Recently, I was thinking about why men¹ talk over women, and I think it's less a gender thing, and more of a...
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@alice@lgbtqia.space I'm also reflecting on a SF short story that featured an executive receiving a "hate-brace" before a major business meeting, and the executive's 'throwback' daughter Ployploy (who dies close to the end of the story). In the story, success in business meetings basically comes from out-screaming your rivals in psychotic rage.
But I'm damned if I remember the title or who it was by (I want to say Asimov, but I'm drawing a blank, and web search is returning only Kpop tropes). The story is told mostly from the viewpoint of the, uh, 'therapist' administering the hate-brace, who observes that being fired at the end of the session is the highest compliment his profession can receive and almost ensures being hired again next time.@zakalwe god, that sounds like a terrible world
I like sci-fi
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@alice o.o really silly for things to work that way. if you base the worth of a person and their ideas on how willing they are to yell over other people you're going to get Nazis in power because they're the loudest, rudest, most obnoxious....
wait a moment
@StarCeleste I see you see where this is headed.
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@alice Absolutely - and there are plenty of men not cut out for/not attracted to the roles that demand that; and there are enough women more than capable and willing to act in the way that they see gets them the roles and authority they want (enough that there are positive and negative tropes about them). Ultimately, we're social creatures and being successful in any endeavour is often easier by naturally being or learning to act like those who do, whatever stereotype fits that environent.
@hatter I can't count the number of executives I've met, nor the number of receptionists, but I can count the number of female execs and male receptionists on my fingers.
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@hoco @alice > Men need to unlearn this when we leave the schoolyard and enter the adult world
Maybe normalizing it at all at any point shouldn't be a thing?
I for one struggle with determining whether pauses of any particular length for breath, emphasis, unknown neurotypical weirdness, or anything mean one can talk or not. People proactively being assholes about it doesn't help.
Consequently I consider written communication to be vastly superior. Collision is intrinsically impossible then. (Assuming awful formats like linear chats aren't used.)@lispi314 yeah. I'm in the habit of handing the conversation over to the other person every few sentences, so they explicitly have room to respond. If they pass it back without adding anything, then either I continue on for a couple more sentences, or the conversation awkwardly dies.
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@momo @alice > In my case it is related to my ADHD, that I feel the urge to burst out whatever I have in my mind before I forget about it because there are butterflies on the window!
This is an example of an accessibility challenge where the possibility of collisions in speech vs writing is actively harmful. Perhaps medication does help with your focus and memory, but if it doesn't then you're just out of luck (which is bad).
(Of course being able to type fast-enough can in itself be a difficulty.)@lispi314 I *hate* audio-only phone calls because it's so hard to tell when someone is passing the turn to talk. Video calls are better, but lag causes folx to step on each other's sentences way too much. Texting and posting is my favorite, as I can think of my response, add emoji for tone
, and reread the previous post or two as I think of how to reply. -
Recently, I was thinking about why men¹ talk over women, and I think it's less a gender thing, and more of a...
"men¹ are taught to talk over anyone who doesn't talk more assertively than they do"
In my roles as an executive at several tech companies, the one negative feedback I got on almost every review was that I wasn't assertive enough in meetings with other execs. One male CEO even told me "you need to interrupt more, talk more—even if you don't know the answer. Otherwise they'll think you don't have anything to say". Which, honestly, churned my stomach.
The feedback was clear, if I wanted to succeed I needed to talk like the guys¹ in the boardroom—the same ones¹ who'd interrupt to ask a question I was already in the middle of explaining, who'd repeat a suggestion I'd just made—only louder, who'd make some cute comment that would derail my presentation, who'd explain my position back to me as though they'd just thought of it.
I needed to do that...and I needed to do it louder.
Otherwise men¹ weren't going to listen to me.
¹ not all men
@alice Oh my... Luckily, so far, I've only worked in places that regarded this kind of behavior as unprofessional and disruptive. I can't even imagine the toxicity of such a workplace. How are you supposed to get work done when - this
️ ?! -
@alice @lispi314 I like interactive conversations where people take turns speaking. If that isn't appropriate, I ask permission to speak for some short amount of time (two or three minutes). This gives people a chance to comment before I start speaking. Very useful when what I was about to say is moot.
