Don't go there. Via tim_ellis @ Flickr.
Women are coached to apologize for just about everything. It becomes habitual, even reflexive. I hear it from students, peers, friends, internet strangers; grown women, all. They apologize for having an opinion, or sometimes for not having an opinion. They apologize for disagreeing with someone else. They apologize for taking up too much space, or, as Becky has noted, when others take up their space. They–WE–apologize all. the. time. It’s bullshit. And it’s got to stop.
There are two major problems with the overuse of “sorry”:
1. It can be a false-apology. “I’m sorry” can be a way of disavowing responsibility for your words or actions that are, at their base, unhelpful. “I’m sorry, but…” is as helpful as “I’m not a racist, but…”, which is to say that there’s no surer way of marking yourself as “unsorry,” or “racist” (or whatever). You’re not sorry. You’re being weaselly. Quit it. Be willing to be accountable for your words and deeds.
2. It’s a way of apologizing for your very existence. You deserve your opinions, feelings, thoughts, space, and time. You don’t need to apologize for them. There are ways of expressing yourself politely (and I am a big believer in politesse) that don’t entail your undermining yourself as a person worth listening to and respecting.
There are correct times and places to apologize, like when you make a mistake, or mindlessly say something hurtful, or just act like an asshole (we all do it*). Or when someone is suffering (really, suffering, not fake, ‘ooh, my fee-fees haz an owie!’ suffering) and you want to let them know you sympathize.
There are plenty of people out there who just luuuuuuv to hear you apologize for your every action. They luuuuuuv to discount you, and they luuuuuuuv when you do so much of the work for them. So cut it out. Don’t say it if you don’t mean it. And don’t mean it when you don’t need to.
*I did it recently. (Confidential to aeh: I was an asshole, and I am very sorry for it.)
I’ve started trying to cut the word sorry completely out of my vocabulary. If I’ve said something offensive or insensitive or acted like an asshole, I’ll try to say “I apologize” or some variation, and if someone passes away or something I’ll say not “I’m sorry for your loss” but “I regret that you’re having this difficult time now” or something like that. Otherwise it’s too easy to fall into the trap of apologizing yourself out of existence.
I am guilty guilty guilty of this one. Very lately, like in the last two weeks though, I have been experiencing an internal backlash where I am so pissed at myself for taking bullshit from people for years and pretending to myself and to them that it was my fault, for underplaying my virtues and overstating my faults, for letting people walk all over me and thinking it would make me a martyr. Unfortunately I am now on a megabitch kick. Hopefully it will even out soon.
I do that all the time, i don’t know why and it’s very hard to stop even though i realize i’m doing exactly that at the time.
I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I don’t mean to be apologetic, but I’m sorry. I’m sorry this upsets you.
It’s to the point where I have caught myself saying “sorry” when people step on my foot or knock into me in public places. wtf?
But one thing I’m definitely NOT sorry for is expressing my opinions. It grates on me when women write comments on blogs or whatever, and apologize at the end for writing such a “novel” or being longwinded.
I think there must be another gender specific layer of “I’m sorry” which I have never noticed. I went through a stage of adamantly never apologising for a few years, but after living in Moscow and London, I decided that apologising profusely was a good way to go about town. I never feel like I am apologising for my existence, and more often than not, apologising for someone running into you prompts them to reply back with their own “I’m sorry,” though I admit that might be because apparently I look slightly intimidating.
Getting walked all over is something no one should tolerate, but I don’t see how saying “I’m sorry” is a symptom of it. There are ways to say “I’m sorry” without apologising for your existence and while meaning it. In my mind, it’s the one form of polite behaviour that I’ve seem to have caught on to and embraced. (That and saying “sir” and “ma’am.”)
@aspiringexpatriate: There is definitely a gendered component to “I’m sorry”– women apologize for things they have no control over and things that need no apology. When I was at my worst I would mutter “I’m sorry” to the door jamb when I accidentally ran into it it was so automatic. We apologize for disagreeing, for speaking up, for not knowing things there is no good reason we should know– it’s a serious problem.
