Everybody has a critical inner voice I suppose, but for women in our society it’s particularly horrendous, because it seems to say “If you have an opinion, or express it, or express it forcefully, you may hurt somebody’s feelings, so keep it down, or you’re a bad little girl.” This internalized misogyny is bad news, not just for the women who feel bad when they shouldn’t, but for everybody. Because when a woman shuts herself up, or expresses herself diffidently, the result is not silence. The result is some braying jackass of a man filling the available space with an opinion that is generally less nuanced, less sensitive to the needs of the situation, and just wrong.
Eric Linus Kaplan 
It’s awesome when girls and boys look out for each other! It’s awesome when we support each other in developing autonomy, confidence, empathy and accountability.
I agree!
easy for you to say — but what if the man is neither jackass nor wrong? seems even harder to silence that voice.
but so important when i look at this world. more and more so. ask me what is scariest and what comes to mind answers two questions at once:
1983 — a year before 1984 — but this all seemed much, much, much farther off.
easy to say hard to do!