaking backwards in a language last uttered when Christ himself walked the earth, she will be punished for it. And if anyone feels that she is displaying frustration or impatience while nostril-deep in a hot bubbling vat of frustration and impatience, she will be punished for it. Punished how? Maybe patronized, forced to apologize, or financially stiffed by the customer, and possibly reprimanded or disciplined by her manager.
Let's leave the restaurant for a moment.
Let's call this our smoke break.
Understand that when women talk to men, as when a server talks to a diner, there is a certain default dynamic that both parties have implicitly agreed to uphold, but that only one party is responsible for consciously managing and maintaining. Guess which party.
When you talk to a woman and interrupt her, that is not uncomfortable
for you.
That's an easy lunch order
for you.
You don't have to work to keep up with the conversation that you are driving. You don't see the mental gymnastics that your conversational "server" now has to engage in, if she wants to:
a) somehow find a way to say what she had started to say before you took a hard left
b) help you to feel satisfied with the outcome of the conversation
c) not get punished.
Now you might be thinking, hey, sometimes women interrupt me, too. And I don't punish them for it. I like strong women. Sure sure. Yes. I know you do.
I'm reminded of how sometimes I'll be working on a document on my computer and it will have 2 columns in it, and when the page fills the screen, the two columns are the same size, and I can see what they both say. But if I have to make that window smaller, to look at something else, as I begin to shrink the page, one column stays the same size, while the other one shrinks and shrinks and shrinks until I can't even see a word.
OK. Smoke break's over.
Let's head back into that restaurant and meet a strong woman:
dream sequence number 2
You're walking into a restaurant to grab lunch. You're the diner. I'm the server.
Server: Hi there, how are you today?
Diner: I'm pretty good, how are you?
Server: Great! Please excuse me for a moment. I'll be right back.
(a couple of minutes pass)
Server: Thank you for waiting! Do you have any dietary restrictions?
Diner: What? Uh, no--
Server: Perfect, you want the gnocchi with roasted brussels sprouts, they're delicious.
Diner: Oh, I actually want--
Server: No, really, it's the best thing on the menu. Perfect lunch portion, too.
Diner: Uh, I guess--
Server: I'm sorry, would you please excuse me for a moment? I'll be right back with your meal!
HEYO!
What just happened? How do we feel about her? Do we like her?
i think
i think i hate her
Are we a little put off? Are we annoyed? Angry? Indignant, perhaps?
But why?
The server stepped outside of the implicitly agreed-upon boundaries of behavior for a server speaking to a diner, for a person of lesser power speaking to a person of more power.
And the diner, for his part, felt off-balance, maybe even scared, and almost certainly angry that his space, his choice, his ability to determine the direction and duration of the encounter, had all been shrunk down to server-size.
She wasn't rude. She was sunny and enthusiastic and knowledgeable.
She was also completely in charge of the space.
And that is not how shit usually goes down between diner and server.
Now the diner's lunch, his easy effortless experience, is ruined. Now he has to work to be heard. Now he has to reflect on what just happened, and on these new feelings of invisibility and dissatisfaction. All of these things feel an awful lot like UNFAIR.
Now he's suddenly also aware that he can't make her bring him chicken parm without kicking up one hell of a fuss, and hell, he just wanted an easy lunch.
Now he's asking himself, "Am I really going to die on this hill?"
Now he just eats the gnocchi. While seething.
It isn't bad. It is just as good as the chicken parm. It isn't what he wanted. But it wasn't worth a fight.
Now he's leaving with a tight, no eye-contact smile. Now he's telling his friends not to eat at that restaurant anymore. They ask if the food was bad. "It's not about the food," he says. "It's just not comfortable," he says.
Smoke break?
Smoke break.
You just experienced what a conversation with you is like, from the other side. Someone else took up all your space. And you had to shrink yourself to fit.
Some people have a lot of social power, whether that's because of your money or race or gender, or because you played a superhero in a movie, or all of the above, which we call "The Full Chris Package."
tis i
chris
You have social power. You're the diner.
And people who have power seem to have this idea that oppressors attack the oppressed. So as long as you're not jabbing the less fortunate with a pitchfork, you're not an oppressor.
Whew. That's a relief.
But oppressors don't jab. They smother.
They simply unfurl, expand into every inch they can find. They stretch out on top of people they don't really see. And most of the time they're miffed because the mattress is lumpy.
Your habit of interrupting women is comfortable for you, maybe even something you're proud of because it demonstrates your quick debate skills and healthy confidence.
But think of the conversation you build with another person as a meal you share. If you two ordered a pizza together, would you eat the entire thing? Would you snatch a slice out of her hand after she'd taken only a bite? Would you do that in front of the whole office? Would that make you proud of your quick pizza-snatching skills and healthy appetite?
How would you feel about her hunger?
How would you feel if she snatched your slice back? Don't worry, she probably wouldn't. As the diner asked himself whether he would die on this hill, whether his nice easy lunch was worth all that pain and conflict, so she asks herself if her own hunger is worth sating.
