A Quote by Meghan Daum

In my own writing, I tend to be very honest, and my goal is to identify something people think but are afraid to say. That's not the general cultural expectation of women.
I think people are afraid. I remember when we'd have discussions in the '60s among people who were active. We'd say, "Well, people are afraid," and the answer to us was, "If you're afraid, you know you should be doing something." People are afraid today, but they're not doing anything.
It's important to have strong images of women out there, women who aren't afraid of expressing themselves, women who aren't afraid of taking chances, women who aren't afraid of their own power.
People will say to me, ‘You’ve played so many strong women,’ and I’ll say, ‘Have you ever said to a man, “You’ve played so many strong men?”’ No! Because the expectation is [men] are varied. Why can’t we have that expectation about women?
One of the things women are very good at, that's networking. Women are not afraid to say, "I need." They're not afraid. Men won't even ask for directions. Women will tell each other when they need something. Women will tell each other when their husband is having an affair. Men don't do that.
I’m not really afraid to be my awkward self, and I know there’s lots and lots of other people just like me out there that are awkward themselves. And I think they just appreciate that I’m not afraid to say the weird things that I say and tweet the obnoxious things that I tweet. But I’ve tried being other people and myself suits me the best. I think you just be honest. I think people respond to honesty.
I think I was always writing books that had very clear scenic structures. I do tend to write in scenes. I do tend to have a fair amount of dialogue. And I do tend to use stories that don't sprawl all over the place, that have a very sharp focus in terms of how they unfold in time.
When you say what is the difference between me and my stage name the idea is that as a musician you always think of yourself as inhabiting a certain cultural space in the kind of a cultural landscape, so when I say cultural space what I mean to imply there is that you exist within certain parameters of how people think of culture.
There is this expectation that as January 1st dawns, we're going to do it differently. Moreover, there's this kind of pressure, that even if I've been trying to be different for a while, January 1st, from here on in - I have to be different. There's a cultural expectation, there's a personal expectation. I think it's worth just taking pause for a minute and talking about that.
There's a cultural expectation that everyone will be immunized, in part to protect the entire population. When people refuse that expectation, they're indulging in a certain kind of political or social immunity.
I think women want freedom. They want to be empowered. They want hope. They want love; they want all the things that I want, and I'm not afraid to say those things and act on them, and I think that's why they identify with me.
When you do have songs where you're going to say something, some kind of statement about cultural or social stuff, that in general people love it. People love to be challenged in that way.
I tend to be very private. It's easier for me. When you're acting, you're very susceptible to comments that somebody makes, so if they know something is going to happen on the show, and they say something, it can actually throw you off. So I tend to not share things with anybody.
What happens is people - especially, I think, audiences in the United States - people confront new things a little bit afraid. It's like when you're a kid and your mother puts something on your plate you never ate before. I think that American audiences are very much like that, and when they can accept something new they can accept the next new thing, it's incredible. And what happens is that their expectation of what things should be is elevated, and that's really terrific for us.
After a while, being so honest and so vulnerable on the page ends up affecting my own kind of self possession in the world, because I am not afraid of myself and my own thoughts. I think so much of being a woman, of being a social being, of being polite, is quieting those thoughts. There's so much we try not to say as we go through the day. There's a lot of tempering and self-editing. It is a relief to make writing that space where I don't need to do that.
People ask me many times, "Aren't you afraid you're going to scare people? Aren't you afraid you're going to make people feel bad about the human race?" I look at it as entirely the opposite. Something you can understand and identify should be less frightening than something you can't. And to understand that there are people who are capable of acting without conscience, without considering other people at all, explains a lot of things.
Women love an honest man. An honest man that isn't afraid to say, 'Men get hurt too.' And a lot of men don't admit that.
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