Hello and welcome to Spinster’s Library.
I’m Bill and today I want to talk about
why teenage girls are not taken as seriously
as adult men when they say exactly the same
things.
Last week, you might have seen this video
being shared on Twitter.
This is a clip from sixteen-year old Gracie
Cunningham’s TikTok on which she asked some
questions about the concept and history of
algebra.
I will link Gracie’s Twitter in the description
box below.
I’m not on TikTok so you’ll have to find
that for yourselves.
Gracie’s video was retweeted with the comment
“this is the dumbest video I’ve ever seen.”
I saw this video and was baffled by how many
people were insulting Gracie’s intelligence,
when all she did was to ask some questions
which, frankly, I had never asked myself about
the history of mathematics.
But I had the feeling that a large amount
of the ridicule aimed at Gracie was not because
of what she said, but because of her gender,
age and dialect.
So I sat down at this desk, I asked my wife
to record me reading out her exact words,
but with the privilege of being a white British
man in his thirties.
I’ll play you both clips now, but let’s
start with my cover first.
Pay attention to your thoughts as you watch
this.
I just wanted to tell you guys about how I
don’t think maths is real.
And I know it’s real because we learn it
in school or whatever, but who came up with
the concept?
And you’re going to say Pythagoras, but
how?
How did he come up with this?
He was living in the - whenever, but it’s
not now when you have technology and stuff,
you know, he didn’t even have plumbing and
he was like “let me worry about y=mx+b”,
which, I mean, first of all, how would you
even figure that out?
How would you start on the concept of algebra?
What did you need it for?
You know, because, I get addition.
If I take two apples and then add three, it’s
five, you know?
But how would you come up with the concept
of algebra, because what would you need it
for?
You know what I mean, what would you need
it for back then?
You didn’t need it, so why come up with
it?
And now, let’s listen to Gracie’s original
video.
[Gracie] I was just doing my make-up for work
and I just wanted to tell you guys about how
I don’t think math is real.And I know that,
like, it’s real because we all, like, learn
it in school or whatever, but who came up
with this concept?
And you’re going to be like Pythagoras,
but how?
How did he come up with this?
He was living in like the - I don’t know,
whenever he was living, but it’s not now
when you can, like, have technology and stuff,
you know, like, he didn’t even have plumbing
and he was like “let me worry about y=mx+b”,
which, first of all, how would you even figure
that out?
How would you, like, start on the concept
of algebra?
Like, what did you need it for?
You know, cause, like, I get addition.
Like hey, if I take two apples and then add
three, it’s five, you know?
But how would you come up with the concept
of, like, algebra, because what would you
need it for?
You know what I mean, like, what would you
need it for back then?
You didn’t need it, so why would you come
up with it?
Most of you will have noticed a difference
in your reaction to my video as opposed to
Gracie’s.
And most of the responses I got when I posted
this comparison side by side on Twitter confirmed
that.
The difference was that I used my own British
grammar school accent and way of speaking.
Growing up as a middle-class English boy in
the 90’s, I was socialised to be confident
about my opinions and I happen to live in
a society that values voices like mine – male,
white, educated, confident, over voices that
are different to mine.
My video got comments comparing me to the
presenter of a BBC docu-series on the history
of mathematics, or to the host of one of the
many philosophy YouTube channels out there.
I actually don’t know what I’m talking
about.
I got an E in my maths A-level.
Gracie, on the other hand, is a model student
with an A- in algebra and a 4.16 GPA, which
I assume means “excellent” in America.
I got exactly one direct message on Twitter
explaining the history of mathematics to me.
I can only wonder how many Gracie got.
Some people pointed out that it wasn’t just
the voice that made a difference, but also
the fact that I was wearing a shirt in my
video and she was applying make-up.
That’s the same thing.
The same biases that make you take me more
seriously for my male British voice are what
make you consider the act of applying make-up
frivolous and shallow, as if any of those
things change the meaning of the words we
both said.
It’s just old-fashioned misogyny.
This person on Twitter commented that they
didn’t like the original video because of,
and I quote, the “look at me flirtation
with the camera”.
Flirtation with the camera?
Did we watch the same video?
