WOMAN INTERRUPTED

Do YOU experience MANTERRUPTION at home or at work, or even in your male friends circle? Being interrupted, talked over, shut down or penalized for speaking out is nearly a universal experience for women when they are outnumbered by men. Especially in companies with notorious bro-cultures women have had to struggle to feel heard and to advance to the top. 

"Manterrupting - that is what we call when men interrupt women unnecessarily. This behavior stops women from expressing their ideas at work, at home and in society as a whole." 

Personally, I can’t even count the number of times I've been interrupted and talked over by my ex-boss, only to hear him later repeat the same ideas I was trying to put forward or to simply undermine my opinion. It's especially frustrating to me to experience MANTERRUPTION while traveling to Easter Europe. Home sweet home. Some things just never change (rolling my eyes here). I'm confident that my experience will resonate with many of you ladies out there.

In today's society, this behavior has been captured and normalized too many times. You probably remember the 1st US presidential debate, when Donald J. Trump famously interrupted Hillary Clinton 51 times on National TV Live Broadcast. Clinton interrupted him only nine times. Were you surprised?

WOMAN INTERRUPTED campaign is like a chicken soup for my soul. For the International Women’s Day on March 8th, the Brazilian ad agency BETC asked female artists to rally around the issue and design posters about MANTERRUPTION. As a result, this campaign curated over 80 vibrant illustrations capturing the diversity of this problem.

There is even Woman Interrupted App to detect and help reduce Manterrupting. Using the microphone on your device, the app detects whenever a male voice interrupts you (for female users) and whenever you interrupt a female voice (male users). Check out their website, it's impressive indeed.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD WHEREVER YOU ARE!

By Ella Tsurkanu / posted 06.27.17 /