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

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I want my stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you a production by Heart Radio, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: today we are bringing back an episode that it was
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: inspired by something I recently mentioned, wherein I had a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: good friend help me avoid my landlord recently. And what
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: happened was this, She was very kind and drove me
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: to and from my house for the holidays, and when
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: she was dropping me off, my landlord was outside of
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: my building and he was talking to someone very very enthusiastically,
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  Speaker 1: like a lot of hand gestures and all of this,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: and I said, listen here, he's going to be there
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: for a minute. And I have I had all these
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: gifts from Christmas, you know, And so I didn't want
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  Speaker 1: to be going back and forth with heavy things because
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: he stopped me before and talked to me when I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: was carrying heavy things and didn't seem to notice that
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: my arms were shaking. And it was a bad situation.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: And so she said to me, all right, well, we'll
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: just sit here and we'll wait him out. This must
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: have gone on for ten minutes. He was going on
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and on. We were trying to debate, like how we
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  Speaker 1: could get around him, if we could help the person
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  Speaker 1: he was talking to because I've been in this situation.
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  Speaker 2: Like someone get me.
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  Speaker 1: I felt bad, but eventually he did. He meandered off
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and we we like booked it into my apartment with
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: these items and Casey came back. But this reminded me
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: of an episode we did, but that was also at
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  Speaker 1: the time inspired by him in part about.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Ever listens to our show one day, Oh, one day,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: I'm in trouble.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I'm in trouble.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Hilarious.
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  Speaker 1: Actually, I think I think I kind of have the
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  Speaker 1: upper hand right now, that is what I will say.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I was at the time when we recorded
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: this originally, I was complaining about how I think that
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of times not the truth, not the
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  Speaker 1: case that women talk more than men, or at least
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  Speaker 1: in that way, that you're just taking up somebody's time,
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  Speaker 1: because it's always My mom used to get teased for
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: it a lot, like, oh, she's just chatting away. But
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: then when I would actually pay attention, it was usually
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  Speaker 1: a man who she was just listening to patiently and
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  Speaker 1: he was not picking up that she actually had things
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  Speaker 1: to do. And so this episode was just an examination
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  Speaker 1: of where did that that idea come from, that women
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  Speaker 1: are the ones who are doing all of the talking,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: so please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Anny
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and Samantha, and welcome to stef I never told you
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a protection of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another episode of
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Monday Minnie. I will say this is kind of a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: surprise Monday Mini, because I had another topic planned and
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: it did not work out. You will hear about it
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: in an upcoming episode because it was just it needed
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a whole episode. So this kind of came late to
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: me in the day yesterday as we're recording this, and
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  Speaker 1: 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
• 4:14
  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 you know, popular story in my family
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  Speaker 1: where my little brother once cut the phone cord because
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  Speaker 1: he was so frustrated that she wasn't paying attention to him.
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  Speaker 1: And it got me thinking about this trope about how
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  Speaker 1: women talk too much, like they're always that they talk
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  Speaker 1: way more than men. In this case, I was thinking
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  Speaker 1: specifically about the phone. But I found some research on this.
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  Speaker 1: But I will say this, this is going to be
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  Speaker 1: a brief, broad explanation and it's more Western oriented, so
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: keep that in mind, so that there is probably a
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  Speaker 1: lot more we could say about this. But in terms
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  Speaker 1: of me just trying to understand this stereotype that was
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  Speaker 1: used to kind of tease my mom, this is what
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  Speaker 1: I found. So yeah, I found this history of like
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  Speaker 1: the trope of why people think women talk too much
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  Speaker 1: are that they talk more than men. We have done
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  Speaker 1: episodes on women typically being the more social sex, like
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  Speaker 1: having more friends, maintaining more relationships, and the societal reasons
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  Speaker 1: why that is. Like if you remember in our Emotional
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Labor episode, we talked about how often in heterosexual heteronormative relationships,
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  Speaker 1: the woman is the one who keeps the contact with
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  Speaker 1: the family the man's family up like she's doing it
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  Speaker 1: for her family and his family. So there are reasons
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  Speaker 1: why that might be. But I was just kind of
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  Speaker 1: curious about this because I've heard her side of it,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: and her side of it was always that it was
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  Speaker 1: men she was talking to and that she's being very
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  Speaker 1: polite with who did not pick up on her many
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  Speaker 1: cues that the conversation was over, so she was like
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  Speaker 1: being nice and they just kept going. And that reminded
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  Speaker 1: me of several instances in my life that I've talked
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  Speaker 1: about on the show, especially in a dating situation, where
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  Speaker 1: you're like, I have not said a word this whole time,
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  Speaker 1: and I would like to leave, please. I could put
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  Speaker 1: a card cut out here and you'd be just as
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  Speaker 1: well off. You would not notice I was gone, and
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  Speaker 1: I could be doing something else. So I just started
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  Speaker 1: I started thinking about it, and she's That's not to
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  Speaker 1: say she doesn't have like conversations and sometimes the long
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  Speaker 1: conversations with women in her life, but she's actually pretty good.
