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Monday Mini: Doth SMNTY Speak Too Much? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha and welcome to steff
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you protection iHeartRadio, and welcome to another
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: episode of Monday Mini. I will say this is kind
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of a surprise Monday MANI because I had another topic
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  Speaker 1: planned and it did not work out. You will hear
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: about it in an upcoming episode because it was just
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it needed a whole episode. So this kind of came
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  Speaker 1: late to me in the day yesterday as we're recording this,
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  Speaker 1: and it's about I had to make a phone call listeners,
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  Speaker 1: and if you know me, I hate talking on the phone.
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  Speaker 1: I once said I would rather punch you, punch me
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  Speaker 1: in the face than call me on the phone. I
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  Speaker 1: hate it. I think the very worst thing has happened.
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  Speaker 1: I cannot hear you. I am awkward. I do not
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  Speaker 1: like it. So I had to talk on the phone
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  Speaker 1: the other day. On top of this, I've been trying
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  Speaker 1: to reach my mom and I haven't been able to
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  Speaker 1: do it. But she's one of the few people I
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  Speaker 1: do talk on the phone with. And as I was
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  Speaker 1: calling her, I remembered kind of this teasing she got
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  Speaker 1: when I was growing up that she talked on the
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  Speaker 1: phone way too much. She always was on the phone,
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  Speaker 1: Like there's a popular story in my family where my
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  Speaker 1: little brother once cut the phone cord because he was
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  Speaker 1: so frustrated that she wasn't paying attention to him. And
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  Speaker 1: it got me thinking about this trope about how women
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  Speaker 1: talk too much, like they're always that they talk way
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  Speaker 1: more than men. In this case, I was thinking specifically
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  Speaker 1: about the phone. But I found some research on this.
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  Speaker 1: But I will say this is going to be a brief,
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  Speaker 1: broad explanation and it's more Western orient so keep that
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  Speaker 1: in mind, so that there is probably a lot more
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  Speaker 1: we could say about this. But in terms of me
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  Speaker 1: just trying to understand this stereotype that was used to
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  Speaker 1: kind of tease my mom, this is what I found.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, I found this history of like the trope
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  Speaker 1: of why people think women talk too much are that
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  Speaker 1: they talk more than men. We have done episodes on
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  Speaker 1: women typically being the more social sex, like having more friends,
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  Speaker 1: maintaining more relationships, and the societal reasons why that is. Like,
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  Speaker 1: if you remember in our Emotional Labor episode, we talked
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  Speaker 1: about how often in heterosexual heteronormative relationships, the woman is
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  Speaker 1: the one who keeps the contact with the fam the
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  Speaker 1: man's family up, like she's doing it for her family
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  Speaker 1: and his family, So there are reasons why that might be.
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  Speaker 1: But I was just kind of curious about this because
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  Speaker 1: I've heard her side of it, and her side of
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  Speaker 1: it was always that it was men she was talking
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  Speaker 1: to and that she's being very polite with who did
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  Speaker 1: not pick up on her mini cues that the conversation
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  Speaker 1: was over, so she was like being nice and they
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  Speaker 1: just kept going. And that reminded me of several instances
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  Speaker 1: my life that I've talked about on the show, especially
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  Speaker 1: in a dating situation, where you're like, I have not
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  Speaker 1: said a word this whole time, and I would like
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  Speaker 1: to leave, please. I could put a card cut out
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  Speaker 1: here and you'd be just as well off. You would
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  Speaker 1: not notice I was gone, and I could be doing
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  Speaker 1: something else. So I just started I started thinking about it.
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  Speaker 1: And that's not to say she doesn't have like conversations
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes the long conversations with women in her life,
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  Speaker 1: but she's actually pretty good. And sometimes I feel like
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  Speaker 1: this is my fault because I'm always so busy and
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  Speaker 1: that's sort of a thing that doesn't make me feel great.
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  Speaker 1: But she's pretty good at being like, Okay, this we're done,
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  Speaker 1: you know, when this conversation has gone on, I have
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  Speaker 1: to do stuff. You have to do stuff. That's how
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  Speaker 1: she is with me, and I've heard her like that
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  Speaker 1: with her sisters, her female friends. So I was just
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  Speaker 1: sort of thinking about this, and especially in terms of
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  Speaker 1: like kind of that very heteronormative joke of like the
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  Speaker 1: husband being annoyed at his wife because they're late because
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  Speaker 1: she was on the phone, or or makeup and hair
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  Speaker 1: and all that other stuff. But like, she was on
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  Speaker 1: the phone, but at least in my experience, in this
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  Speaker 1: particular thing that I'm thinking of, it was the men
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  Speaker 1: who were talking that were keeping my mom and making
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  Speaker 1: her late. So okay. The trope has a very long history.
