I went to the PWA meeting last night. I almost didn't. The first Wednesday is usually a dinner, the mechanics of which are always the same: we pay 35 bucks, and they proceed to starve us to death. No dinner last night though, probably because a lot of people are still on Easter vacation. If only half the usual number of women go to dinner, you understand, we might risk getting enough to eat. Better cancel it.

Instead we had a regular meeting with a panel of speakers, similar to our regular third-Wednesday meetings. These always function the same, as well: the first hour is social, wherein we pay $6.00 for a glass of wine and an extremely unappetizing appetizer buffet. I guess the powers that be are doing their utmost to keep our membership lean and mean. Maybe it's in the bylaws somewhere. Luckily, probably because so few people showed, I managed to get a couple of the stale bread/herb cheese combos. Plus a handful of mixed nuts. Which was good, because I was very hungry, and otherwise would have been forced to risk one of the mini-pizzas.

Also, if you smile nice at the guys in charge of the wine, you can usually get a second glass. Except the cute one: apparently he saves such favors for women he actually wants to sleep with.

Anyway, the reason I went is that I noticed that not one, but two of my friends were on the panel. One was Yvette, my yoga teacher. I haven't been able to go to class lately because of overscheduling and My Plumbing Hell of last week.

By the way, she thinks I lost weight. So there.

The other is Audrey. She's a very talented photographer, very petite, who wears her hair piled on top of her head like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Her presentation was very good, and also gave me a chance to see what she's up to these days as I didn't get much chance to really talk to her during cocktails because she had to set up her presentation.

Not, of course, that we would have had enough time, in any case. She is currently: teaching photography, working on several of her own photographic projects, curating art exhibits in a villa near Lake Como(they'll start showing in 2003, and she's working on exhibits for the entire year), curating art exhibits in local businesses (blue-chip, of course), and dealing in Aboriginal art and working with the people who produce it.

I feel like a lump.

We also met the PWA Board for next year, all 20 of them. (The AIM Board, of which I shall be president next year, which should reduce some of my lumpiness, has 7.) Couldn't vote on them because we didn't have a quorum, but they gave short speeches anyway. It's a good board, I think, and they should do a good job. All of them, despite what I'm about to say.

The Question Woman, who is, I am sure, a very capable and intelligent woman, gave a speech of the type which makes me despair for women everywhere. And it's not in what she said, but how she said it.

I'm really looking forward? To be president? I think I'm very qualified? For the position? I used to be a dictator? Like, of a small Central American country? For three years? And, the people really hated me? But at least the trains ran on time? Which shows organizational skills? And, like, ability to delegate? And they still haven't found all the money? Which shows I'm good at planning?

Arrgggh, Woman. Get thee to Dale Carnegie.

I wanted to shake her until every upward inflection came out of her ears and bobbed around by the ceiling like balloons.

You never hear a man talking in questions, do you? Not unless they're trying to be camp on purpose, and don't expect to be taken seriously. Because that, of course, is the effect.

Why should anyone take you seriously, if you don't do so yourself?

Women talk this way do so, I'm told, because they want to be liked. They want everyone to get along, to be non-confrontational. They do this by effectively subordinating their statements to everyone else, asking for agreement. They don't talk in a confident manner because they are not confident. Or, worse, they think, even if only on a subconscious level or out of habit, that they shouldn't be.

Put a statement in the form of a question, inflect your voice upward at the end of each sentence, and you ask for assent, for validation. Because your opinions don't matter, do they? In fact, they're probably wrong, and you should defer to your superiors, whoever they may be. What you're saying, what you're implying is "I'll be happy to change my mind if you say so, because, hey, you're probably right."

And that really pisses me off.

What's even more frustrating is that it's a very hard attitude to change. I could, for example, give a seminar on public speaking. In fact, I'm thinking that I will. And I will lecture and show by example, and have the participants speak and critique and be critiqued. And at the end, I'll have Ms. Question speaking like a pro. But I also know that when she goes to the office and speaks to her boss, or her coworkers, or even if she gets tired or nervous someday, it will come back. She'll become the Question Woman again.