Women are often told they speak too much — or not enough.
Too direct. Too emotional. Too quiet. Too assertive.
Communication is rarely just about what we say. It is also about how our words are perceived — and those perceptions are not always neutral.
Many women become skilled at calibration. We adjust tone. We soften conclusions. We rehearse difficult sentences before speaking them aloud. We anticipate how confidence, disagreement or authority might be received.
There is skill in that awareness: emotional intelligence, sensitivity to context, the ability to read a room.
But there can also be fatigue.
Research into gender and leadership has long explored the double bind women can encounter: behaviours associated with authority and leadership do not always align with traditional expectations of how women should behave.
The result can be a remarkably narrow space in which to communicate.
But perhaps that space is widening.
Assertiveness does not have to mean aggression. Nor should authority require adopting one particular style of communication.
A woman can be measured or outspoken. Diplomatic or direct. Quiet or expansive. None of these qualities alone determines the value of what she has to say.
Perhaps the more interesting question, then, is not how women should communicate in order to be taken seriously.
It is why we continue to place different expectations on the voices we hear.
Communication is not about shrinking to be palatable. Nor is it about force. It is about being able to express ideas with clarity and conviction without constantly adjusting them to fit someone else’s expectations.
And perhaps progress looks like this: creating workplaces and cultures where authority is recognised in more than one kind of voice.