A well-wisher counselled me a few months back to visualize myself speaking in interview just as I would like to speak, light and articulate; genuine and unscripted. Imagine the words flowing with calm control. Picture your listener, interested and persuaded. Relish the opportunity to share your research.
I’ve tried it, waiting at the other end of a Zoom link for an interview to begin. Breathing deep, letting out the stress, trying to relax the muscles in my face. My heart kept pounding. My palms were sweaty. Mid-sentence, I still periodically forgot how I had begun. Sometimes my mind would go blank for a few perilous seconds. That’s the way it’s always been for me.
While reading about suffragette leader and master orator Emmeline Pankhurst, I was fascinated to discover that she hated writing, complaining that when she contributed her part for the weekly Suffragette newspaper, she felt “as if I were in the dentist’s chair.” She found her written words “stilted” and “bald.”
Public speaking, in contrast, came naturally for her. She spoke without notes and the effect was, according to general opinion, electrifying. One of her supporters described her voice as “like a stringed instrument in the hand of a great artist” that “put us in possession of every movement of her spirit—also of the great underlying passion from which sprang all the scorn, all the wrath, all the tenderness in the world” (qtd. In Jane Marcus, Introduction, Suffrage and the Pankhursts). Her public self-presentation was intoxicating to thousands.
How opposite my experience. Writing is my passion. I love choosing the right words, honing the argument. Yet even after decades of teaching and public speaking, there is always in any performance a profound sense of failure, of missing the mark. So much that I want to say seems lost in banal utterance, a delivery too ponderous, paralyzing self-consciousness.
I nevertheless keep on accepting opportunities because I hope to get better and because the subjects are worth talking about.
Many years ago, I chose as an epigraph for my emails a quotation attributed to American writer and journalist John Jay Chapman. Though I know next to nothing about Chapman or the context of his statement, the words struck a chord: “Retain the power of speech no matter what other power you may lose … Do what you will, but speak out always. Be shunned, be hated, be ridiculed, be scared, be in doubt, but don’t be gagged. The time of trial is always. Now is the appointed time” (1900).
I’ve had two recent interviews that may be of interest to some of you.
The first was a podcast with Mary-Jean Harris on a program called “The Other Side of the Story,” part of America Out Loud. Despite the usual anxiety, I was pleased to have the opportunity to mention the concussion hoax story that I wrote about a few months back as well as other serious misrepresentations of women and men’s situation.
The second was with Will Spencer on his YouTube channel Renaissance of Men (podcast version here). We discussed what led me to anti-feminism and why I believe the feminist movement was rotten from the start.
In my dreams, public speech is often effortless. Maybe one day in reality ….
Thanks to our lucky stars that you are not like Prankhurst!
Janice, I truly think you are too hard on yourself. You may be very nervous, but you are an excellent extemporaneous speaker. I know this from having done over 100 videos with you where there was no script. We all spoke spontaneously. I would find myself spell bound listening to your unique take on things. You have always had a knack for spotting issues that are not obvious but oh so critical and then a knack to artfully explain those. Anyone wanting evidence that I am speaking the truth just have a look at my substack where I have been running the regarding men videos that Paul, Janice and I did. They are remarkable in many ways and one of those is having had Janice there to be Janice! You are a gem!
Personally, I find your public speaking calm, collected, articulate and always compelling. Listening to you is a pleasure and I look forward to every new opportunity.