-- and that I had joined a firm which wrote speeches and essays for non-commercial institutions. Sort of like ad-copy writing, but with less bad karma. I was given the assignment to write a speech on the history of an entity called The Lower East Side Women's Help Foundation. I was also assigned, in this case, to deliver the speech. I went into my boss' office and said that I had recently gotten into trouble for mansplaining, and that I was worried it might happen again on this project.
"Are you planning to explain their current day-to-day operations to them?" my boss asked.
"No, I'm planning to write about the history of the organization, as they've asked."
"Then I don't see a great risk of accidental mansplaining here," my boss said. "Look," she added, "I know these people. They're good people. You'll like them. They'll like you. Get out of my office."
Despite my boss' kind reassurance, and despite my research into the organization having shown me that I probably would like these people, the day of the speech came, and I was very nervous.
I was at the lectern of an auditorium on the ground floor of The Lower East Side Women's Help foundation. The auditorium was full of cheerful, well-dressed women. One of them knew me, and ran up to say hello. "I'm very nervous," I told her. "I've recently gotten into trouble because of mansplaining."
"Let me see what you got," she said, grabbed the pile of paper on which my speech was typed and paged through it. "Looks fine, she said. "Don't be afraid of these people. They're on your side. I truly think the worst that could happen is they'll notice you're nervous and they'll think it's cute. Believe me, they've sat through speeches much worse than that." And she gave me a reassuring punch to the shoulder and returned to her seat.
After a mercifully short introduction, I began my speech: "The Lower East Side Women's Help Foundation was formed in 1862, and was originally called New York City Ladies for Action." This fact caused a ripple of laughter among the audience, while some others looked around, seemingly wondering what was funny. I relaxed a bit, and continued: "Some women in New York had noticed that hospitals were being hard-pressed to treat all of the wounded Union soldiers in their care..." and then I woke up.
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