You have to ask yourself why you think that
a sixteen year old girl asking questions about
mathematics while putting on make-up comes
across as “flirtatious” and me wearing
my nicest shirt in front of a pretty background
doesn’t.
The answer is misogyny.
With a side serving of se-lising children.
This is not a good look.
I saw a lot of responses to my tweet by academics
working in the field of sociolinguistics.
Sociolinguistics is the study of the relationships
between language and society.
Sociolinguists look at how social factors
such as class, gender, and race influence
how we speak.
They may also look at how an individual may
change their language in different social
situations.
For example, the difference between “Give
me that” and “May I have that, please?”
is more than just a different choice of words,
it also reflects the cultural values that
were taught to the speaker.
However, sociolinguists also study how the
language we use influences how we are perceived,
and that’s what we’re talking about in
today’s video.
Negative perceptions towards the speech of
teenage girls is not a particularly new phenomenon,
but has received much more recent attention
thanks to the Internet.
In 2015, Canadian linguist Gretchen McCulloch
published a piece on Quartz, noting that negative
criticism of the speech patterns of teenage
girls is basically founded on ‘old-fashioned
sexism’.
McCulloch presents an overview of research
done on the topic of speech patterns of young
women from all over the world.
Research has consistently shown that women
frequently lead changes to a language, and
this has been noted by William Labov in 1990,
who is regarded as the founder of the modern
field of sociolinguistics.
A particularly interesting study was conducted
by the University of Helsinki in 2003 by Tertu
Nevalainen and Helena Raumolin-Brunberg.
They looked at language change in England
between 1417 and 1681 by combing through 6,000
personal letters from the time.
Their findings are fascinating, suggesting
that women were responsible for the outmoding
of the word ‘ye’ meaning ‘you’, the
change from ‘mine eyes’ to ‘my eyes’,
and also the replacements of the words ‘hath’,
‘doth’, and ‘maketh’ in favour of
‘has’, ‘does’, and ‘makes’.
English is by far not the only language to
be affected by the speech of young women.
Studies have shown that young women spearheaded
linguistic innovations in French and Arabic
spoken in Cairo, and are even responsible
for entire language shifts, such as the shift
from a bilingual German-Hungarian society
to a mostly German-only society in Austria.
Despite often being the active drivers of
change in our use of language, women and teenage
girls’ speech is often perceived as less
serious and trustworthy.
Many women responded to the whole discussion
around Gracie’s video with their own experiences
and anecdotes of not being taken as seriously
when saying the same things and asking the
same questions as the men around them.
Women have often learned to suppress those
speech patterns that they think might be considered
too feminine in professional and academic
settings.
Think of the types of speech that in the English-speaking
world we have decided sound “unprofessional”.
Vocal fry.
Upspeak.
Saying “like” and “kind of” as filler
words.
None of these things make a person’s statement
or question less valid.
We perceive them as annoying, unprofessional
and ignorant, because these quirks of spoken
language have been popularised by girls and
women.
When we associate speech with femininity,
we value that speech less.
But even if women learn to talk exactly like
men, using the same speech patterns and inflections
- they will still be taken less seriously.
Growing up as a girl you are usually not encouraged
to speak with confidence and certainty, and
take up space in public discourse, and ask
questions about the things you don’t know.
You are taught that, if you don’t know something,
it’s best not to ask because there’s the
real chance that your lack of knowledge on
a certain topic, say the history and philosophy
of algebra, will be weaponised against you.
“Of course Pythagoras didn’t invent algebra,
you silly girl.
Shut up and keep putting that foundation on.”
Girls should be seen and not heard, we’re
all familiar with these concepts.
At the same time that girls are taught to
keep quiet, boys are taught to blag with confidence.
Blagging and bluffing are skills that serve
men well.
Think of a female politician with the same
level of ignorance as a Donald Trump or the
obvious lack of understanding of policy detail
that Boris Johnson displays.
Do you think any woman politician with the
same skills and intelligence would have ever
made it to the top like they did?
We are so dazzled by the confidence of mediocre
white men that we fail to listen to their
words and see the incompetence in them.
