A Brief History of the Apology in the 21st Century

Kung Fu, MeToo, and Learning to Say Sorry

In 2014, I worked on a project for Pantene that was intended to start conversation and “empower” women.

The video we created was called Sorry Not Sorry, and showed women in various situations at work and at home, saying sorry. The idea was that women unnecessarily apologize more often than men--something the internet calls “sorry syndrome.”

After we made the video, I noticed a funny bit of behavior among women on my team and others who had seen it: apologize, catch yourself apologizing, double back and repeat the same sentence without a sorry, engage in embarrassed laughter.

After almost seven years, I still think about this response. How female behavior gets pathologized, and how women get caught in the loop of having to change their behavior to fit the status quo. Rather than examine the underlying reason for apology or dig deeper, women end up trying to fix their behavior in order to meet the ever-changing demands of culture. 

Unapologetic Women

The 21st century has been the time of the Unapologetic Woman. There are books and articles and t-shirts lauding the unapologetic woman, and countless coaches offering women the secret to being unapologetic. Demi Lovato has a song called Sorry Not Sorry, and Rihanna has a whole album named Unapologetic.

Usually I celebrate the women who buck the status quo without apology; they pave the way for new ways of being. But sometimes, the Unapologetic Woman trope can jump the shark.

Recently a white sexual wellness coach named Kim Anami posted a video starring herself and her friends—primarily white, with one light skinned Black woman thrown in for good measure. The video delves into countless Asian stereotypes, from the kitschy font to the kimonos to the paper lanterns, in order to sell her sexual wellness coaching, which includes tantra and the debunked “ancient Chinese practice” of using a jade egg.

It’s called, ahem, Kung Fu Vagina, and it’s caused quite a bit of outrage. Diet Prada, an Instagram account that critiques fashion, highlighted the video on their channel to their 2.5 million followers as being offensive. Twitter, bloggers, YouTubers have all dissected its cultural appropriation and stereotypes.

Kim Anami is a sexual wellness coach, so of course she is prone to breaking through taboos and saying what can’t be said. But her behavior looked even more problematic when I dug deeper. Despite living part-time on Bali, an island in Indonesia, her Instagram feed is chockfull of mostly white women in Balinese locales, with no representation of Indonesia besides its beaches and palm trees.

Equally unappealing is her biography. She went to Indonesia to find herself on Bali, turning a nation with a complex history and culture into a lush, Asian-free backdrop for her own self-promotion. Now she has returned to ‘‘the west” to peddle her Orientalized snake oil.

Kim Anami could have apologized in response to the backlash against her video. This could have been a moment for her to recognize that Asia is more than just a prop for her marketing materials. But sadly for people like her, being ‘unapologetic’ gets conflated with being unaccountable. She has blocked anyone who critiqued her on Instagram and Twitter, and her lawyers threaten Diet Prada with a cease and desist, via Instagram DM.  

Unapologetic Men

In 2017, the #MeToo gave the world a brief glimpse of what accountability could look like, as powerful men were exposed and then shamed into recognizing, apologizing and being held accountable for terrible behavior.

But four years of Trump clouded that glimpse. Trump had a different strategy, and in spit of losing the election, it largely worked. Dig in your heels, even if it’s kicking the can down the road, each lie building on another, until you get acquitted of your second impeachment without ever having to take public accountability for a mistake.

This isn’t just assholery; it’s a strategy learned from lawyer Roy Cohn, whose life lessons were simple: never admit you’re wrong, never apologize, and if someone hits you, you hit back 1000 times harder. This ethos held our headlines and our attention hostage for four long years, and it has been adopted by many of Trump’s followers, who are now censuring Republicans who can admit that maybe they were wrong.

It looks like Kim Anami has not only studied the tantra, but also the gospel of Roy Cohn, although an Instagram legal threat is hardly 1000 times harder.

The Power of Sorry

A Canadian study has shown that typically, women do apologize more often than men. It attributes this to women actually seeing more behaviors as deserving apology. Interrupt someone? Maybe apology-worthy. Take up space? Ooh, also maybe also deserves a sorry. But when people think they have done wrong, about 80% of them--no matter the gender---do apologize.

It also turns out that whether people apologize or refuse to apologize for an action, the psychological effect is quite similar. Both actions elicit a greater a sense of control than taking no action at all.

In the strange pandemic time, when everyone’s more high strung and there’s more room for misunderstanding, I’ve started to apologize more. Pre-emptive apologies when I’m late, or about to interrupt someone, or take an action I’m sure a colleague or husband won’t like. Post apologies for when I made a mistake, or talked over someone to make a point, or when I was wrong and someone else was right (that’s still a hard one).

After four years of no-holds-barred non-apologizing, I’m ready for a different world, where we can be held accountable and hold others accountable, and where “sorry” is no longer a bad word. I hope more of us can find strength in apology.