Grace Yia-Hei Kao is Associate Professor of Ethics at<\/em> <\/em>Claremont School of Theology<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/a> in the <\/em>Claremont Lincoln University<\/em><\/strong><\/a> Consortium. \u00a0She is the author of <\/em>Grounding Human Rights in a Pluralist World (Georgetown University Press, 2011)<\/em><\/strong><\/a> and is working on a second book manuscript on Asian American Christian Ethics.\u00a0 This blog post was originally published at Feminism and Religion<\/a>, <\/strong>an online forum for contemporary scholars of women and religion to gather for community and intellectual collaboration.<\/em><\/p>\n Whatever your take is on Madonna\u2019s feminist bona fides<\/em><\/a>, she was definitely on to something in her 2001 hit \u201cWhat it Feels Like For a Girl.\u201d<\/a> Madonna sang about the tremendous pressures females of all ages face to conform to gendered \u00a0norms of physical appearance and demeanor. \u00a0I want to use her lyrics to discuss some ways I have seen young women in academe subtly undermine their own authority.<\/p>\n To cut to the chase: female students and junior scholars have a greater tendency than their male counterparts to engage in self-sabotaging patterns of speech, writing, and body language. \u00a0I say these things both as someone who has worked with undergraduate and graduate students for the past 8 years and as someone who has had (and still has) to train herself out of certain \u201cbad habits.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of us have been conditioned under mainstream conventions of femininity to self-efface, remain deferential toward men, and project an aura of a soft and inviting presence. \u00a0The problem in academic settings is that these \u201cladylike\u201d behaviors lead others to see us as insecure, under-confident, and unqualified.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s start with public speaking.\u00a0 While there are several pitfalls to avoid<\/a>, the one I\u2019ll focus on here is very common: the tendency among women (and also, anecdotally, among \u201cout\u201d gay men who have affected speech) to end their declarative sentences with an upward lilt or inflection, so that their statements<\/em> effectively become questions.<\/em><\/p>\n What I mean is the following. \u00a0Instead of hearing this:<\/p>\n \u201cToday, I\u2019m gong to talk about Kierkegaard. \u00a0I\u2019m going to make the claim that standard interpretations of his Fear and Trembling are mistaken.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I effectively hear this:<\/p>\n \u201cToday, I\u2019m going to talk about Kierkegaard? \u00a0I\u2019m going to make the claim that standard interpretations of his Fear and Trembling are mistaken?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n To state the obvious, the speaker in the second set of sentences projects uncertainty, tentativeness, and the desire to please others. Those might be good things if the speaker is an already established senior scholar or is otherwise speaking in a context where s\/he is clearly the one with more power or status (e.g.,<\/em> a veteran teacher to students), since the upwards lilt \u201cworks against type\u201d in suggesting openness and an accommodating posture.<\/p>\n But the upwards inflection generally won\u2019t help those students or scholars who are trying to establish themselves as credible, competent, and authoritative.\u00a0 In short, embodiment counts.\u00a0 Speakers who appear younger or smaller in size than those in the audience or those who present themselves as \u00fcber-feminine\u00a0\u00a0in appearance or demeanor should be extra careful about their inflection, lest they feed into existing stereotypes of their submissiveness or lack of seriousness.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What I don\u2019t want to be interpreted as saying, however, is either that I want to train women to \u201cspeak like men\u201d or that there is no space for hesitation or vulnerability in academe.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be the first to admit that it can be difficult, if not exhausting, for women professionals to discern how to be strong and assertive (and thus taken seriously) without coming across as arrogant or b*tchy.\u00a0 But there is indeed room for play between over-deference and cockiness, and the ability to code-switch while in formal settings would be a good step in the right direction for many.<\/p>\n (As an aside that I won\u2019t flesh out here, I mapped out in my head the above points last Sunday in church while watching an ASL interpreter.\u00a0 That led me to wonder if there were comparable gendered patterns of communicating through sign language among the deaf community as well).<\/p>\n Let\u2019s now move onto writing style.\u00a0 Students who submit philosophical or argumentative essays for my classes know that they will be evaluated not so much on the conclusion <\/em>they reach, but on their justification<\/em> for it (e.g., <\/em>the adequacy of their textual support or analysis).\u00a0 What I often see among my students\u2014especially, but not exclusively among young women\u2014is that they weaken their claims with unnecessary qualifiers at the beginning of their sentences (viz<\/em>., \u201cIn my opinion\u2026.\u201d, \u201cI believe\u2026.\u201d, \u201cAs I see it\u2026.\u201d, \u201cFrom what I could gather\u2026.\u201d)<\/p>\n Notice the difference between these two sentences:<\/p>\n Sentence 1: \u201cNeighbor-love is the most important norm for Christians because of X, Y, and Z.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Sentence 2: \u201cI think that neighbor-love is the most important norm for Christians because of X, Y, and Z.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Not only is the \u201cI think\u201d of the second sentence obvious, but the use of a softening or hedging qualifier suggests insecurity on the part of the author to allow the argumentation to stand on its own.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if the writer wants<\/em> the reader to minimize her findings (no one in the world but her would have come to that conclusion and, more importantly, the conclusion is unsubstantiated).<\/p>\n Now, I don\u2019t mean to imply that there is never an appropriate time to qualify one\u2019s points.\u00a0 Two exceptions come immediately to mind:<\/p>\n (1) qualifiers that appropriately signal cases where the writer has not provided sufficient evidence to justify a particular claim but wants to make it anyway (e.g<\/em>., \u201cWhile the nature vs<\/em>. nurture question may never be conclusively resolved, I think that<\/em>\u2026.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>(2) qualifiers that are intended to connect the writer\u2019s unique social location to the claim being made (e.g<\/em>., \u201cAs a Californian, second generation Taiwanese American, and progressive Christian<\/em>, I am appalled that\u2026.\u201d)<\/p>\n But bracketing these (and possibly other) exceptions, writers should avoid using these self-undermining qualifiers when composing argumentative essays because their addition weakens the overall tone of their work.<\/p>\n Since I am running out of space to address the issue of body language properly, I will close by quoting Dr. Karen Kelsky<\/a> of the \u201cProfessor Is In\u201d blogsite. \u00a0The following passage is taken from her helpful post entitled\u00a0\u201cThe Six Ways You\u2019re Acting Like a Grad Student (And how that\u2019s killing you on the job market)\u201d<\/a>:<\/p>\n\u201cWhen you open up your mouth to speak \/ Could you be a little weak?\u201d <\/strong>(Madonna)<\/h2>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re trying hard to be your best \/ Could you be a little less?\u201d <\/strong>(Madonna)<\/h2>\n
Body Language<\/strong><\/h2>\n