On a related note, women need to learn to speak without using qualifiers, which “I’m sorry” often functions as, for example “I think that polar bears do X” instead of just saying “Polar bears do X.”
On the other hand, saying “Oh, I’m sorry” when someone else bumps into you can be a subversive way of pointing out the offense. Not that I’ve employed this tactic myself…
@Shannon: I think my side of argument is that everyone should apologise to the door for not opening and should speak with qualifiers. Otherwise we get a culture of people so certainly sure of themselves they refuse to ask directions, or whether it is against international law to invade a sovereign nation without provocation.
Granted, if only the women are doing it and the men aren’t, I can see a lot of monstrous issues resulting, but I don’t think that striping the “sorry” from all interactions is the right direction.
Read again, AspEx. I didn’t say “offend freely, and never apologize again!!!”
No one should apologize to the door.
And really, I can think of…maybe two women (?) I’ve ever known who (acted as if they) were totally sure of themselves and never apologized. They were assholes. If they or any of their ilk reads this, they’ll only make a dismissive gesture and get on with their assholery. But I would wage a good chunk of what little money I have that most women over-apologize, apologize unnecessarily, and actually feel guilt about or responsiblity for things that are not their fault, and it is to those women I’m addressing my screed.
I hereby second and third and fourth and fifth this…
LEAST SURPRISING NEWS EVER: women are constantly raised to think it’s wrong for them to express any contradict anyone or express any strong desire, whether it’s “I want Cheerios instead of cornflakes” or “Get the fuck off me, I don’t want to kiss you!”
This kind of knee-jerk apologizing is an outgrowth of that. Because really what it means is “I’m not important. I don’t get a vote…my opinions/needs/desires don’t matter.” Which is to say, EVERYTHING THE FUCKING PATRIARCHY HAS TOLD WOMEN FOR MILLENIA.
So ladies, unless you really, genuinely fucked up, stop apologizing!
(sorry for the rant)
(well, not really)
I once had a friend who studied Japanese language and culture in college and she would rant all the time about how Japanese women’s cultural inferiority is coded in the language — I’m really sorry I can’t remember specifics, but it has something to do with the way women end a sentence. It’s part of the language for women to indicate uncertainty. (I hope I am not misrepresenting Japanese here — I never studied it.)
Anyway, she would go on these rants about how this proved Japan was sexist!!1! But the thing is, we have the same damn conventions in English. I don’t know that a non-native speaker would get those instructions in their textbook, but we do it all the time.
Happy to find this post — I had my habit of doing this pointed out to me just yesterday, when I apologized to my class and professor for speaking up when the professor said something blatantly wrong. “I’m really, really sorry to say this, and I know this is probably just my experience…” Sigh.
Fuck. I just noticed that I used the “s” word in my lament of overusing the “s” word. I can only laugh.
@JD: I am in megabitch mode as well. I get to a point where I get so pissed off about people taking advantage of me and then I turn into a huge bitch and I’m rude to everyone I encounter in a given day to “make up for” all of the other injustices. It makes no sense.
After presenting my research paper to a room full of mostly feminists but all female political science scholars, the first comment I got was to stop apologizing. Apparently throughout the presentation I had interjected apologies for my work being not as great or groundbreaking, and for me not being as eloquent and smart as everyone else. I am definitely more conscious of this now.
Once I started teaching, I noticed that most of my female students would always apologize for their comments in class as opposed to the male students who refused to even listen to me.
The thing is, I have noticed that male professors are kinder and provide feedback when I am all sweet and apologetic about my smartness/intelligence.
At the same time, the very few women I have seen not apologize ever are
1) super smart so never need any assistance, so simply don’t care that nobody gives them help or feedback and everyone treats them respectfully,
2) if they are of normal/average intelligence, tend to be really arrogant along with not apologizing so nobody cares about them and they are totally isolated.
Absolutely! And please write about the way some women feel that they have to put themselves down as a sort of curtesy before saying something. Such as: “this may be stupid, but…” “maybe I’m wrong, but…” You can supply other examples, for sure.
Stop it!
It makes me want to actually be negative to whatever the woman is saying – the opposite effect.
