As I scooped salsa into my taco at the dinner table one night, my daughter said, “Mom, you’re not even listening to me. You listen to everything Dad says, but not me.”
Ouch! Was that true?
I wanted to deny it, to justify myself. I wanted to say, “well, honey, your dad talks a lot less than you, so when he speaks, it seems important.” Which, in my defense, sometimes feels true.
But in the days that followed, I wondered….was this a symptom of my own gender bias? Am I more likely to listen to men? Would I interrupt my child less if she were a boy?
Women talk more than men – or do they?
In order to embody my feminist parenting goals, I had to confront whether I had some underlying gender bias.
First, let’s question some basic societal assumptions. Do girls talk more than boys? Do women speak more than men? Or is that an effect of the “chatty Cathy” stereotype? (A term I always hated, given that my name is Catherine.)
A popular book in the early 1990s claimed that women use almost 3 times the number of words that men do each day. But in a subsequent review of 56 studies, 34 showed that men talk more, and 16 showed they speak the same. Only two found women talking more than men.
Studies like this also reveal that there’s very little difference in the “talkativeness” between men and women. It turns out that the context of the conversation is a major factor. One of the most important questions is – who has power in this conversation? Unsurprisingly, the person with higher status is likely to speak more.
So what’s actually going on? Gender bias and listening to girls
If women don’t actually talk more than men, why do most people believe that?
Well, a strong possibility is that we don’t value women’s contributions as much as men’s because of their perceived value. And because of this, we actually overestimate how much “airtime” women occupy in a conversation or the board room.
But do we come out of the womb simply believing that men have more important things to say? No, of course not. These ideas are drilled into our heads through socialization over years and years. Think about the voices of James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman as film narrators – you feel instantaneous trust. It’s only more recently that women like Helen Mirren are featured as narrators in major films.
Role models are undeniably important. Growing up, most of us witnessed men in positions of authority: school principals, police chiefs, the mayor, the governor, the President, doctors, CEOs. Women, and especially women of color, were so rare in these positions that my mom handed us Free to Be You and Me and “Girls Can Be Anything” to offer an alternative possibility in the 1980s.
Because with those positions of authority come an air of importance. Simply put: the idea that men are more important, and thus have more worthy things to say. This is evidenced in the news media, too. Journalists quote male sources in news media twice as often as female sources.
REPRESENTATIONS OF WOMEN
Because we’re accustomed to male as the default, equal levels of talking feel unbalanced. This is very similar to representations of women.
I fondly watch reruns of The Big Bang Theory and new episodes of English Teacher, quietly lamenting the 4:1 ratio of male to female main speaking characters. But society has trained us to believe that one or two women in a crowd of many men is somehow equal.
Geena Davis echoes this sentiment:
If there’s 17 percent women, the men in the group think it’s 50-50,” Davis told NPR. “And if there’s 33 percent women, the men perceive that as there being more women in the room than men.”
Davis refers to the Geena Davis Institute for Gender in the Media study, which found that most crowd scenes contain about 17% women. That now feels “equal” to most passive viewers.
Women and girls are interrupted more
Now let’s talk about interruptions. Wait, I wasn’t done speaking! (Just kidding.) But not really…
Women’s speech gets interrupted a lot more than men’s. This starts young, with boys in playgroups anecdotally interrupting girls more often when there are more boys added to the group.
In the Supreme Court, male justices interrupt female justices 3X more often than they interrupt each other. Even attorneys who argue before the Supreme Court interrupt female justices more often, even though they’re not supposed to talk over the justices at all!
In the courtroom, women are rarely allowed to finish a sentence. It turns out that ALL justices, no matter their gender, are much more likely to interrupt a female attorney arguing before them than a male attorney.
WE GIVE BOYS MORE PERMISSION TO SPEAK
So who’s getting more air time, and how does it impact our children?
Anecdotally, many parents of boys claim that teachers favor the girl students. Or that the girls get “special treatment.”
However, this study shows that teachers interact more with boys in the classroom, whether it’s for praise or remediation. Teachers are less likely to reject behavior by boys, even when it violates classroom rules. And that boys are 8X more likely to shout out the answer than girls.
Speaking dominance follows children to the next stages of life. In university settings, male students occupy talking time 1.6 more than women. And they’re more likely to speak without permission, interrupt, and engage in prolonged conversations.
The male students have already learned, through years and years of experience, that they are entitled to occupy air time. And that their voices matter; their opinions will be valued and considered.
WHO WE LISTEN TO: HOW TO CORRECT THE IMBALANCE
What do we do? Well, first, let’s not blame women. In social settings, we say “women talk too much.” In college and corporate settings we blame women’s speech patterns: they’re soft-spoken, use filler words, apologize more, and sound less assured.
But years of conditioning have taught them to occupy less space. Women learned that more aggressive, male speech patterns will result in less likeability at the office. This, of course, results in fewer promotions and negatively impacts their career advancement.
We all share responsibility to fix the imbalance in who’s ideas and speech matter. Here are a few tips:
All parents:
- Notice at the dinner table if your daughters are being interrupted more often (including by you!)
- Notice if your sons interrupt people in everyday settings: ask them to hold their thought until the person is finished speaking. “Yes, I’d love to hear your idea once Annie finishes.”
Moms:
- Model phrases your daughters can use, like “I wasn’t done” and “yes, I just said that” to take ownership of their ideas.
Teachers:
- Notice your own bias: do you spend more time with male students?
- Set expectations for the classroom: “We let each other speak. We don’t interrupt.”
- Use a stick or baton to denote the speakers in group discussions
- Create unique ways for all children to share their opinions, not just orally, but through activities, props, writing, and reflection
What other ways do you identify your gender bias when it comes to listening and speaking? Share your tips below.
Photo by Mary Taylor on Pexels
Read our free guide, 10 Places Your Gender Bias is Hiding so that you can spot your own gender bias and raise children who embrace their individuality!
Leave a Reply