Scholars at Brigham Young University and Princeton examined whether women speak less than men when a group collaborates to solve a problem. In most groups that they studied, the time that women spoke was significantly less than their proportional representation – amounting to less than 75 percent of the time that men spoke.

This is maybe the most frustrating thing about being a feminist lady in the world every day, in my opinion. Because, as Lindy West points out, even loud-mouthed feminists often fall into this dynamic. “You forfeit, because their lungs are bigger, they’re groomed for assertiveness since birth, and you’re groomed to assume that nobody will take you seriously anyway. You wait for a pause in a room of interrupters.” I do this all the time. And the fact that I can feel myself doing it doesn’t really help usually–it just means I hate myself for it.

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