By
Mary Mohler
Always Sorry
On a recent Saturday
morning, I set a plate of pancakes on the dining room table. "I wanted
waffles," grumbled my youngest.
"I'm
sorry," came my reflexive reply. "I thought
you liked pancakes."
Only later did it
occur to me to wonder when, and why, I had become so spineless.
After all, in a global sense, this kid is lucky to be getting breakfast at all.
Yet somehow I've made myself responsible not only for preparing the food my
family eats but also for preparing food that all of them like. And if they don't? Well, it's my fault, of course. And I
apologize.
When I think about
it, if I had a dollar for every time I've uttered the S word, I'd be shoulder
to shoulder with Donald Trump. Countless are the occasions when I've mumbled,
"Sorry, I need to use the ladies' room," or "Sorry, I need to go
to bed before I pass out." Sure, it's partly a verbal tic, but it has also
become my main posture. I mean, if such basic human functions as sleeping and
relieving myself require an apology, how will I ever
justify taking time away from my family for such "luxuries" as
exercising or reading a novel? I'm convinced that the primary image my family
has of me is my expressing how very sorry I am.
But then I have lots
of company. Women tend to apologize constantly and unconsciously, as
automatically as we say hello and goodbye. We apologize to our husbands, our
children, our bosses, our assistants; to salesclerks, to bank tellers, to
hairdressers. For showing up early or showing up late. We are so ready with
"sorry" that we seem to accept responsibility even for situations
that are in no way under our control. You are not to blame for the fact that
mosquitoes the size of DC-10s ruined your family's picnic, nor could you have
prevented the rain that fell on your daughter's outdoor graduation party. But
you probably apologized for both.
It's not that we
believe, literally, that we are accountable
for the behavior of insects or the vagaries of
climate. But we offer our apologies anyway, employing them as an all-purpose
emotional emollient -- what prominent linguist Deborah Tannen,
PhD, calls grease for the conversational wheels. So we apologize to interrupt
("Sorry, could I just add a comment?"), to get attention
("Sorry, could we get menus?"), to backhandedly assert our needs
("Sorry, I really need a break"), to beg pardon for our fallibility
("Sorry, I didn't catch that").
So Sympathetic
But it hardly stops
there. "Women, much more than men, use 'I'm sorry' to express sympathy or empathy,
as in 'I'm sorry that happened to you,' as opposed to, 'I did something wrong
and I'm accepting my culpability,'" explains Dr. Tannen,
professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., and
author of the best-selling You Just Don't Understand and Talking from
9 to 5.
In this context, the
apologizer is simply acknowledging the other person's experience. In other
instances, the ritual exchange of apologies is the verbal equivalent of a
handshake -- a way of closing the subject. "It works like this," says
Dr. Tannen. "I apologize to you for A, then you
apologize to me for B, and we've maintained our equal footing."
Apologizing can also be a means to prompt an apology from someone else, she
points out. "If I'm annoyed that you broke a vase I loved, I might say,
'I'm sorry I yelled at you for breaking the vase.' The real point is to get you
to say, 'No, I'm sorry -- I should have been more careful.'"
So what's wrong with
any of that? Don't such ritualized expressions convey empathy
and reflect sophisticated interpersonal skills? Indeed they do. The problem is
that for such rituals to work, both parties (read: both men and women) need to
understand the terms. And therein lies the problem.
"There aren't always clear rules about what 'sorry' means," bemoans
my longtime friend Judy Grimm, a self-described
"overapologizer" from
"Women are
accustomed to using apologies in a social way, but men tend to take a more
literal view, seeing them as expressions of regret for their actions,"
agrees Dr. Tannen. "So they don't come back with
the desired response. For example, if I apologize for A, and you merely accept
my apology without reciprocating with B, I'm left in a weakened position."
Let's imagine that
your partner responds to your apology about the shattered vase with "yes,
you're always overreacting to trivial stuff." Now you will be seething not
only about the broken vase but also about the broken social contract that your
partner's lack of remorse represents. Such is the gulf that divides the sexes
on this issue.
Furthermore, the
gender difference is one of degree as well as of kind. "I teach etiquette,
so I would never advise anyone of either sex not to apologize," says
Barbara Pachter, a business communications consultant
in
Why We Do It
So what is it about women that makes us such a "sorry" lot? Robin T. Lakoff, PhD, professor of linguistics at the
In our social roles,
too, Dr. Lakoff says, much of what we do is designed
to make people feel better and to forge personal connections: "We are the
soothers, the conversational mediators." And those roles are often
reinforced by the kinds of work that women do. "Many of the jobs
typically filled by women involve speaking on behalf of someone more
powerful," Dr. Lakoff notes. "That often
entails a lot of soothing." (As in "I'm sorry, he's out of the office"
or "I'm sorry, we don't accept that credit card.") We're adept at
these roles; consequently we feel comfortable in them.
