Malika Williams

of the Center for Women’s Voice Speaks Out

We continue to bring you articles centering Black women’s voices on negotiation, leadership and that scariest challenge - public speaking. This week, Malika Williams, founder and Director of the Center for Women’s Voice draws lessons from a dramatic encounter between Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and little known Congressman Ted Yoho.

As Williams notes below:

For those of us who want to increase our leadership capacity and connect to our values in the face of misogyny, racism, classism, ageism, all of it –Ocasio-Cortez’s speech presents a compelling case study that we can learn from.

We thank Williams for her contribution of this article to She Negotiates.

Sustaining Your Voice in the Face of Racism (and all the other ‘isms)

by Malika Williams

If you missed news of the encounter between two Congressional representatives Congresspeople on the Capitol Steps, here’s a quick recap.

A couple of weeks ago, Florida Republican Representative Ted Yoho verbally accosted New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez about one of her policy stances. Rather than addressing her in a respectful manner, he called her “disgusting” and a “f***ing bitch.” Members of the press who were within earshot of Yoho’s remarks, reported them.

The day after the story broke, Yoho used his time on the House floor to acknowledge the incident and publicly “apologize” to congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.

The next day, also on the House floor, AOC responded to the apology.

What Ocasio-Cortez said is precisely what I teach women to do: process a difficult moment, make a choice about how to respond, pivot to your own core values, and incorporate the story of that process in your response.

For those of us who want to increase our leadership capacity and connect to our values in the face of misogyny, racism, classism, ageism, all of it –Ocasio-Cortez’s speech presents a compelling case study that we can learn from.

Monitor Your Energy

One of the fundamental tenets of sustaining your voice in the midst of systemic oppression and institutional disappointments, is to protect your energy and only speak out about the matters that are truly meaningful to you.

If you have any status or influence as a woman, you’re going to be called terrible names sometimes. And that’s not always worth confronting. AOC addressed that decision in an authentic and transparent way.

She first asserted her power by letting her audience know that she is no fragile flower. “While I [am] not deeply hurt or offended by little comments that are made,” she said,

"when I was reflecting on [Yoho’s attack] I honestly thought that I was just going to pack it up and go home. It’s just another day, right?”

In saying this, AOC lets us know that she is not living her life in fear of being called a bitch. At some point in her career, Ocasio-Cortez made a decision that those particular verbal attacks have nothing to do with her character, value, or competence.

Rather than internalizing the congressman’s insults, she contextualized his actions in the larger framework of a culture that accepts violence toward women. What happened to her wasn’t pleasant, but it also wasn’t personal.

Consult With Yourself

We need to take space to reflect on the events of our lives and how they make us feel. Sometimes letting things lie is the best option. The key here is the reflection piece. AOC’s initial decision to dismiss the congressman’s remarks as “rude” and simply walk away was not a fear reflex. It was a strategic move to conserve her energy.

So often when we’re caught off guard, we want to have a snappy response in the moment to hurl back at our assailant. That’s how it works on television right? The truth is, you don’t have to fight every battle, or educate every person who acts out of ignorance. AOC is a congresswoman; she’s got work to do, and she made a choice that she was not going to take on the free labor of confronting the congressman. That’s a valid choice.

Stay Present With Your Feelings

But things change. When AOC took to the floor of Congress, she did so in response to a faux apology by her aggressor.

“[Y]esterday, Representative Yoho decided to come to the floor of the House of Representatives and made excuses for his behavior, and that I could not let go.”

Yoho’s “apology” shifted the attack from something AOC could let go to something it was important to address. After his public speech about the matter, it was no longer just an unpleasant altercation. It was an unpleasant altercation being defended and justified by passion and purported patriotism. Rather than feeling stuck in her previous decision, Ocasio-Cortez changed her mind and decided to engage the issue directly.

Reframe The Situation And Tap Into Your Core Values

AOC does not let anyone else frame or characterize something harmful that happened to her. She reframed Yoho’s characterization of the encounter on her own terms by tapping into her core values.

“I want to thank [Congressman Yoho] for showing the world that you can be a powerful man and accost women. You can have daughters and accost women without remorse. You can be married and accost women. You can take photos and project an image to the world of being a family man and accost women without remorse and with a sense of impunity. It happens every day in this country. It happened here on the steps of our nation’s Capitol. It happens when individuals who hold the highest office in this land admit to hurting women and using this language against all of us.”

Brava to AOC and lessons well taught to the rest of us. When bad things happen, we get to decide what to make of it. We don’t have to believe that everything happens for a legitimate reason. However, we can choose to find our own meaning and transform that into a weapon against racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism and all the rest of the biases that that threaten to bring each of us, and therefore all of us, down.

Malika Williams’ mission is to help women use their voices in the most authentic, powerful, and effective way possible. She believes that how we use our voices directly impacts the rights we have and the way we're treated as a community in the world at large. Williams is not just talking about the sounds that come out of our mouths (though that's important too), I'm talking about the bigger Voice with a capital V. What we have to say, what we believe, what we stand for and what we don't stand for.

Malika created a dynamic process to support women in sustaining voice during difficult moments, called The BREATHE Method, which you can download here for free.

Malika is a national speaker and trainer based in Los Angeles. She holds a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from the University of Southern California. In 2017, Malika founded The Center for Women's Voice, where she teaches women how to communicate effectively and authentically without apologizing or overanalyzing. Drawing from her own experiences as an actor in the entertainment industry and as a professional development facilitator for the military, Malika brings a unique perspective that is both approachable and practical for any woman who wants to be heard. Since launching The Center for Women's Voice, Malika has led hundreds of coaching sessions with women across a spectrum of career stages and fields - from the entertainment industry, to Silicon Valley and academia. What Malika's client's and workshop attendees have in common is the desire to expand their influence further, be heard, and "show up" more authentically across their different work contexts.

Check out The Center for Women’s Voice today.

Sustaining Your Voice in the Face of Systemic Racism