In my job as a radio presenter, I get to hear a lot of unsolicited opinions. “That new song is rubbish”, “You’re not funny” and “You should play more Meat Loaf” are just a few. Recently, I sat down with a fairly new friend and spoke to her about radio. She awkwardly apologised for not listening to the station I present on (it’s always fine), told me the station she regularly listened to and then proceeded to tell me there was one presenter in particular she did not like – a woman who, according to her, was “too apologetic”. She didn’t like it because she felt like the presenter was trying to make herself smaller. I can understand the desire to hear a confident woman on a national platform but, for me, that just seemed like another rule given to women to make them feel everything they do is wrong. “Don’t be small. Be big, but not too big, because people find that annoying.”
That’s not the only example that has stuck with me of a woman disapproving of how another woman behaves – as if it means she is a terrible ambassador for our gender. One of my colleagues cried at work a while ago and another one of my colleagues told his girlfriend. She responded angrily, “Well, that’s just set back women in the workplace another 30 years, hasn’t it?” As if my crying colleague had the burden of WOMANKIND on her shoulders and still couldn’t hold back the tears. How bloody selfish of her, eh?
My frustration comes from the burden of representing an underrepresented community. If you are a woman, trans, of colour or have a disability, and you are existing in a space which is primarily not diverse, your behaviour is scrutinised with the caveat that it is typical of the group you represent. Which, of course, is unfair and why visibility is, quite rightly, something to bang on about. Not just so young people have someone to look up to and aspire to be like, but so that people currently living and working in communities that lack diversity can start to realise that there is not just one correct way of existing. You don’t have to be confident, straight, masculine or feminine, western or void of emotion in order to be acceptable.