But even if we
consider apologies to be no more than entrenched social conventions, it's
undeniable that women issue a great many more of them than men do, and in
situations that are downright ludicrous. Attorney Sarah Weddington,
the powerhouse who successfully argued Roe v. Wade before the U.S. Supreme
Court, recalls her own "aha" moment, when she realized her tendency
to apologize had gotten out of hand. As part of the research for a pending case
involving environmental issues, she found herself the only woman accompanying a
group of nine forest rangers who were traveling on
horseback to examine lakes and rivers, with mules to carry provisions. "We
all took turns having the pack of mules tied to our horse," she says.
"When it was my turn, the lead mule got his rope tangled, frightening the
other mules. Without thinking, I got off my horse, ran over to the mule and said,
'I am so sorry!'"
Once after she
related this incident in a speech, Weddington
remembers, a woman came up to her with an apology story that trumped hers: As
an emergency room nurse, the woman witnessed a female patient whose first words
after arriving in the ER with serious injuries from an accident were "I'm
sorry, I didn't have time to shave my legs." Lacking power or control, we
default in such situations to an apology. It is an underdog's way to gain
sympathy.
The Price We Pay
Using apologies like
punctuation, however, can exact a subtle toll, says Pachter,
particularly in the workplace, where women stand to lose the most. "As a
strategic move, men like to deflect blame," she says. "If you are too
ready with an apology, they are all too willing to let you take the fall."
Most men fail to
appreciate the negotiating
potential of the ritual apology -- "it's not part of male grammar,"
observes Dr. Lakoff -- and they sometimes won't take
the time to decode the message. To men, saying "I'm sorry" means you have something to be sorry about. It is an admission of
culpability and weakness.
Group situations
provide particularly fertile ground for women's "sorriness."
How often have you introduced your contribution to a meeting with a phrase
like, "Sorry, could I just interject something here?" Yet offering an
apology along with your opinion tends to discount the merchandise, suggesting
that you're not entirely convinced you have the right to speak or that you lack
faith in the quality of your ideas.
"I really hate
when I do that," says Grimm, "because it cheapens what I have to
say." What happens, she adds, "is that women sometimes put more
emphasis on the effects of what we say than on the content itself.
And that keeps us from really speaking our minds."
Is the answer, then,
to emulate men's speech? Not necessarily. (And why is it always women who are
expected to change?) The empathetic awareness of other's feelings is a virtue,
a positive trait to which both sexes should aspire. "The world would be
better off if men would apologize more," says Grimm ruefully -- and who
would argue? At the same time, it is important to realize that over an extended
period, constantly apologizing diminishes not only
what we say but also who we are.
Yet the refusal to
apologize carries the risk that men -- accustomed to seeing women in our
conventional role of peacemaker -- may find us "abrasive" or
"difficult" if they happen not to like the opinions we
unapologetically express. And -- duh -- these are not adjectives that
most of us willingly seek out.
Although Dr. Tannen cautions against assuming that a person's verbal
style is a key to his or her psychological state, she says habitual apologies
can be part of a pattern of self-effacing behavior.
And Dr. Lakoff believes that one of the hidden costs
of women's willingness to accept blame is that, as she says, "over time, we feel more and more blameworthy, less willing
to be
assertive." After all, repeatedly saying "I'm sorry"
eventually sends the not-so-subtle message that our very existence is an
imposition.
So what's the answer?
Should we concentrate really hard and just stop saying "sorry"
altogether? Of course not. But we do need to be a lot
more mindful when we do. The next time that you find yourself automatically
blurting out an apology, "stop and carefully consider why you're saying it
and how it makes you feel," advises Dr. Lakoff.
Start by keeping an informal tally of how often it is that you apologize (the
numbers may be staggering). And, of course, remember to take the context into
account. As Dr. Tannen points out, "what works
just fine in girl talk may cost you dearly in the office."
With practice, you will catch yourself and thereby thwart the nosedive in
self-esteem that occurs every time you broach an idea with "Sorry..."
It's really not that
hard. (Think of it as one small step for woman, one giant step for womankind.)
Indeed, when you consciously look for other words with which to soothe or
negotiate, you may just discover a whole new world of possibilities out there,
including the greatest possibility of all: that you'll end up a more
confident, self-assured person.
Originally
published in Ladies' Home Journal magazine,
June 2005.