After seeing last week’s news clip about bus-gate’s “it’s just locker-room talk” and writing my last blog, “Is Trump Channeling His Inner Dixie Chick?”, I couldn’t stop monologue-ing in my head. I felt fired up about the rampant acceptance of “locker room talk” and wanted to yell from a rooftop “It’s not ok”.
I’m a pretty easy going person who doesn’t get whipped up easily. I try to avoid confrontation and hurting other people’s feelings. I’m soft spoken and don’t say too much to people unless I feel really comfortable with them.
So why were these thoughts and feelings not passing? Because I am a perfect example of someone who gets easily intimidated by these alpha personalities, and struggles to speak up to use my voice to say, “Hey! It’s not ok to make me feel uncomfortable!”
And by the way, while I’m up on that rooftop shouting, let me add “Is it so hard to JUST BE A GOOD PERSON?”!
Take a breath………
Even if someone has never had the experience of outright verbal or sexual assault or abuse, most women would need more than their two hands to count how many times they have been made to feel uncomfortable by someone else’s words or actions.
And it should be added that it goes in all directions. Any female or male can feel uncomfortable about the verbal or non-verbal communication or behavior of both males and females.
Inappropriate behavior is equal opportunity. So is standing up to inappropriate behavior.
What constitutes inappropriate behavior? I remember when I was younger seeing news coverage about the Anita Hill and Judge Clarence Thomas trial. It became clear to us as a culture that we don’t always know how to define it, though we know it when we’re in the situation.
Maybe for official law you need to prove something beyond the shadow of a doubt, but all you need is that uncomfortable feeling to have the right to stand up for your own personal space and social boundaries.
Maybe it’s the way someone touches you at work. Or maybe it’s more subtle like someone in your home or car that you aren’t don’t want in your safe place.
Maybe it’s crude or objectifying words someone says to you in a club. Or maybe it’s the belittling or bullying thing they say if you aren’t open to their advances.
Maybe it’s the condescending or intimidating way someone says something to you out anywhere. Or maybe it’s as obscure as a look, a gesture, or their proximity.
But you know it when it’s happening by the uncomfortable feeling that it sends running through you.
I recently read an article from the New York Times entitled “Lessons in the Delicate Art of Confronting Offensive Speech”. It talked about how difficult it can be to speak up when you think someone is being inappropriate, whether it be directly to you, in generality during a conversation with you, or even just in your immediate environment.
As I mentioned in the beginning, a person needs to feel comfortable at minimum, and confident at best , to have the courage to stand up to social friction and engage in a verbal clash. Most shy and introverted people struggle with feeling relaxed even in the easiest of social situations, making them a ripe target for chronic discomfort around alpha personalities.
There’s so many “what ifs” that can scare us away from saying something, whether it be to that person or even as a report to a neutral party in charge.
What if they say I’m over-reacting? What if they get angry? What if everyone else there also thinks I’m over-reacting? What if I report it and then everyone finds out and they judge me? What if all of that makes my good connections with these people change and then it’s not comfortable anymore?
Before you know it you’ve convinced yourself it’s easier just to muddle through and not stay silent. But then it gets harder if too much time goes by and we keep it bottled up inside. What if when we finally do speak up, they and everyone else question why I must have thought it was ok for so long and only now am saying something. So again, your “what ifs” keep you silent.
Then resentment builds inside you. You resent that person. You begin to resent all the other people who may have heard or seen it who didn’t say anything either. You may even start to resent other people whose personalities are similar to the person who makes you feel uncomfortable. Maybe it’s all alpha personalities. Or all people of authority. Or all men.
Or maybe it’s even yourself…. because you would have liked to think you were stronger than that and had the courage to stand up for yourself more.
But that article also touched on something I had begun to do in my own life and that is to think outside the box of how to convey the message when you feel uncomfortable. Because even if in-direct and sugar-coated wasn’t your goal, it’s better than saying nothing.
Maybe you could avoid the people or place where that person is who makes you uncomfortable. Or maybe you could make up an excuse to remove yourself from the situation quickly, like blaming it on having to get home by a certain time.
Maybe you say something to another person nearby that joins them into the conversation so you are no longer alone in the exchange. Or maybe you try to change the subject to pivot the person away from the improper topic they were on.
Maybe you try to use humor to lighten the intensity of the moment. Or maybe you indirectly use it by “joking” that they should be careful or you might think they were being inappropriate
Maybe you put it on yourself that you feel uncomfortable hearing people talk about a certain subject or speak in a certain manner, rather than pointing out that they are the one doing something that is causing it.
I realize we shouldn’t have to do it this way. Ideally we could always be confident and direct. But sometimes the most important thing is to diffuse the immediate situation so that you can remove yourself from it.
It also buys you time to think about how you could deal with it if it happened again. Sometimes it helps to pre-think of a scripted response in case you find yourself in a similar situation again. You can practice something short and simple that gets your point across.. And I really mean practice.
For those of us who try to usually try to avoid conflict, saying anything even remotely confrontational is difficult and does not come naturally. Actually practicing a response out loud makes it a little less overwhelming when the time comes that you truly need to pull it out, turn your voice on, and use it.
On some level, it’s good that the crazy story about “locker-room talk” came out. It’s gotten us all talking about what speech and behavior is acceptable, what’s acceptable in certain situations, and what is just never acceptable.
And it’s also validated people’s feelings who have been made to feel uncomfortable by someone else’s words or behavior in the past. Because when those “what ifs” start swirling, “what if I’m just being over-sensitive?”, it helps to know that other people have been offended by that type of talk and those type of actions.
And sometimes that validation is all we need to help us speak up the next time we are made to feel uncomfortable – even if our voice timidly shakes while we say it.