The Femininity of an Exclamation Point
“Hello! I was wondering if you would be willing to sit down and answer some questions about the musical. It’s totally okay if you’re not up to it, though! Please let me know when or if you would want to. Thanks!”
When I read this email back, I cringe at the breathy, frilly voice I hear in my head. I imagine myself with a “Miss Americana” sash crossed over my chest, cradling a bouquet of flowers the size of two of my heads, gasping and sputtering into a microphone. I sound frantic, like my knees are knocking against each other—as if a raised voice or gust of wind could level me. That is not who I am.
I speak with strength, and I know I do it well. So why is it that when I write to others, I feel the need to embellish my words with exclamation points? As writers and students, we’ve been taught that exclamation marks are juvenile, tacky, and unnecessary. It's been pounded into us that emotion and meaning can be added to writing in dozens of ways other than punctuation as simple as an exclamation point. But as women, we’re taught to be personable, pleasant, and poised.
The majority of my favorite writers are women—Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion, Virginia Woolf. They, and so many others, are examples of the gushing fountains of complex emotion and musing that women are capable of. This complexity comes from the soulful experience of being a woman—something that can’t be fully articulated by a man, just as a woman can’t fully speak on the experience of being a man. We obviously know that women are well past being dumbed down to a few sentences. If given the opportunity, we can spew paragraph after paragraph of thought and deliberation (this article being a case in point). But why is it so common for women to use exclamation points in written conversation?
“Using exclamation points makes what I’m writing sound… enthusiastic and welcoming,” remarked Maya Jordan, 10. She emails teachers and reaches out to her coworkers in her writing—it makes sense to use punctuation like that in an introduction or greeting. But what about when we need someone to understand a point we’re trying to make? Whether it’s an invitation to hang out or a request to meet with a teacher, we find ourselves itching to come off as lightly as possible: “No pressure!” “Only if you want to, though!” If it were a proposal, wouldn’t we want to hammer a point down as clearly as possible?
When we write to others as women, I think we need to learn to make our voices more determined: not a jaunty confidence, eager to impress and please, but a confidence that has its roots in what we believe. That’s not to say we need to leave behind the cordiality that comes with conversation—an email shouldn’t sound like an interrogation, and common manners should never be abandoned.
I’m not just talking to women who write consistently. When we write, we tunnel into our own thoughts and purpose all too deeply. Looking into the simpler, almost mundane acts of writing is where our purpose is shown most clearly. Don’t hide behind exclamation points or water down your voice—find what you want to say, and look for how you can make people listen.
