Fearless, Funny and Female

Happy International Women’s Day! As an international woman myself, I salute you. A year ago, I was saluted myself, when I was given the Rosalie Award during Canadian Music Week. The Rosalie, named after legendary music programmer Rosalie Tremblay, is given, as they say, to Canadian women in broadcasting who have blazed new trails. Between you and me, I don’t know if I can lay claim to that. I may have hacked my way through a few tangled patches, but I think I owe much to luck, perseverance, and knowing where some of the bodies are buried.

In any case, when you get the Rosalie, you have to give a couple of speeches: a short one at the actual awards ceremony, and a longer one at a cocktail reception they throw for you. My family came to the latter, as did my CHFI work family, as well as a substantial number of friends and colleagues I’ve made over the years. The speech I wrote was a very personal and pointed one, largely influenced by the #MeToo movement, which was raging at the time. It has to do with women being heard. Not just as broadcasters, but as mothers, and managers, and wives and former attorney generals. I called the speech “Fearless, Funny and Female”, and I’m reprinting a somewhat edited version of it here for your perusal as we celebrate half the people on this planet.

When I first heard that the Radio Trailblazers had chosen to give me this year’s Rosalie Award, I thought “Ha! Fooled them again!” Then I thought: you know what? I am actually really proud to be included in this illustrious group. Furthermore, I’m very grateful. For a long time, I resisted the idea of broadcasters being recognized for their success based on their gender. I thought: this is a male dominated industry. Banding together as women is not going to help us infiltrate the ranks.  With a few notable exceptions, women have not helped me throughout my career, largely because there weren’t any around who were able to do so, nor should they have if there were. I thought it’s every woman – and man – for him or herself. And I thought if we are to be successful in this incredibly difficult and ever changing and challenging business, we have to put aside notions of gender and just be the best person for the job, regardless of what form your naughty bits take.

Well I don’t think that way anymore. I think being a woman – with a woman’s experience, a woman’s understanding, and a woman’s voice  – is very important. Furthermore, it’s a unique and wonderful time to be a woman in this business, and that is thanks largely to the efforts of Susan Marjetti, and Joanne Silverstein, and Sushma Datt, Liz Janek, Betty Selin, Maureen Bulley, Julie Adam, Denise Donlon, Erin Davis, Ky Joseph, Jane Hawtin, Marilyn Denis and finally Rosalie Tremblay herself. These were and are women who have big ideas, who have insisted on being heard, who have raised their voices – not shrilly, nor hysterically, but firmly and loudly enough to be heard amidst and sometimes over the big, booming voices of their male colleagues. These women are funny, fearless, female, and they have elected to invite me to join their ranks. I very proudly accept the invitation.

A little history about women’s voices, and I will try not to bore you too much. Women’s voices, physiologically speaking, are just not as powerful as men’s. You would think that the invention of the microphone and the amplifier would level the playing field, but, according to Bell Laboratories : The speech characteristics of women, when changed to electrical impulses, do not blend with the electrical characteristics of our present-day radio equipment. That was back in 1927, when I started in radio, but you may be surprised to hear how little has changed.  Or not. Women’s voices are consistently being criticized … for being too emotional, or not enough. For being too authoritative, or not enough. For sounding too young, or too old.  Too serious, or too silly. Too sexy, or not sexy enough.  For being strident, or nasal, or annoying, for inducing anxiety, frightening the horses and causing the crops to fail.

Likewise female laughter. It’s all well and good when women are laughing at something funny a man said, but what if there are two or more of them, laughing together, complicitly? Clearly it must be about the size of a man’s penis.  Or the idea that women laugh hysterically. Let’s take a moment to parse the word “hysterical”. Women are considered hysterical when we laugh too much or cry too much. We understand it to mean something that is extremely funny, but it comes from the Greek word hystera, which means uterus, and was originally used to define “a highly disturbed emotional state a woman finds herself in as a result of sexual repression and/or dissatisfaction”. So the next time you’re laughing hysterically at something, you may want to stop and think about that for a moment. Or not, I laugh during sex, even if the book I’m reading isn’t that funny.

So women’s voices are annoying, and our laughter might be crazy, or, worse, castrating. Not a promising scenario for a career in radio. Is that why we are rarely offered the big jobs, and when we are, we are paid considerably less than men doing the same work? How is that remotely acceptable? Furthermore, we are told that we are lucky to even be here, and by the way, you caught the boss’s eye, and he’d like to take you for a drink after work, and if you get anywhere career-wise, people might say that that it’s because you slept with him, when in truth when did THAT ever help anyone in the long or the short run?

In my 34 years in this business, I’ve been told that my voice is too nasal, that I have authority issues, that I’m too opinionated, and use too many long words, like opinionated.  I had a co-host who used to point at me when he wanted me to laugh. I had another yell at me until I cried, then ask me to hug him when he said he was sorry. I had one boss who told me when I was largely pregnant with my first child that he could no longer look at me as a sexual being. Even worse, I’ve seen this type of thing happen to other women in the business, and I did nothing, largely because I didn’t know what to do, and for that I’m deeply ashamed. I know what to do now.

The answer lies in women believing – truly believing – that they deserve to be heard. That our thoughts and opinions are valid, and that our experiences are true. That we can both run the show and be the show as well as anyone, and maybe better than some.  Women are meant to be broadcasters. Why do you think it’s called BROADcasting? And radio is the right medium for women because it’s intimate, it’s personal, it’s community minded … It allows you to connect, and tell stories that hopefully resonate with other people, and hear stories that resonate with you.

I was amazed and gratified by the support listeners gave me when I went public with a cancer diagnosis 13 years ago. I received hundreds of emails from people sharing their stories, lending their support, and wishing me well. It made me realize how deeply embedded I had become in people’s lives, and made me want to return the honour.  Now cancer as a career move is not highly recommended, but it did bring with it some strange gifts. Getting sick made me less fearful, because when you have a life-threatening illness, air checks mean nothing. Being less fearful made me more confident, and being more confident made me funny, and don’t underestimate the power of funny. Comedy is serious business. At its most effective, it can reveal truths, and affect the way people think. It’s an important tool for women, because it’s empowering AND disarming. Women who tell (and, more importantly, get) jokes find support and solidarity from both men and women alike.

And, with that being said, let us not make the mistake that men are the enemy.  I have worked almost exclusively with men throughout my career, and most have been very generous and supportive, because they knew a good thing when they heard it, and were secure enough not to be threatened by it.  I also married a man, and grew two more men myself, and I’m a fan. Sure, their voices are louder, and they leave stuff all over the house, and sometimes my husband tries to shut me up by hugging me against his chest so I can’t talk, but we’re all in this together. And for the record, as proud as I am of my career, I’m even prouder of my two sons, Aidan and Ronan. Not only are they kind and accomplished young men, but they love outstanding and fearless young women (one each) so my work there is just about done.

As is this speech.  I want to tell you that this latest chapter in my career is the happiest. I’m finally working for and with women, and it’s fantastic. Everyone is always asking how you feel, and if you need anything, all the while getting the job done.

I’m going to leave you with this. If I’ve learned anything at all, it’s not to give in to fear, and the best way to fight fear is through laughter. No one summed that up better than Lucille Ball, a true Trailblazer who was never afraid to look silly, all the while producing her own TV show and managing a marriage and a long, brilliant career. Near the end of her life, she told an audience at the Kennedy Center “I’m not funny. My writers were funny. My directors were funny. The situations were funny. But I am not funny – what I am is brave”. I think the two are one and the same. Be like Lucy: be fearless, be funny, and most of all, be heard.

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