Flavia Trupia: “Women, if you don’t take the floor, you will earn less and less, you will make less and less career and you will always be marginal”

Reading Let’s take the floor! Rhetoric on the side of women Of Flavia Trupiaprofessor and popularizer, but above all communicator, published by Piemme, seems to see them those tables of all male speakers who often present academic works done mainly by women or those television broadcasts where women are only among the public. “I am amazed when this does not happen,” says Flavia Trupia. «It also happens because often at the top there are men who, in the case of presentations, do not take a step back, letting him present to me has actually done it. There is also another fundamental aspect that with fatigue we women can admit: Often it is we who take a step back. Let’s say: “I don’t say it, I don’t tell it. I’m behind the scenes, but I prepare things”. Why do we take a step back? Because we are judged much more hard than men “.

Is it for the judgment we know will come?
«Yes, because we are always wrong, either we are too old or we are too young or we are too unprepared or too much wise, there is always something wrong. The solution is the renunciation ».

Do you apply to all sectors?
«It applies to all sectors and the thing you imagine is that the creative sectors are further away from this type of reasoning and instead it is not so. We know that the artistic world is very male chauvinist and we know that the journalistic world is very male chauvinist because then the directors of the important newspapers are the women are very few, precisely we even count on the fingers of one hand ».

The popular voice, however, says that women are the ones who always speak.
«It is another stereotype that persecutes. We are the chattering, we are the comrades, those that always comment, but in fact then in the places that matter instead we do not come to speak. If we get there we are the moderators, not the experts. The expert is not a woman. Choosing a woman moderator is a bit washing consciousness. To give an example, guests from Bruno Vespa on one of the evenings that followed the death of Pope Francis were six men and that of a group of nuns in the public was indicated as a female presence. Instead, precisely for this book I interviewed a theologian at the head of an association of theologians. It is not that there are no theologians and the experts of canon law ».

Many examples in the book. They are stories of women.
“The book was born from the fact that I do rhetoric lessons and there was always this problem that when it came to speaking in public, women took a step back. I started asking me if this was really a problem, if it were my personal experience. I saw that others had noticed it too and therefore I went to look for if there were studies on this. They confirm this problem of security gap between men and women ».

How did you choose the examples?
«I liked to choose examples where women get angry because anger is a feeling that is considered superior, a sentiment of Serie A that only some in the highest hierarchical level can be afforded. All those who are at a low hierarchical level can be allowed less anger. They told us as children: “Don’t get angry if not become ugly”. Instead anger, if it is managed, is very important. I chose women who get angry in different ways. Ursula von der Leyen gets angry in a very cold way, even in line with her character. Bring the account to Erdogan for not having had the chair after two weeks and therefore does it with great coldness. The rhetorical question remains: “Would it have happened the same if he had worn a jacket and a tie?”. Julia Gillard, a former Australian premier, made a speech against Misoginia that has become viral. She herself recalled in an interview the words of a girl: “I finally saw a woman who knew how to manage anger in public”. We women are always difficult to manage anger in public because we crack our voice, we are crying and then we give ourselves because we are crying even if there really would be nothing wrong. In addition, the angry man is the noble who gets angry, who has great feelings, however, the woman is always a crazy hysterical. Of other speeches, I really liked that of Özlem Cekic, Danish deputy of Kurdish origin, who went to the house of those who threatened it to understand who these people are and realize that in the end then there are no major differences between you and that person especially in terms of exclusion “.

“Nobody gets a promotion if she doesn’t think she deserves her success,” says Sheryl Sandberg, former Facebook’s operating director. Many women happened not to feel adequate to ask.
«In addition to being a very bad feeling. If you don’t ask, it’s unlikely to get there. It can happen, but it is much more difficult and much slower. In addition, we have to take responsibility for asking and hearing us even not, because it is part of the game. Sheryl Sandberg analyzes the theme of waiting, the tiara syndrome, of those who wait for the prince. Instead it is you who must take you personal responsibility to risk and ask for and accept and collect a no. The other thing that she highlights is the fact that men always feel they have done an excellent job and deserve, instead the woman always feels lucky, that she is miraculous to have to say thanks for what she has achieved. This is a difference in attitude that we must eliminate. You must always think that this is your place, you are legitimate in that place ».

How can women start talking?
«We must be aware of the fact that very often it is we who take a step back. Already this awareness helps us a lot. We have to take that step forward and also accept the fact of making mistakes. If we are wrong, nobody dies, we cannot be there to think of mulling for a week, because so it is not possible, of course, the price is too high. We must be aware of the fact that we are judged, but this is normal for us to judge. Awareness helps us a lot because otherwise it does not come out and this security gap between men and men and women we can never fill it ».

How do we talk about girls? How do we make them talk?
«Girls are not very aware of what feminism is and they are still convinced that there is equality. This is the problem. They do incredible things, such as getting geolocated by their boyfriend or geolocating your boyfriend. The problem of equality of rights do not pose, they think that it is a problem that have been overcome as most women think so. But in the last political elections absenteeism has been substantially more feminine as if politics could not solve their problems “.

However, equality in fact is not there.
«There is also a difference in social consideration. We are considered less authoritative: the word of the woman is less authoritative, the word of the beautiful woman is considered even less authoritative, the word of the ugly woman is less authoritative because she is ugly. Bad and beautiful, of course, according to the criteria of society. In social consideration, the old woman is old, an old man instead is wise. Equality is not there. The data say it. We spend 4 hours more every day to deal with the house and care compared to men. We earn less than men and we have a lower pension than men. Equality is not there and there is a representation problem. I do not see female models to give an example in the often named Stem subjects. There is a lot of the idea that the woman does not know how to think certain things, that the woman’s brain does not know how to think, that women are not suitable for numbers and when they have to go to take a mortgage in the bank or make an equity investment must be accompanied by a man. Too often this is the mentality of society and very often it is complicated to understand if our choice, even of life, is truly individual. I don’t think that our choice is so free at the bottom, otherwise 50 and 50 enrolled in engineering would be statistically. This is not the case, so there is something that went wrong in history. It is a cultural question. There is no study that shows that the female brain is more brought to a certain thing. I know that many women do not have a personal current account. The same step forward to be taken on the current account, financial education and financial independence, on scientific matters, is also to be implemented in taking the floor. If you don’t take the word you will earn less and less and you will make less and less career and you will always be marginal ».

Does the woman also have a question of appearing that men somehow not interest when they have to speak in public?
«It is very useful to know the fact that in the oratory the beauty actually is not the thing that helps you most, on the contrary, a very beautiful woman, according to traditional canons, has great problems of credibility. Instead, the one who has something different than the canon has an advantage: it is gold in the oratory because it gives you something particular that the others will notice and that becomes a very interesting point of recognition for your audience. The goal is not to show what we are physically, but to use our body to communicate with our audience and it is not said that it must be perfect for communicating. In fact, the more imperfect, the more particular it is, the more communicative, the more interesting it is. Perfection is not a friend of communication ».

What should we learn from men?
«To intervene. A research that they have done in Cambridge tells us that women raise their hand to ask questions than men. To emancipate women it takes massive rhetoric doses. Girls often support insecurities becoming great nerds. Clearly it is a great dowry because studying a beautiful thing, but the risk is that then we do not take the floor if we do not feel 100%prepared. We must also learn to accept not to be 100% of our preparation, because otherwise we will wait a day that will never come and in the meantime the men will make us shoes. This thing must teach it at school: it is not only important to know, but also to tell what you know and must be part of the training ».