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  Speaker 1: And sometimes I feel like this is my fault because
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  Speaker 1: I'm always so busy and that's sort of a thing
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  Speaker 1: that doesn't make me feel great. But she's pretty good
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  Speaker 1: at being like, okay, this, we're done. You know, this
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  Speaker 1: conversation has gone on. I can tell I have to
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  Speaker 1: do stuff, you have to do stuff. That's how she
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  Speaker 1: is with me, and I've heard her like that with
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  Speaker 1: her sisters, her female friends. So I was just sort
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  Speaker 1: of thinking about this, and especially in terms of like
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  Speaker 1: kind of that very heteronormative joke of like the husband
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  Speaker 1: being annoyed at his wife because they're late because she
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  Speaker 1: was on the phone, or makeup and hair and all
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: that other stuff, but like, she was on the phone,
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  Speaker 1: but at least in my experience, in this particular thing
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  Speaker 1: that I'm thinking of, it was the men who were
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  Speaker 1: talking that were keeping my mom and making her late.
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  Speaker 1: So okay. The trope has a very long history. There
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: are multiple proverbs about it. A woman's tongue wags like
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  Speaker 1: a lanced hill, never still, many women, many words, a
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  Speaker 1: whole doll name chat Kathy, which I used to get
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  Speaker 1: called that all the time, And I feel like I
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  Speaker 1: didn't really sometimes sometimes I talked a lot, but I
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  Speaker 1: feel like you're 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, supposed to be focused on the domestic.
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  Speaker 1: So that's the thought, that's how it went. It was
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  Speaker 1: considered unfeminine to be vocal, especially in regards to men.
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  Speaker 1: Don't ever speak your mind to men. That's sort of
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  Speaker 1: the saying. I even found something that sort of traced
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  Speaker 1: it back to Adam and even being like.
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  Speaker 2: One.
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  Speaker 1: She was foolish and look what we got because of her,
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  Speaker 1: but also kind of that's a ductress, like she could
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  Speaker 1: bewitch you or something with her voice, so that's that
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  Speaker 1: play as well. In religious documents out of the twelfth
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  Speaker 1: and thirteenth centuries spoke of women's false tongues. Some historians
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  Speaker 1: speculate that this is when we got the phrase old
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  Speaker 1: wives tale. Actually, oh so, in wake of all of
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  Speaker 1: the death of the Black plague in Europe, there was
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  Speaker 1: so much turmoil and women were often some of the
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  Speaker 1: loudest voices about injustice and inequality and all that, and
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  Speaker 1: they were viewed as danger and threatening to the status quo,
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  Speaker 1: especially when a lot more of society ran on orally
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  Speaker 1: based arguments, so it was seen as very dangerous that
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  Speaker 1: they were speaking out. And pre Internet, this gossip was
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  Speaker 1: the Internet. That's how people like shared what was going on,
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  Speaker 1: and the powers that be wanted to crack down on
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  Speaker 1: what they called the sins of the tongue. Women were
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  Speaker 1: the majority of those prosecuted for defamation and quote scolding
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  Speaker 1: at the time. Most historical depictions of scolds are women.
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  Speaker 1: Just the use of the word gossip parkens back to
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  Speaker 1: the idea that women's talk is frivolous and it's unimportant,
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  Speaker 1: like how we view it today. When you use the
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  Speaker 1: word gossip, it's often got that connotation. At one time
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  Speaker 1: that word meant godparent, which was generally used for folks
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  Speaker 1: at a christening. However, as time passed, it pretty much
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  Speaker 1: came to just refer to women at such an event,
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  Speaker 1: and then after more time passed, it was associated with
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  Speaker 1: women talking frivolously once again. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
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  Speaker 1: quiet modest women were prized. That was like an admirable trait.
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  Speaker 1: When they did speak, they had very high expectations to meet.
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  Speaker 1: Their words had to be measured and calculated. A quiet
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  Speaker 1: respectful to a woman was desired. Allow trill woman was not.
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  Speaker 1: And I know immediately your feminist bells are probably ringing
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: because that word trill has been used so many times
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  Speaker 1: against feminism. And that does bring us to modern day
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: comparisons because we are still feeling this to this day.