@spicyplum: YES! you just reminded me yet again of my very favorite day of class, which I’ve written about on here, when a male professor told me that I didn’t have to introduce my comment by saying “even if you think this argument is problematic…” in front of a big class. I’ve never second guessed myself like that in front of so many people again. It wasn’t exactly an I’m sorry moment, but it was public self doubt of the kind you almost never see in men’s speech.
spicyplum, I see this a lot (and sometimes I’ve done it). Guh. It’s a challenge, because I’ve been trained that you have to delimit your topic, and be clear what is and isn’t under consideration, so there are caveats that need to be made, but…BUT. There’s a difference between declaring “I’m just looking at X, not Y,” and shrugging, “Sorry I’m not also taking Y into account.”
And tilly: you’re so right. It’s not just “I’m sorry,” it ‘s the phrases you listed, and dozens, maybe scores more like that. Using “tentative language” (“it seems like” or “one could argue that”) is fine, but undercutting everything you say before you say it is not. I’ve taught speech in the past, and it’s something I saw time and again from students, and always moreso from the women than the men.
I do think there are sometimes provisional benefits to being overly apologetic, spicyplum, like when male teachers act nicer to you. But I have a feeling the benefits to apologizing a more appropriate amount would give us more benefits that we can’t even imagine because we have never experienced them.
Now that I’m back in school, I’ve noticed something else female students do in class. They speak really, really softly. If the prof calls on a woman, she’ll practically whisper the answer. He always has to ask them to repeat themselves. The men in class have clear, confident voices. It’s sad.
It’s not only that I’m sorry becomes meaningless when it is the default response. Have you ever noticed how someone will ask how you are doing and keep walking not waiting for your response. We have turned phrases that used to mean something into careless utterances.
@Renee. Wait someone is supposed to stop and listen after asking me how I am doing?
During International Student orientations in an unnamed southern university, foreign students are specifically told to not answer when someone says “how are you?” Instead, you are supposed to smile and say “how are you?” back and keep on moving. This is part of the lesson in How To Not Be Laughed At By Americans session.
So yes, it is a completely meaningless utterance, but one that allows the southerners to claim politeness and hospitality which the apparently the new yorkers don’t have.
@spicy…: English too. Well, depends on the circles in England.
@Renee: If it’s become meaningless, then most of these reasons for not saying it are superficial, if as you say, the word itself has become superficial.
Gosh, I’m very guilty of this, too. In fact, I’m a doormat, an ultimate people-pleaser. It is a sickness and I’m trying to eradicate it… I read somewhere that men expect women to move out of the way when walking in the street, and I tried it out. A guy was heading straight toward me and I decided not to move for him; he waited until the last possible moment to do so! It was eye-opening, for sure.
I had a teacher when I was younger who forbade qualifiers. (“I think… I’m not sure, but… maybe it could be…”) It was a great lesson and a hard habit to break.
I liberally use “sorry” when out and about. I like to think of it as the grease that keeps the gears of urban human interaction spinning smoothly, instead of being gummed up by crankiness and irritation.
[...] you’re not really sorry then don’t say [...]
I was just reading this, then looking over something for a co-worker. It was so weird, because I referred to something and she thought I meant something else, and it was all I could do to avoid saying “Sorry about that.” It was like my tongue almost started itching to say it, like it was some physical impulse. But there was nothing to be sorry for.
I clearly needed this post.
I’ve been trying to get my roommate to stop doing it. She apologizes permanently, for every single thing.
It’s in debates that I tend to say “i think” etc. i always feel that if I don’t, someone is going to call me out on being to full of myself/arrogant. Which tends to happen if I don’t, even if I say the exact same things. Drives me crazy.
I love this post. I used to apologize for having an opinion all the time. It took a while for me to realize that I’m not sorry for my opinion. Also, I totally call people out whenever they say “I’m sorry you feel that way.” That kind of apology really irks me.
I call #1 the “Male Apology” – which is a *little* unfair, I know. It’s the “I’m sorry you feel that way” or “I’m sorry that you’re upset” apology. Translated: “…. and I take no responsibility for WHY you are upset/feel that way.” I wrote about this a while ago.
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