Browse the internet or a bookshop and you’ll find a slew of advice on how to be taken more seriously – by your partner, your colleagues, or even by your own children. Lower your voice, hold someone’s gaze, focus on the things most important to you, and so on. It’s important too, because it’s how you get people to listen to your ideas – and even a three-year-old knows that not being listened to is one of the most frustrating things in the world. (I am writing on the eve of International Women’s Day.)

Whether these methods work is another matter, but to be taken seriously must be something we want, or we wouldn’t be so open to all that lecturing on the subject. Strange that, because I don’t see much evidence of us putting these ideas into practice. Open your eyes and ears to it: in the office sentences trail off into self-conscious laughter (of both the boisterous and meek kind); at the playground parents absent-mindedly chide small children with one eye still on their Facebook-covered iPhone screens; and lovers on the tube quarrel in mock baby voices. Mostly, it seems, we’re busy trying to be liked (whether by our new boyfriend or on social media) instead. Continue reading →