This idea was turned against Donald Trump
by the brilliant comedian Sarah Cooper, whose
lipsync videos of his speeches and interviews
go viral on a regular basis.
The same words that have persuaded millions
of Americans to vote for Trump suddenly have
the glamour stripped away when spoken by a
Black woman instead.
Sarah Cooper herself is very much aware of
the privilege a white man such as Donald Trump
is afforded over a Black woman such as herself
when speaking.
In an interview with inStyle, she said:
“I've always felt the need to choose my
words very carefully or, better yet, not say
anything at all.
And for me as a Black woman in a white-male-dominated
industry, it was often the best option.
Black women usually don't get the luxury of
faking their way through life and still succeeding,
but when a white guy does it, he may even
get to be the president of the United States.”
Her brilliant performances of Donald Trump’s
speeches demonstrate just how little attention
we pay to the words that are spoken, when
we lazily make assumptions about the speaker,
based on their gender, age, ethnicity and
nationality.
Sarah Cooper continues speaking about the
way she exposed Trump’s verbal nonsense
when she says:
“[...]it was exhilarating to play the most
powerful man in the world and expose him as
the clueless snake-oil salesman he is.
I had taken away the suit and the podium and
the people behind him smiling and nodding
and calling him "sir," and all that was left
were his empty words, which, in reality, were
not the best.
It felt like the antidote to the gaslighting.”
Society is failing the girls of today in the
same way it has always failed them.
We teach them to be quiet and not ask questions,
and when they ask questions we call them stupid,
and when they insist on having those questions
answered, we call them abrasive and obnoxious.
There are still many spaces in this world
where marginalised groups and minorities’
mere existence is seen as political, and their
very questions considered a threat to the
status quo.
We don’t allow women to speak.
Studies have shown that in mixed-gender conversation,
it’s almost always men interrupting women,
talking over them.
This phenomenon can be observed many times
in political debates on television as well
as boardrooms and conferences around the world.
If you grow up being belittled, ignored, mocked,
interrupted, talked over every time you opened
your mouth, you would probably become silent
eventually.
Having to prove yourself in every conversation
is exhausting.
There is no simple solution to these discrepancies
in our perception of speech based our preconceptions
of the speaker.
Sure, we can teach girls to blag and bluff
as much as men, but because they are girls
and women, they will still not be taken as
seriously.
Instead of once again blaming women and marginalised
groups for not being male and white enough,
we as a society, and white men in particular,
need to stop putting the blame on them and
open up our discussion spaces for everyone.
We need to take a step back and question how
men have been getting away with incompetence
and ignorance for so long in positions of
power and in everyday life, when girls like
Gracie get openly mocked for asking questions.
And when we discourage young talented girls
for questioning the world at age 16, when
we mock their curiosity, we end up with a
society ruled by mediocre white men with an
inflated sense of their own abilities.
You might be wondering if me - a white British
man with no direct experience of sexism, someone
who always gets taken at his word and whose
authority is rarely questioned - if I am the
right person to talk about this issue.
Of course I’m not.
I’m just reading out a script written by
my wife Claudia.
Our friend Irfan added those clever bits about
sociolinguistics.
I don’t really know any of that.
Claudia hoped that when you hear me talk about
this issue, with all of the authority and
privilege that my voice carries, you might
be more likely to absorb the message of this
video.
None of these words are my own.
She can make me say anything she wants.
But because she is lovely and not cruel, she
is just going to make me say that you should
subscribe to her channel Spinster’s Library,
and check out the videos in which she herself
speaks the words she writes.
Links to Irfan’s, Claudia’s and my social
media are in the description box, as well
as links to all of the sources.
Before I end this video, let me once again
implore you to pay attention to what women,
girls, people of color, disabled people and
other marginalised people are saying.
Question your own prejudices when you hear
someone speak who doesn’t look and sound
like you.
Listen beyond speech patterns, dialect, and
choice of vocabulary.
Make space in your communication and discourse,
[Claudia] both online and offline, for questions
from everyone.
Take a step back and let others lead the discussion.
Stop taking credit for the ideas of women
and marginalised groups.
Listen with your whole brain.
Thank you for watching.
Bye.
