Stop telling women how they should talk

“If you say ‘like’ one more time, I’m gonna lose my shit.”

These were the words uttered to me through gritted teeth as I sat in green plastic patio furniture on a humid summer night a few years back. The words dried on my tongue; I lost my train of thought. Moments before, I’d been embroiled in a heated debate about millennials and social media, as was my wont. My opponent was an older male journalist and, though he objected to the central thesis of my argument, he chose not to engage with my salient points. Instead he opted to attack something intensely personal: the way I speak. 

I came away from that interaction feeling a level of anger that I couldn’t quite put into words. I felt ridiculed, undermined, and — worst of all — newly self-conscious about a vocal tick of which I’d been erstwhile blissfully unaware. Read more…

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