Lady linguist here! Iβm glad everyoneβs excited about this post because it does hold some truth, but Dale Spenderβs work is really outdated.Β
Her work was done back in the 70s and it was key in early language and gender research. She ascribed to the βdominanceβ approach to language and gender, where male speech patterns are basically extensions (and enforcers) of patriarchal power. She gets at part of her theory in the quote that was paraphrased above:
βThe talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.β (Spender 1980)
THIS IS NOT A THING ANYMORE.Β
1) Her methods are not talked about much, they are shoddy when they are mentioned, and thereβs mad confirmation bias in her theory construction. Also itβs influenced by very essentially second wave views of gender, which are p dumb at this point when we remember that gender is neither essential nor a binary.
2) In language studies, everything is relative to other speech counts. NO EXCEPTIONS. Β So yeah itβs always a question of whoβs talking more, never of an absolute speech amount (even if that speech amount is zero) (if u disagree, fight me)
2) This is just 1 tiny study There have been over 100 studies done on speech amounts since 1950 and only 42% report that men speak more than women in all contexts. The variation is a lot greater than this theory provides for. In fact this isnβt even the only college classroom study, and others have yielded conflicting results. (Sternglantz & LybergerFicek (1977), Brooks (1982), many more).
Language! Itβs complicated! (Check out Deborah Tannenβs book βGender and Conversational Interactionβ for a complete review)
Not to say that thereβs no grounding in her findings. The majority of studies say that thereβs either no difference or that men speak more in some/all contexts, with only 5% of studies reporting a majority of female speech in any context. So yeah, men tend to speak more, by and large.
One of the going theories is that people who are comfortable in a high status tend to speak more. Like thereβs this one study where they got everyone together to perform a task and arbitrarily told the group that one women had tested best in that task so she would lead the group - in that case, gendered speech discrepancy was nullified! There are a bunch of other mix-gender situations where this also ends up being the case.
The thing is tho that in situations where hetero/cisnormative visions of gender plays a role in peopleβs interactions, and no other status markers supercede it, maleness is often assigned a naturally higher status and therefore more talking time. (This is nullified in situations where everyone is feminist! How cool is that) (Herschey & Werner 1975)
This may be why we have male dominated conversations in many contexts, but not all. This also may explain mansplainingΒ - feelings of high status b/c of competence or expertise compound with high status due to gender identification and we get the classic male steamroller.Β
The point is, yes it is often the case that men speak more, but it hurts us to oversimplify to these outdated understandings of gender relations. Itβs a disservice to us, science, and to all non-binary peeps if we keepΒ existentialistΒ notions of language and gender alive.
If you have questions/want sources hit me up I live for this shit
also @linguisten @allthingslinguistic if yβall have anything to add
