I’m Speaking
Today, being Inauguration Day, I wanted to make a statement that I am standing in solidarity with the most powerful woman in the country, Kamala Harris, our first female Vice President.
Vice President Harris is a remarkable woman that many women of mixed race, women of color, women from immigrant families, and women that have worked their way up in a male-dominated profession can see themselves in. The “I’m speaking” sweater speaks volumes to the promise that, through Kamala Harris, women’s voices will be heard.
If you remember a few months ago, we first heard this statement during a Vice Presidential debate in Utah when then-Vice President Mike Pence interrupted then-Senator Kamala Harris. At that moment, Senator Harris turned to Pence and said,
"Mr. Vice President, I'm speaking."
When he continued to talk over her, she smiled and repeated, "I'm speaking." This phrase soon became a meme and mostly because so many women identified with being put in the position of being talked over, or being “mansplained” to, and having to politely correct a man that is speaking over them.
According to Forbes, “Women everywhere were able to recall work meetings and social interactions where they were talked over by men. The experience is practically universal, and research has shown time and again, that men do, in fact, interrupt women more often. There are studies on the topic dating back to at least 1975. More recently, a 2014 study at George Washington University found that when men were talking with women, they interrupted 33% more often than when they were speaking with men. There's even a 2017 study, performed by the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, that found that while women represented less than a quarter of people on the Supreme Court, they were interrupted 32% of the time, according to court records. So, it would appear that, even when women rise to top ranks, they’re still likely to be interrupted by the men around them.”[i][i]
In recent history, several memes have developed from similar situations including Mike Pence’s "Nevertheless, she persisted” comment about Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Maxine Water’s “Reclaiming my time” confrontation with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Every time a woman was interrupted, not allowed to speak or cut off, the same was true – they politely and, in some cases, effectively reasserted their equality.
So today, I drink my coffee with pleasure that we have a woman in the white house as Vice President and wonder, with much hope, what the next four years of our future will hold.
[ii][i] Erin Spencer, Mr. Vice President, I'm Speaking., Forbes (Oct. 8, 2020).
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