We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
May 25, 2018 7:31 PM Subscribe
If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing it would be this: “Abby, you were never Little Red Riding Hood; you were always the wolf.” So when I was entrusted with the honor of speaking here today, I decided that the most important thing for me to say to you is this: BARNARD WOMEN—CLASS OF 2018—WE. ARE. THE. WOLVES.Former U.S. soccer star Abby Wambach delivers the commencement address at Barnard College. Transcript. via.
Wow. I thought our Riot Gurrl feminism was fierce in the 90s, but I envy (and am in awe of) the women bursting forth today. GIVE ME THE EFFING BALL!
posted by libraryhead at 8:36 PM on May 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by libraryhead at 8:36 PM on May 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
Ok. Here’s the thing. Shit is bad. It’s really bad. If our children are going to survive and have a meaningful existence, we need every single one of our best people doing their best to make things better. When the pool of people is limited to white men, sometimes we get good people and we sometimes get Donald Trump. When the pool of people is, like everyone, we expand the number of good people at least 75% and get people like Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and Abby Wambach. And the number of Donald Trumps decreases by 75%.
OUR LIVES DEPEND ON GETTING THE BEST PEOPLE.
This means all people everywhere must be supported and promoted and when the system doesn’t automatically recognize excellence because of skin color or gender or sexual orientation, we need to call that shit out and get these people into positions of power and influence. We cannot afford to fuck around with making black people work twice as hard to be half as good. We can’t afford to fuck around with childbirth sinking your career. When we support equal pay and equal promotion taking into account the shitty opportunities people were born with, the bias they encountered on their way up, we end up with way, way more qualified people that we need to fix this shit. White men like me no longer have the luxury to sit back and wonder whether women can really handle the pressure what with family and their periods and all. I say this as a person within the power structure, we need to actively promote the ambitious intelligent next generation regardless of their chromosomes and skin color, because Christian white dudes are out of ideas.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:47 PM on May 25, 2018 [44 favorites]
OUR LIVES DEPEND ON GETTING THE BEST PEOPLE.
This means all people everywhere must be supported and promoted and when the system doesn’t automatically recognize excellence because of skin color or gender or sexual orientation, we need to call that shit out and get these people into positions of power and influence. We cannot afford to fuck around with making black people work twice as hard to be half as good. We can’t afford to fuck around with childbirth sinking your career. When we support equal pay and equal promotion taking into account the shitty opportunities people were born with, the bias they encountered on their way up, we end up with way, way more qualified people that we need to fix this shit. White men like me no longer have the luxury to sit back and wonder whether women can really handle the pressure what with family and their periods and all. I say this as a person within the power structure, we need to actively promote the ambitious intelligent next generation regardless of their chromosomes and skin color, because Christian white dudes are out of ideas.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:47 PM on May 25, 2018 [44 favorites]
This was fantastic. Thanks for posting.
posted by Mchelly at 8:56 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Mchelly at 8:56 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Seconding fantastic and thanks.
posted by Quietgal at 9:08 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Quietgal at 9:08 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
Not only does the USWNT dominate and win trophies, they do it for a fraction of the cost. The USMNT is clown shoes. How can someone dictate policy at US Soccer and not feel shame? How can any so-called soccer fan watch the USWNT crush everything in Canada and not see how valuable the team is to the rest of us? How important they are to American sports in general? Americans rarely go out into the world and dominate so decisively in athletics that we didn't invent ourselves, or throw mountains of money at. Somehow I doubt that giving pay parity is going to break the bank. HARRUMPH.
posted by Brocktoon at 9:16 PM on May 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Brocktoon at 9:16 PM on May 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
Wambach doesn’t seem to be – but could be – also referring to Sarah DeLappe’s play The Wolves, a fine production of which I saw earlier this year at the college in town. The Wolves, a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, and the first off-Broadway play to feature an all-female playwright, director, and cast, depicts events in the lives of a teenage soccer team.
posted by LeLiLo at 9:30 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by LeLiLo at 9:30 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
That was so, so good. I had no idea who Abby Wambach was, and commencement speeches often feel like they are only applicable to a very specific time in life, but I’m years out of college and I was like hot DAMN.