And she knows the words "abrasive," "shrill," and "sensitive" spread like mono at prom: faster than she can imagine, and once she's got them they'll be with her forever.
Smoke break's over. Let's head back inside. Last time.
dream sequence 3
You're walking into a restaurant to grab lunch. You're the diner. I'm the server.
...
Diner: And I have a call at 1:30, so I'll need to be out of here in about 30 minutes.
Server: That shouldn't be a problem at all. I'll be right back with your iced--
Diner: Thanks.
(You're not high, that part was the same as #1. Wait for it...)
Another man walks into the restaurant.
Diner: Mr. Johnson!
Johnson: Oh. Hello.
Diner: It's John. From marketing? I'm on the team with--
Johnson: Right, right.
Diner: I just wanted to say, I really enjoyed the TED talk you gave at--
Johnson: Thanks, John. I appreciate that. Listen, I'm going to have lunch.
Diner: Oh, great. Great. Yeah. Enjoy. The, uh, chicken parm is--
Johnson: Thank you. I'll see you.
Diner: Yes. Thank you. Enjoy your--
(Mr. Johnson is already walking away)
OH HO, what have we here?
A third player has entered our scenario!
So now we have, at the bottom of the power pyramid, with the least freedom to grow but all the weight to carry, the server. Sitting right on top of her, enjoying the view from way up there, we have our interrupting diner. And now, the diner's boss, or maybe even his boss's boss, has just walked in, and slammed the roof of the pyramid down on top of interrupting diner.
Ouch, he thinks. That was not a satisfying encounter. I didn't get a chance to say anything!
I don't have any insights to offer about male-on-male power dynamics.
The only reason we are back in this restaurant right now is to answer this one fucking question:
So you interrupt everybody, that's just how you talk, it doesn't matter who you're talking to, right?
Do you interrupt your boss?
Do you interrupt a police officer?
Do you interrupt people that you understand are powerful?
Do you interrupt people who have the power to disrupt your health or welfare?
You do not interrupt everyone.
You interrupt everyone you can.
It will be work to fold yourself in, even just a little bit, to make space for others.
It will be uncomfortable.
You will spend a lot of time thinking about how you are in conversations, while you are in those conversations. You will find yourself standing between two colleagues, looking kind of high and paranoid, as you're thinking, "Can I talk yet? Is it my turn? This sucks. I have things I need to say! I hate this."
I need you to understand that the women you interrupt think those exact thoughts every time they talk to you.
Every.
Time.
You'll be relieved to return to friends who don't ask you to make room. You'll be relieved to sink back down in that big open space you're used to, comfortable at last, even if this mattress is a little lumpy.
But I need you to understand that your relief is another way you punish women. If you have to play in a smaller yard when you play at a girl's house, you're not going to want to hang out there. And when that yard is a promotion, a team at work, or a small business in your neighborhood that you avoid because going there reminds you that you need to make room for someone else, you are punishing women for existing. You are editing them out of your life. For your comfort.
I need you to understand that your comfort, in conversations with women, is a red flag right now. Your comfort is a sign that you need to check and see if you're ON ME. (You are.)
As soon as you get comfortable, I want you to think about that pizza you two ordered together.
Are you eating all the pizza?
Has everyone gotten a slice?
Yes, you can love women and hurt them.
Your personal affection for women exists alongside your unconscious domination of women in the same way that you can have both nostalgia for the movie Babe and a bottomless hunger for bacon.
You, interrupter, are a 30-foot-wall that surrounds me in conversation. Every time I take a step, there you are, in my way. And while I'm staring at the wall that will cost me blood to break through, I say, "It's so cramped in here, I want to scream," and you look out at the enormous field you sit in and think, "Look how much space there is! I don't know what her problem is."
Walls don't know they're walls, is what I'm saying. They don't live inside themselves.
Oppressive systems of power are largely invisible to the oppressors. They're supposed to be.
So it doesn't matter if you're not personally trying to shut down women's voices on purpose. What you need to understand is that when you are in a conversation with a woman, you both carry on your shoulders the weight of history - personal history, cultural history, the history of women not getting their own damn credit cards until 1974. The history that tells you that women won the right to vote in 1920 and conveniently forgets to remind you both that suffragists met outrage, panic, and violence in the majority of their male contemporaries, and that it was ONLY WHITE women who got the vote in 1920. Asian women and Native Americans got to vote for the first time in 1952. Black women could vote in 1965. Kind of.
History DOES try to shut down women's voices. On purpose. About everything. And you know what they say: the past is present.
I don't have any further insights on your personal relationships with women. But that's not really the point, so don't make this about your strong mother or kickass wife. Make it about you.
If you interrupt women and you're fine with it because you also interrupt men, then I need you to sit and think for a long while about what you care about, and who you care about, and who you care about being, and who you care about raising. And then I need you to answer this one fucking question:
So you interrupt everybody you can, that's just how you talk to people who you know can't hurt you, right?
Do you understand that you can change?