Just a Man on a Microphone

9 months ago I started the following blog:

On Monday night I had an epiphone. I experienced a moment in which something I had struggled with for many years without identification, revealed itself with such clarity that I could finally articulate it. Tim McGraw quieted an entire arena of screaming, drunk country music fans and every day of my life I battle to be heard among the murmurs of a man's world. I stand in front of my 40 person day camp staff whose average age is 16 and barely hold it together, while night after night, Tim Mcgraw comes to the point in the show where he raises and lowers the voices of his entire audience with a simple wave of his hands and thousands upon thousands of people respond without question.

I am a powerful woman. I am not a woman who holds leadership positions because I am organized and detail oriented, I hold them because I command attention, possess vision and communicate in the world the way I learned to by a socialization that favored men. I grew up in large groups of boisterous boys who talked over eachother and at eachother and fought for control of their audience by increasing the volume of their voices. At some point in my early adolescence, it occurred to me that the way to be recognized for your opinions and contributions was to be heard by others, and the way to be heard was to articulate yourself by a certain set of codes and mannerisms that govern the communicative male universe. In turn, i adopted these prescriptions and since then have experienced a measurable amount of success communicating in all sorts of social and professional circles. So as I proceed with this discussion, let it be clearly conveyed that I am not a woman unfamiliar with captivating an audience.

The Tim McGraw/Faith Hill Soul 2 Soul tour presented an interesting medium for an examination of gender roles and dynamics. Faith performed first, warming the crowd with professions of love, her beautiful smile and minimal talking between songs. Enter Tim, who I have seen in concert more than once, who is charming, sexy and engaging. And on this particular night, an exquisite image of the privileges of patriarchy.


About a week and a half after I finished that last sentence, I took a job that not only took up all of my time, but rendered my brain almost completely incapable of formulating coherent thoughts. The post remained un-finished, and eventually was lost in the shuffle of re-organizing my life. I sat down at my computer tonight to write about an experience I had recently (at my new, intellectually stimulating and emotionally fulfilling job), and as I pulled up the blogger interface, i was shocked to discover that the post I intended to write already existed.

I attended a "march for higher education" rally at the state capitol at the beginning of the week. Recent student fee surges and a looming state budget crisis are threatening public education access (what else is new) and (apparently) young Californian's are not going to take it anymore. So to kick off a spirited campaign to save their futures, an inspiring collection of diverse students from all over California gathered to tell it like it is to the decreasingly popular celebrity governor. I was impressed by the organization and attendance of the event. I went to college on a campus that was mostly divided between students obsessed with being fit, beautiful and well-hydrated and those preoccupied with their grade-point average and preparing for professional school entrance exams with a small smattering of diverse students who took on the responsibility of both going to college and paying for it (a concept those in the previous two categories couldn't even imagine).

As I stood in the crowd of impassioned young people (not quite sure where I fit on the spectrum of mostly student attendees) I watched one man after another take the microphone and deliver his message. The orations varied in strength and value, ranging from the barely comprehensible to the somewhat convincing. The speakers varied in class and occupation, ranging from outraged student leaders to righteous Sacramento politicians. The creativity of the speeches varied hardly at all, and the gender of the voices on the microphone remained constant. Speech, after speech, after speech.

I took a long walk back to my car, re-visiting what I had witnessed, and reflecting on the numerous images from both my memory and imagination of men on the microphone. I recall both the audio and visual footage from famous speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and JFK recurring throughout the course of my education in "history" while I was growing up. I remember being so angry once or twice a year when my favorite tv sitcom was preempted by the President delivering the state of the union address. In high school, I was under the impression that our spirit rallys should be run by male students because "guys are just more engaging in front of an audience." Years and years and example upon example of the male voice have shaped my understanding of the world.

And here I am. Many years later and many milestones through my lifetime educational journey, being reminded once again of who belongs behind the podium, whom is capable of commanding the crowd and who deserves to have his opinion heard. He does. Whoever he is, wherever he is and whatever he is talking about, a man will speak loudly and the people will listen.

I marched for higher education with one of the students I work with. Tall, good-looking, white, articulate...... female. And the future student body President of the college where I work. I asked her if she noticed that the only speakers at the rally were men. She said, "that's a good point, I didn't even realize there were no girls." Of course she didn't. Why would she? We've all been more or less exposed to the same unilateral definition of what type of people belong in what type of roles in our culture. Why would anyone question an abundance of men speaking for any cause?

Because something isn't quite right. Women currently outnumber men in higher education, both in attendance and in achievement. And while I think the steady decline of academic success among young males is as tragic as it is systemic, the fact remains that although young women have worked themselves to the forefront of educational success, men are still speaking up on their behalf. The phenomenon of men on the microphone doesn't begin or end with higher education. It reaches far and wide to just about every imaginable aspect of our experience. Men who exercise their voices are heroic, labeled "experts" and are typically considered to be "standing up for what they believe in." Women with similar intentions are "bitching," labeled "whiny" and typically considered to be irrational and/or pre-menstrual.

How powerful and present can the female voice possibly be if it's taken until the current century to hear a woman speak on the presidential campaign trail and behind the desk on the network evening news? We witness men on television narrating the shows and moderating the conversations. Women accessorize our visual framework as they are relegated to objectification at worst and tokenism at best. Female co-anchors giggle and sigh as daytime tv hosts exchange gender-role reinforcing stereotypes: the man holding the newspaper and the woman telling highly scripted stories about her husband and kids.

Enter real life, a place where men's voices echo with emphatic opinions and incisive language through elementary school classrooms to university lecture halls; a place where women are charismatic, attractive, assertive and courageous and still struggle to be heard over the voices of men who are nothing more than accustomed to being listened to. It is a place where young girls with quiet hands and pretty handwriting are ignored in the presence of impetuous boys who shout out answers to command the attention and praise of their teachers who expect nothing else. It is a place where even decades after women organized the civil rights movement while men spoke for it, the impact of the female voice remains marginal compared to the resounding influence of its male counterpart.

It's hard for me to anticipate the future of the female voice. Whether or not my dedication to exercising my own opinion, advocating for myself and encouraging and empowering other women to do the same will ever make any real change in the world, I can't say. One thing I know for certain is: the next time Tim McGraw raises and lowers his hands to quiet an entire audience, I'll be screaming my head off to make sure he knows I don't have to respond to his presence. Afterall, he's just a man on a microphone.