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  Speaker 1: There are multiple proverbs about it. A woman's tongue wags
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  Speaker 1: like a lance hill never still, many women, many words,
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  Speaker 1: a whole doll named chatty Cathy, which I used to
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  Speaker 1: get called that all the time. And I feel like
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  Speaker 1: I didn't really Sometimes sometimes I talked a lot, but
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  Speaker 1: I feel like in general I really did droughout history.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of literature paints strong men as quote silent
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  Speaker 1: types who settle things with their fists, and women who
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  Speaker 1: use their words as weapons. There has been an important
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  Speaker 1: historical difference in the Western depiction of gendered talking. So
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  Speaker 1: it's that men talk about quote, important stuff, women talk
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  Speaker 1: about frivolous stuff. And this goes back to philosophers of
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  Speaker 1: ancient Greek and Roman times. Aristotle once suggested that women
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  Speaker 1: are liars and complainers, and women in general were just
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  Speaker 1: painted as weaker speakers, like they didn't really know what
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  Speaker 1: they were saying. A famous Greek writer claimed that women
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  Speaker 1: should essentially stay silent outside of the home. At the time,
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  Speaker 1: it was largely believed that only men should engage in
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  Speaker 1: public speaking virtuous Women were not supposed to be involved
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  Speaker 1: in anything public. They were supposed to be focused on
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  Speaker 1: the domestic. So that's the thought, that's how it went.
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  Speaker 1: It was considered unfeminine to be vocal, especially in regards
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  Speaker 1: to men. Don't ever speak your mind to men. That's
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  Speaker 1: sort of the thing. I even found something that sort
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  Speaker 1: of traced it back to Adam and even being like
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  Speaker 1: one she was foolish and look what we got because
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  Speaker 1: of her. But also kind of that's a ductress, like
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  Speaker 1: she could bewitch you or something with her voice, So
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  Speaker 1: that's at play as well. In religious documents out of
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  Speaker 1: the twelfth and thirteenth centuries spoke of women's false tongues.
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  Speaker 1: Some historians speculate that this is when we got the
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  Speaker 1: phrase old wives tale. Actually, oh so, in wake of
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  Speaker 1: all of the death of the Black plague in Europe,
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  Speaker 1: there was so much turmoil and women were often some
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  Speaker 1: of the loudest voices about injustice and inequality and all that,
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  Speaker 1: and they were viewed as dangerous and threatening to the
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  Speaker 1: status quo, especially when a lot more of society ran
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  Speaker 1: on orally based arguments. So it was seen as very
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  Speaker 1: dangerous that they were speaking out. And pre Internet, this
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  Speaker 1: gossip was the Internet. That's how people like shared what
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  Speaker 1: was going on, and the powers that be wanted to
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  Speaker 1: crack down on what they called the sins of the tongue.
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  Speaker 1: Women were the majority of those prosecuted for defamation and
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  Speaker 1: quote scolding at the time. Most historical depictions of scolds
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  Speaker 1: are women. Just the use of the word gossip parkens
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  Speaker 1: back to the idea that women's talk is frivolous and
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  Speaker 1: it's unimportant, like how we view it today. When you
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  Speaker 1: use the word gossip, it's often got that connotation. At
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  Speaker 1: one time, that word meant godparent, which was generally used
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  Speaker 1: for folks at a christening. However, as time passed it
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  Speaker 1: pretty much came to just refer to women at such
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  Speaker 1: an event, and then after more time passed, it was
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  Speaker 1: associated with women talking frivolously once again. During the eighteenth
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  Speaker 1: and nineteenth centuries, quiet modest women were prized. That was
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  Speaker 1: like an admirable trait. When they did speak, they had
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  Speaker 1: very high expectations to meet. Their orders had to be
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  Speaker 1: measured and calculated. A quiet respectful to a woman was desired,
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  Speaker 1: allow trill woman was not. And I know immediately your
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  Speaker 1: feminist bills are probably ringing because that word trill has
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  Speaker 1: been used so many times against feminism, and that does
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  Speaker 1: bring us to modern day comparisons because we are still
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  Speaker 1: feeling this to this day. It's in how we police
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  Speaker 1: and judge women's voices, how much we talk. Classroom studies
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  Speaker 1: have found boys take up a majority of speaking time.
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  Speaker 1: Boys were also called on more frequently, but the teachers
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  Speaker 1: largely reported the girls were taking up more time, even
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  Speaker 1: though that wasn't true. Yes, the boys were also more
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  Speaker 1: likely to interrupt the girls, which we've talked about before.
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  Speaker 1: Studies into the professional world have suggested that this rewards
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  Speaker 1: men for speaking but punishes women for speaking, So of
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  Speaker 1: course they aren't going to voice their ideas, concerns, what
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  Speaker 1: have you as much if that's the case. So men
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  Speaker 1: speaking up, you get lauded, you get promoted. Women speaking up,
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  Speaker 1: you get jazzed, you get ignored. These again, this is
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  Speaker 1: a very broad stroke. There's a lot of nuances here,
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  Speaker 1: but I just thought this was interesting because I was
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  Speaker 1: just thinking of like my mom getting teased about talking
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  Speaker 1: too much on the phone. But it is true because
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  Speaker 1: it was sort of the implication was she was like
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  Speaker 1: wasting time and doing something frivolous, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: Like it was very like she's on the phone again.
