Ammunition
Dec. 13th, 2006 07:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trixtahThen a couple of weekends ago, there was an interview in the Guardian with Louann Brizendine, who wroteThe Female Brain. No, the book unfortunately doesn't seem to say "there's more communication method variation within the female sex than between the sexes"). Alas, her assertion was that women speak/communicate way more than men do: "Men use about seven thousand words per day. Women use about twenty thousand." After further unravelling, it seems that this statistic was referring to "communication events" (ie. words, gestures, body language), and guess what? It came from Why Men Don't Listen & Women Can't Read Maps! Wow, in-depth research there. The Guardian did a wee test themselves to see if her assertion was borne out with two of their journalists, and, surprise surprise, it wasn't.
But, yay, I've just found an excellent blog called Language Log, which thoroughly debunks the stupid myth of women talking much more than men, with reference to both of those books. They also have an interesting discussion on a study that was done in the late 80s, called "Power displays between women and men in discussions of gender-linked tasks: A multichannel study". Mark Liberman (the blog poster) summarises some of the main points:
Male Female Time speaking Speech initiations Looking while speaking Looking while listening Rate of gesturing Frequency of chin thrusts Frequency of smiling Frequency of self-touching Frequency of laughing So the guys did more of the talking, as is often the case -- 43% more, this time, which is a bigger difference than one usually sees. What about non-verbal signals? Well, the guys did 80% more gesturing, and produced 623% more chin thrusts. The gals did 28% more smiling, 7% more self-touching, and 46% more laughing. Dovidio et al. didn't count eyebrow motions, it's true. But there's certainly no support here for the view that women produce about three times more "communication events" on average than men do.
If you check out the study design, it actually looks worthwhile. And I'm so glad to have some more ammunition against the "Men are from Mars" types who refuse to make appropriate reference to differences within the genders before highlighting the differences between them -- and which are often negligible in comparison.
[And, man, I can't wait for my replacement modem to arrive. This researching and posting after hours from work is a drag.]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-13 01:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-14 03:43 am (UTC)Actually, I wonder if that's why I talk a lot. Kind of a reflex to drown out nerdboys who are ranting on about technologies X, Y and Z at great length?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-14 09:09 am (UTC)And as for cookery shops damaging your butch cred, I say hell no to that! What you're looking at is tools, after all, and cooking is a survival skill. MORE POWER OH OH OH!!!
(Er. Sorry 'bout that.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 11:09 am (UTC)And, actually, you're right about tools. I don't like lots, but I like cool ones.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 11:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 02:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-12-15 11:13 am (UTC)I'll be polite (see, aren't I nice? heh) - people who don't know any better, haven't bothered observing, and who have swallowed the crap that everyone's told them over their entire lives?
Although I do wonder if it's something that's changed over the generations? Actually, no. While the women might have been stuck at home alone with the kids, the men would have been out at work, talking to their colleagues all day long. No wonder the women went slightly apeshit when men got home from work, finally having another adult to talk to.