Think how often you’ve heard these words used about women who lead: angry, strident, feisty, difficult, irritable, bossy, brassy, emotional, abrasive, high-maintenance, ambitious (a word that I think of as neutral, even admirable, but clearly isn’t for a lot of people). The linguist George Lakoff both identified this problem and embodied it when he said about Senator Elizabeth Warren, “Elizabeth has a problem. She is shrill, and there is a prejudice against shrill women.” How about we stop criticizing how she speaks—which is just fine, by the way—and start paying attention to what she has to
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