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  Speaker 1: And when women do speak up in traditionally male spaces,
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  Speaker 1: I think that it is going to get noticed more
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  Speaker 1: or not because of the substance of it, unfortunately, but
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  Speaker 1: because it's quote different because it has been traditionally a
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  Speaker 1: male dominated space. So if you think about a lot
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  Speaker 1: of the things we talked about on here before, about
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  Speaker 1: just our experience being on a podcast and using our voices,
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  Speaker 1: there's so much like concern about women in vocal fry.
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  Speaker 1: Never mind the men do it too, about women, not
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  Speaker 1: being trustworthy, not knowing what they're talking about, not being credible,
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  Speaker 1: using speech modifiers, like like all of these things to
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  Speaker 1: judge and dismiss what a woman is saying. And yet
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  Speaker 1: the stereotype is that we can't stop talking. I also think,
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  Speaker 1: going back to this whole thing on the phone, it
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  Speaker 1: makes sense to me that women who were largely expected
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  Speaker 1: to stay at home and clean and take care of
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  Speaker 1: your kids and cook all of these pretty isolating things
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  Speaker 1: that you'd want to talk to people on the phone.
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  Speaker 1: And this was before the internet, so it was also
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  Speaker 1: a way to get advice. We talked about that in
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  Speaker 1: our episode about Betty Crocker, Like you couldn't just go
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: online and be like, hey, I need a recipe for this,
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  Speaker 1: and I don't have what's in the book that maybe
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  Speaker 1: you had or or whatever. People would call the people
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  Speaker 1: or they would listening to Ready got her on the
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  Speaker 1: radio in this case. But that just makes sense to me.
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  Speaker 1: And it also like you didn't have a cell phone,
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  Speaker 1: you weren't texting, right, It's like this was how you
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  Speaker 1: did it right.
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  Speaker 2: And oftentimes they're isolated, so they're just trying to find companionship.
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  Speaker 2: Of course, like if they were expected to be a
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  Speaker 2: stay at home mom and they had just kids like
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  Speaker 2: to talk to, and they were and then they weren't.
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  Speaker 2: Like the subdivisions now so I'm sure, but like not
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  Speaker 2: to this level. I'm wondering half of them being like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: this is companionship or trying to find like talk to
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  Speaker 2: my mom because I miss her like stuff like that,
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  Speaker 2: which is completely normal as where opposed to at that
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  Speaker 2: point in time, if the men were going to work,
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  Speaker 2: they had plenty of people to talk to, too many
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  Speaker 2: people to talk to you, sure, sure, sure, But then
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: she would also be excited that men came home. And
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  Speaker 2: if they are good partners, she wants to talk to
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  Speaker 2: you about your day, why would that be a bad thing.
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  Speaker 2: But it has become this whole trivial thing instead of
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  Speaker 2: being like, this is called communication and it's good.
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  Speaker 1: Right, And it just frustrates me because I feel that
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  Speaker 1: so many times that trope has been the very tired
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  Speaker 1: trope of like the man going to work and complaining
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  Speaker 1: about his wife. And one of the things he complains
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  Speaker 1: about is, oh, she's always on the phone. But she
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  Speaker 1: couldn't have a job back there. I couldn't like have
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  Speaker 1: a line of credit she was supposed to stay home. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's back on the phone, right. It's just yeah, it
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  Speaker 1: annoys me. Even as a kid, I always was kind
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  Speaker 1: of like, I don't I don't get this, I don't
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  Speaker 1: like this, I don't understand. Yeah, and I do think
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  Speaker 1: this is a way bigger conversation. But we've talked about
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  Speaker 1: in a bunch of other episodes, surprisingly including our true
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  Speaker 1: crime episodes and episodes about horror movies. But when it
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: comes to stuff like gossip that's like like it or not,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: that can help inform you of what's going on and
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: what not to do in heavy quotes, like what people
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  Speaker 1: are talking about. There is a use in gossip. Can
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  Speaker 1: it be detrimental, can it be terrible? Yes, but there's
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  Speaker 1: a reason people do it, and a lot of astitude
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  Speaker 1: with learning from how other people in situations have been
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  Speaker 1: judged and treated. So yeah, again, this could be There's
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  Speaker 1: a lot more here, but this is a quick primer
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  Speaker 1: on what I found about this trope. So we'll probably
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  Speaker 1: revisit one day, but in the meantime, listeners, let us
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: know if you have any thoughts on this or any
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  Speaker 1: experiences about this. Again, this is pretty kind of Western
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  Speaker 1: American oriented, but if it's different in other countries, please
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: let us know. You can email us at stephaniea momsteff
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Steffan Never Told You. We have a tea publish store
• 14:08
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• 14:10
  Speaker 1: get your books. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: our executive producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. Stefan Never Told You
• 14:18
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