Feminists

Women's points of view would be respected if only our tone weren't so....hysterical, whiny, strident, bitchy, difficult, over the top, passive-aggressive, shrill, immature, pouty, bossy, pushy, and so forth and so on.

It's catch-22. If we speak up then our tone is wrong. If we're quiet, then we have nobody to blame but ourselves for not speaking up for ourselves.

One solution is to become very skilled at communicating in the ways that men supposedly value - calm, controlled, self-confident but not forceful, etc. The challenge is that many people are not used to women speaking up, so even when we are self-confident but not forceful we are perceived as bitchy, pushy, etc. Women perceive us this way, too.

We have to change the culture to accept that women have as much of a right to speak up as men.