- by Patricia Smith Melton
Founder, Peace X Peace
Editor, Sixty Years, Sixty Voices: Israeli and Palestinian Women

Many of the Circle Principles meant to promote dialogue where everyone is included and heard have to do, naturally enough, with not interrupting, making sure all voices are included, and working towards consensus whenever possible.  One of the principles says that when in doubt, invite silence. Your own, that is.

Peace X Peace not only promoted these principles for years but studied them, used them, honed them.  Now I rebel!

I have a mad desire to interrupt, hold up mirrors, speak loudly sometimes, and confront what I think is wrong, selfish, or idiotic. I’m following one Circle Principle, though. I’m not giving advice, I’m speaking from experience.

Let me be clear:  I have watched more women let more men and other women and institutions and laws submerge their voice and wisdom than I’m willing to let stand unchallenged.

It is time to speak out. Women, you don’t always have to have it completely right.  You don’t always have to be ladylike. You don’t always have to defer, demur, and yield.  You get to dance, prance, occasionally shout, sing as much as you want, and get your point across—whether that is by voice, music, art, drawing, diagrams, schema complete with pie charts, citing of laws, reclaiming something you learned in third grade.

You get to claim your own, strut your stuff, laugh at your own jokes, say things that are absurd even to you, and, yes, occasionally, just occasionally, interrupt.

You get to interrupt when someone else hogs the time, the moral high road, or the finances.  You get to interrupt when you see someone being mean to someone else, a child, an old person, someone who is weary or poorer or confused.

You get to speak your piece, with or without complete sentences or logic. You get to start speaking in poetry just because you want to.

You get to speak plain talk when others are obfuscating.  You get to weave stories when others are going too fast and miss the crucial point.  You get to drive people a little crazy.

You get to believe what you think is true and to state it, again and again if necessary.

You get to hold someone else’s hand and say I love you. You get to hug someone and say I was an idiot. You get to expose your weakness and your vulnerability, and, scariest of all, your strength, your beauty, your quiet talent.

You do not always need to wait your turn.

But I have learned that politeness is a virtue and it carries you far and that it not the same as being silent.

I have learned that respect can make the difference between an argument and building trust.

I have learned that I’m nobody’s fool and when to pick my arguments—and when my argument, my fight, comes up, I will speak.  And I don’t have to be 100% right.  My voice is so important that it is most important that the part that is right be heard.

And I do not care that this writing is, perhaps, internally inconsistent or not written in perfect parallel structures.  I do not care, because I am on my way to have a chocolate soy latte, and that is what I’m going to do right now.  Tomorrow I will return to the big causes.  Today I am finished.