The new adventure of online classes has taken full swing, and students across the nation have had to adapt to Zoom University. Staying engaged, doing group projects and lectures have become incredibly more difficult, but some things have remained consistent. One of the most notable remnants of in-person class, though, is the tendency for men to interrupt and speak over women.

A recent TikTok trend highlighted this difficulty that women have been dealing with. One of the most famous videos is of a woman in a science-technology-engineering-mathematics (STEM) class being constantly interrupted by male classmates in the middle of her spoken response. There are no other students telling the men to stop interrupting her so that she can speak, but instead, the male classmates target her and attack her suggestions. Instead of politely correcting her or offering an alternative opinion, they simply say “no” and divert the attention away from her. She doesn’t get a chance to defend her view and explain it past the basic concept. While this is no new concept in the world of academia, it has been worsened by remote video discussions. Whereas a woman could once talk over an interrupter or bring attention to the rude actions, Zoom and similar web video applications allow one voice to be projected over another. With the function of lighting up the speaker’s screen, attention is quickly changed to the person who is talking the loudest. This allows people to interrupt with no consequences. In addition, apps like Zoom have the option of turning off your camera in a session. While-in person classes required people to talk face-to-face, Zoom gives you the ability to not even have a virtual face. Many people turn off their cameras for personal and privacy reasons, but this feature still allows some shielding of accountability. These functions hide the interrupter more than ever and give them a supposed sense of entitlement.

While Zoom may make it easier to interrupt without condemnation, it happens too frequently during in-person classes as well. With the new technological adjustments, it has just become harder to combat it. The TikTok trend started a conversation around this topic, and women have been sharing their experiences. While the act of men interrupting women is a systemic problem of privilege that should be addressed, a lot of women have taken humor from the issue. This isn’t because it is something that is purely humorous or lighthearted, but instead because the videos demonstrate the extent men will go to exert their presumed superiority.

Recently, we have seen several women being talked over in live events—most notably, the vice-presidential debate and the presidential town-halls. People were excited by Kamala Harris’ response to Mike Pence after he cut her off. “I’m speaking” was praised as a power move, but I simply don’t think it deserves the hype. Instead, that should be a normal response to interruption. People praised Harris for her “bold” move and called her a “strong, independent woman”. It was the right thing to say, but it shouldn’t be the “courageous” thing to say as a woman. We shouldn’t be deemed “strong independent women” for calling out men, but instead for acknowledging that we are, indeed, strong independent women that have the self-worth to know when we have been treated wrongly.