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  Speaker 1: It's in how we police and judge women's voices, how
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  Speaker 1: much we talk. Classroom studies have found boys take up
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  Speaker 1: a majority of speaking time. Boys were also called on
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  Speaker 1: more frequently, but the teacher's large reported the girls were
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: taking up more time, even though that wasn't true. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: the boys were also more likely to interrupt the girls,
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  Speaker 1: which we've talked about before. Studies into the professional world
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  Speaker 1: have suggested that this rewards men for speaking but punishes
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  Speaker 1: women for speaking, So of course they aren't going to
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  Speaker 1: voice their ideas, concerns, what have you as much if
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  Speaker 1: that's the case. So men speaking up, you get lauded,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you get promoted. Women speaking up, you get jazzed, you
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: get ignored. These again, this is a very broad stroke.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of nuances here that I just thought
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: this was interesting because I was just thinking of like
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  Speaker 1: my mom getting teased about talking too much on the phone.
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  Speaker 1: But it is true because it was sort of the
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  Speaker 1: the implication was she was like wasting time and doing
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  Speaker 1: something frivolous, you know what I mean. Like it was
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  Speaker 1: very like she's on the phone again. And when women
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  Speaker 1: do speak up in traditionally male spaces, I think that
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  Speaker 1: it is going to get noticed more or not because
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: of the substance of it, unfortunately, but because it's quote
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  Speaker 1: different because it has been traditionally a male dominated space.
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  Speaker 1: So if you think about a lot of the things
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  Speaker 1: we've talked about on here before about just our experience
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: being on a podcast and using our voices. There's so
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: much like concern about women in vocal fry. Never mind,
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  Speaker 1: the men do it too, about women not being trustworthy,
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  Speaker 1: not knowing what they're talking about, not being credible, using
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  Speaker 1: speech modifiers, like like all of these things to judge
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  Speaker 1: and dismiss what a woman is saying, and yet the
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  Speaker 1: stereotype is that we can't stop talking. I also think,
• 13:43
  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
• 13:49
  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
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a way to get advice. We talked about that in
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: our episode about Baby Crocker, Like you couldn't just go
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: online and be like, hey, I need a recipe for this,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and I don't have what's in the book that maybe
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you had or or whatever. People would call the people
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: or they would listen to Reddy Crocker on the radio
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  Speaker 1: 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,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: you weren't texting, right, It's like this was how you.
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  Speaker 2: Did it right, And oftentimes they're isolated, so they're just
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  Speaker 2: trying to find companionship. Of course, like if they were
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  Speaker 2: expected to be a stay at home mom and they
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  Speaker 2: had just kids like to talk to, and they were
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: and then they weren't like the subdivisions now, so I'm sure,
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: but like not to this level. I'm wondering half of
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: them being like, oh, this is companionship or trying to
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: find like talk to my mom because I miss her,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: like stuff like that, which is completely normal as we're
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: opposed to at that point in time, if the men
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: and were going to work, they had plenty of people
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: to talk to, too many people to talk to you. Sure, sure, sure,
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: But then she would also be excited that men came home.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: And if they are good partners, she wants to talk
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: to you about your day. Why would that be a
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: bad thing. But it has become this whole trivial thing
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: instead of being like, this is called communication and it's good.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Right, And it just frustrates me because I feel that
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: so many times that trope has been the very tired
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: trope of like the man going to work and complaining
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: about his wife and one of the things he complains
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: about is Oh, she's always on the phone, but she
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: couldn't have a job back there. I couldn't like have
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: a line of credit. She was supposed to stay home. Yeah,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: it's track on the phone, right, It's just yeah, it
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: annoys me. Even as a kid, I always was kind
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: of like, I do I don't get this, I don't
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: like this.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: I don't understand.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do think this is a way bigger conversation.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: But we've talked about in a bunch of other episodes,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: surprisingly including our true crime episodes and episodes aboutrror movies.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: But when it comes to stuff like gossip that's like
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: like it or not, that can help inform you of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: what's going on and what not to do in heavy quotes,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: like what people are talking about, there is a use
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: in gossip. Can it be detrimental, can it be terrible? Yes,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: but there's a reason people do it and a lot
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of astitude with learning from how other people in situations
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: have been judged and treated. So yeah, again, this could
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: be There's a lot more here, but this is a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: quick primer on what I found about this trope. So
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: we'll probably revisit one day. But in the meantime, listeners,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: let us know if you have any thoughts on this
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: or any experiences about this. Again, this is pretty kind
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: of Western American oriented, but if it's different in other countries,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: please let us know. You can email us at Stephanie
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Momstuff at iHeartMedia dot com. Can find us on Twitter
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I never told you. We have a tea public store,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and we have a book you can get wherever you
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: get your books. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: our executive producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. Steffane never told you
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: this production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: you can check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: or where you listen to your favorite shows