Talking

Published retroactively

Today's Luann comic kind of irritated me, because it was about women talking more than men. The feminist blogs said it best - that society promotes that stereotype of women talking too much and being annoying to shame women into talking even less. I, frankly, don't know how we can really say that men talk less when it is they who are all over the media. Women, on an individual level, might talk more, but men write more, and their ideas are the ones that get out there. So maybe I want men to shut the hell up. Well, maybe it is only certain men. I think one factor in women talking more is that we know that sometimes, people aren't listening, and by people, I mean the men - the sexist men - that don't think women are people, and therefore don't listen. So those poor women in relationships with those sexists need to say more to be able to get through to those asshats.

In the Luann comic, the mom is just talking in stream-of-concouisness style, and she is talking about something she did. Whereas, during the same time, the dad probably sat on the couch watching golf or something. So, in reality, maybe it is just that women actually have things to say. And really, do men talk about important things? That sexist asshat at work only talked about music and movies, because that was all he knew. I remember a time in high school, my sophomore year, when I was sitting with some girls from my junior high. They were overhearing some guys talking about some technical thing - computers, video games, whatnot - and one said "jeez, don't they have lives they can talk about?" I felt very conflicted about this statement, because I didn't particularly like these women, and I didn't think the guys' conversation meant they were losers, but it was an interesting comment, that I obviously still remember.

Now, in the human society, generalizations do not work all of the time. You can't look at one woman and assume everything about her simply because she is a woman. Intelligent people understand this, but still use generalizations because they reflect basic trends. As I said in an earlier post, as women go through puberty, they begin to focus more on interpersonal relationships, but not all of us do this. I didn't, neither did my friend C, neither did Entomologista. But because women focus on relationships so much, and lose interest for abstractions, men seem to fill the void of women talking about those things. But interpersonal relationships change every day, and abstractions remain the same. After a while, maybe people run out of things to say about a video game, movie, or sporting event, whereas it is hard to run out of things to say about an ongoing relationship.

As for me, my talking is definitely learned from my father first and his mother second. My dad talks a lot, and my mother said that her father was a big talker as well. She said she thinks that is part of why she was attracted to my dad. When my family goes somewhere, it is usually Mom, my sister and I that want to leave first, and we have to often go get Dad out of a conversation with some person and tell him we're all leaving, NOW. He once got in trouble with a couple of farmers for telling one farmer a story about another farmer that he didn't realize was intended to be private. I often describe his mother as a woman who would talk to "anyone, anywhere, about anything, at any time", and really, my dad and I learned this exact trait.

Overall, humanity is a social species, and we like to share our experiences. Some of us talk more than others, and we all talk about different things. Some of those things might just be more interesting and may necessitate more talking than other things. And really, it is rediculous to assume that guys don't talk about relationships either. Some might not, and maybe it is because they don't necessarily have relationships (those guys back in high school didn't).

There was a recent study that said that when young girls talk about relationships, it hurts them, whereas the same is not true for young boys (and I mean junior high age). I crtainly hope someone thought to ask what else each group talked about. In every woman's experience, she knows that women are often not encouraged to talk about certain things, like abstractions. Even our toys from childhood are belittled. We recently had that Transformers movie, but could you imagine a movie about My Little Pony being recieved in the same way? And it isn't because girls' toys cannot be made "cool". I seem to remember a Rainbow Bright movie I used to watch that seemed very cool. Granted, my adult mind might not be nearly as impressed, but themes in the movie could be rewritten and made very interesting. But in our society, little boys are just young people, but little girls are still inferior and weak. Maybe that is why girls growing out of that stage don't talk about that kind of thing, and instead obsess over relationships to the point that is harmful. Just some thoughts.