I really liked her point of “lead from the bench/wherever you are,“ because tbh I often feel like if I’m not at the top of the pack/head of the class, then my voice shouldn’t count. Like I need to “win” the one seat at the table in order to have the “credibility” to be taken seriously, or even just to have the right to speak about universal women’s issues. It’s such a bullshit standard of perfectionism that the rest of the world isn’t held to. Anyway, I really appreciated her frank and inspiring take on being a woman in the world. Thanks for posting.
posted by alleycat01 at 9:44 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
I really liked her point of “lead from the bench/wherever you are,“ because tbh I often feel like if I’m not at the top of the pack/head of the class, then my voice shouldn’t count. Like I need to “win” the one seat at the table in order to have the “credibility” to be taken seriously, or even just to have the right to speak about universal women’s issues. It’s such a bullshit standard of perfectionism that the rest of the world isn’t held to. Anyway, I really appreciated her frank and inspiring take on being a woman in the world. Thanks for posting.
posted by alleycat01 at 9:44 PM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]
alleycat01, I’m guessing you’re not too much into soccer, but here is the goal that everyone will remember Wambach for. It is one of the top moments in US Soccer history. (It was scored pretty much literally at the last second, and kept the US from being knocked out of the World Cup.)
posted by azpenguin at 10:25 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by azpenguin at 10:25 PM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]
This is amazing-- thank you for posting.
posted by travertina at 5:19 AM on May 26, 2018
posted by travertina at 5:19 AM on May 26, 2018
Are women ever allowed to fail up? Do we ever risk our one shot / one seat at the table? I'm wearing myself out by aiming to be the best in the room every time I get a foot in the door.
Women, listen to me. We must embrace failure as our fuel instead of accepting it as our destruction.
As Michelle Obama recently said: "I wish that girls could fail as well as men do and be okay. Because let me tell you watching men fail up—it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to see men blow it and win. And we hold ourselves to these crazy, crazy standards."
Is it women holding ourselves to these standards or are we being held to them?
posted by travertina at 5:46 AM on May 26, 2018 [11 favorites]
Women, listen to me. We must embrace failure as our fuel instead of accepting it as our destruction.
As Michelle Obama recently said: "I wish that girls could fail as well as men do and be okay. Because let me tell you watching men fail up—it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to see men blow it and win. And we hold ourselves to these crazy, crazy standards."
Is it women holding ourselves to these standards or are we being held to them?
posted by travertina at 5:46 AM on May 26, 2018 [11 favorites]
Is it women holding ourselves to these standards or are we being held to them?Both, right? You look at how the world treats women who fail and you (reasonably) internalize it so that you can survive in the world.
posted by inconstant at 6:12 AM on May 26, 2018 [13 favorites]
Are women ever allowed to fail up?
Sometimes. There are other tactics as well – we are indeed taught to respect the "system" that is so often portrayed as only "allowing" the "best" to rise to the top, but we've been gifted with a wonderful Buddhist koan about this system whose name is Donald Trump. There are others; he's far from alone.
Other tactics include not waiting for anyone to allow you to do something you want to do and which doesn't hurt others; ideally which builds others up. (Otherwise "do what you want to do" can become somewhat sociopathic.) Failing is truly excellent and more people should try it – I posted in another thread a while back about how I learned to give zero shits about appearances and shrug off people who think I'm a dumb woman who won't succeed. Similar to what I said there: if I were dumb and unable to succeed, I wouldn't be in the same room as them. You can look at it another way if it pings better for you: if I were indeed dumb and unable to succeed, I'm still in the same room as them. (muahahahaa)
So if you're worried about others not letting you succeed and they're all out for you to fail, give them the gift of your failure. And while they're gloating about it, do your best, pick up all the balls they're dropping (because treating people like crap means THEY ARE DROPPING BALLS RIGHT AND LEFT), run/dribble with them and score.
If no one cheers when you score, the problem is the crowd, not you. We can't play all home games.
posted by fraula at 7:12 AM on May 26, 2018 [27 favorites]
Sometimes. There are other tactics as well – we are indeed taught to respect the "system" that is so often portrayed as only "allowing" the "best" to rise to the top, but we've been gifted with a wonderful Buddhist koan about this system whose name is Donald Trump. There are others; he's far from alone.
Other tactics include not waiting for anyone to allow you to do something you want to do and which doesn't hurt others; ideally which builds others up. (Otherwise "do what you want to do" can become somewhat sociopathic.) Failing is truly excellent and more people should try it – I posted in another thread a while back about how I learned to give zero shits about appearances and shrug off people who think I'm a dumb woman who won't succeed. Similar to what I said there: if I were dumb and unable to succeed, I wouldn't be in the same room as them. You can look at it another way if it pings better for you: if I were indeed dumb and unable to succeed, I'm still in the same room as them. (muahahahaa)
So if you're worried about others not letting you succeed and they're all out for you to fail, give them the gift of your failure. And while they're gloating about it, do your best, pick up all the balls they're dropping (because treating people like crap means THEY ARE DROPPING BALLS RIGHT AND LEFT), run/dribble with them and score.
If no one cheers when you score, the problem is the crowd, not you. We can't play all home games.
posted by fraula at 7:12 AM on May 26, 2018 [27 favorites]
Thank you for posting this, Rumple. Even just reading the transcript was a hopeful and moving experience. The speech is meaningful regardless of audience age, I think, especially with the Red Riding Hood angle. Well-written and positive and timely, and on a lighter note I laughed at the end of her anecdote about coaching/talking to the kid on her daughter's soccer team.
I'm glad the speech is available online and am really looking forward to watching the video and getting a sense of the audience, too. I'm happy that the graduates got to hear/see the speech in person *and* I'm happy that everyone else there got to experience it too -- the parents, siblings, and other family & friends of the graduates, and the faculty and staff. Especially the kids.
I so wish that I had heard something like this when I was younger. I wish I could have seen the faces of the girls in the audience when they realized Little Red Riding Hood didn't have to represent them and they could be the wolf. I wish I could hear the conversations when they go home, with this speech percolating in their minds. I wish I could hear them telling their friends about going to their big sister's graduation, and about how they're part of a wolf pack and how they need to support each other. While I can't witness these things happening, I'm hopeful that they will happen.
If no one cheers when you score, the problem is the crowd, not you. We can't play all home games.
Wow. Reading this made me stop in my tracks. Is this a quote from someone or is this you, fraula? Like Wambach's speech, it's resonating with me on such a level that I know it will stay with me for a long time.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 5:54 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm glad the speech is available online and am really looking forward to watching the video and getting a sense of the audience, too. I'm happy that the graduates got to hear/see the speech in person *and* I'm happy that everyone else there got to experience it too -- the parents, siblings, and other family & friends of the graduates, and the faculty and staff. Especially the kids.
I so wish that I had heard something like this when I was younger. I wish I could have seen the faces of the girls in the audience when they realized Little Red Riding Hood didn't have to represent them and they could be the wolf. I wish I could hear the conversations when they go home, with this speech percolating in their minds. I wish I could hear them telling their friends about going to their big sister's graduation, and about how they're part of a wolf pack and how they need to support each other. While I can't witness these things happening, I'm hopeful that they will happen.
If no one cheers when you score, the problem is the crowd, not you. We can't play all home games.
Wow. Reading this made me stop in my tracks. Is this a quote from someone or is this you, fraula? Like Wambach's speech, it's resonating with me on such a level that I know it will stay with me for a long time.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 5:54 PM on May 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
When the pool of people is, like everyone, we expand the number of good people at least 75% and get people like Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, and Abby Wambach. And the number of Donald Trumps decreases by 75%.
I saw a partner from PwC speak about gender equality some years back. She noted that in many fields in the US, first line managers are 51% women. By the time you get to senior leadership roles, it's often 17%-18% women - about one third of the original leadership pool. (The US Congress is now up around 20%, and Fortune 500 board seats are in the same range.)
Since talent is distributed equally across the sexes, the math means about 1/3rd of the senior leadership ranks of all US organizations are men who wouldn't be there if they had faced fair competition all the way through.
It's crashingly obvious when you say it, but it still needs to be said over and over again.
So yeah, what Abby said, about the wolves. Very much that.
posted by sockshaveholes at 7:53 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
I saw a partner from PwC speak about gender equality some years back. She noted that in many fields in the US, first line managers are 51% women. By the time you get to senior leadership roles, it's often 17%-18% women - about one third of the original leadership pool. (The US Congress is now up around 20%, and Fortune 500 board seats are in the same range.)
Since talent is distributed equally across the sexes, the math means about 1/3rd of the senior leadership ranks of all US organizations are men who wouldn't be there if they had faced fair competition all the way through.
It's crashingly obvious when you say it, but it still needs to be said over and over again.
So yeah, what Abby said, about the wolves. Very much that.
posted by sockshaveholes at 7:53 PM on May 26, 2018 [4 favorites]
If no one cheers when you score, the problem is the crowd, not you. We can't play all home games.
Yeah, this really struck me too. Thanks for sharing this metaphor.
posted by mabelstreet at 9:51 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah, this really struck me too. Thanks for sharing this metaphor.
posted by mabelstreet at 9:51 PM on May 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
GREAT post, flagged as fantastic, and great, treat timing. Thanks, rumple.
posted by yoga at 4:36 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by yoga at 4:36 PM on May 27, 2018 [2 favorites]
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