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@StarCeleste I see you see where this is headed.
What you need
Is the Voice of Authority
It shuts up the beta boys every time.Maybe it’s a Dom thing sneaking out of the Dungeon
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What you need
Is the Voice of Authority
It shuts up the beta boys every time.Maybe it’s a Dom thing sneaking out of the Dungeon
@MedeaVanamonde I used to have my well-practiced executive voice, but I've gotten out of the habit nowadays.
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@MedeaVanamonde I used to have my well-practiced executive voice, but I've gotten out of the habit nowadays.
@alice @StarCeleste the voice of authority is a bit more than Alpha.
It borders of Bene Geserit “Voice” -
Thanks. It was over 40 years ago and that brief interaction made such a difference in me.
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Recently, I was thinking about why men¹ talk over women, and I think it's less a gender thing, and more of a...
"men¹ are taught to talk over anyone who doesn't talk more assertively than they do"
In my roles as an executive at several tech companies, the one negative feedback I got on almost every review was that I wasn't assertive enough in meetings with other execs. One male CEO even told me "you need to interrupt more, talk more—even if you don't know the answer. Otherwise they'll think you don't have anything to say". Which, honestly, churned my stomach.
The feedback was clear, if I wanted to succeed I needed to talk like the guys¹ in the boardroom—the same ones¹ who'd interrupt to ask a question I was already in the middle of explaining, who'd repeat a suggestion I'd just made—only louder, who'd make some cute comment that would derail my presentation, who'd explain my position back to me as though they'd just thought of it.
I needed to do that...and I needed to do it louder.
Otherwise men¹ weren't going to listen to me.
¹ not all men
Want to piss off the board. Go ahead and talk like them to them. Be sure you wear pants when you do so your legs don't distract them. Glad I don't work there anymore.
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@scottwilson lol, I couldn't to much worse then the current asshole!
@alice @scottwilson @semitones
My Roomba (so old it does not connect to the Internet) would be better than The Fat Guy.
Both just bump around until they need to nap/recharge.
But at least my Roomba does something useful.
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Recently, I was thinking about why men¹ talk over women, and I think it's less a gender thing, and more of a...
"men¹ are taught to talk over anyone who doesn't talk more assertively than they do"
In my roles as an executive at several tech companies, the one negative feedback I got on almost every review was that I wasn't assertive enough in meetings with other execs. One male CEO even told me "you need to interrupt more, talk more—even if you don't know the answer. Otherwise they'll think you don't have anything to say". Which, honestly, churned my stomach.
The feedback was clear, if I wanted to succeed I needed to talk like the guys¹ in the boardroom—the same ones¹ who'd interrupt to ask a question I was already in the middle of explaining, who'd repeat a suggestion I'd just made—only louder, who'd make some cute comment that would derail my presentation, who'd explain my position back to me as though they'd just thought of it.
I needed to do that...and I needed to do it louder.
Otherwise men¹ weren't going to listen to me.
¹ not all men
@alice Like in Pixar‘s short film „Purl“
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Recently, I was thinking about why men¹ talk over women, and I think it's less a gender thing, and more of a...
"men¹ are taught to talk over anyone who doesn't talk more assertively than they do"
In my roles as an executive at several tech companies, the one negative feedback I got on almost every review was that I wasn't assertive enough in meetings with other execs. One male CEO even told me "you need to interrupt more, talk more—even if you don't know the answer. Otherwise they'll think you don't have anything to say". Which, honestly, churned my stomach.
The feedback was clear, if I wanted to succeed I needed to talk like the guys¹ in the boardroom—the same ones¹ who'd interrupt to ask a question I was already in the middle of explaining, who'd repeat a suggestion I'd just made—only louder, who'd make some cute comment that would derail my presentation, who'd explain my position back to me as though they'd just thought of it.
I needed to do that...and I needed to do it louder.
Otherwise men¹ weren't going to listen to me.
¹ not all men
@alice Good lord. What a toxic culture.
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@alice Yeah that is the case and I have done this exact thing too. BUT, it IS a gender thing because we are privileging the gender socialization of men. Because the thing is, why are we asking women to spend OUR energy leaning into men's socialized habits of domination in conversation, instead of asking men to lean into learning how to chill the fuck out and be more cooperative conversationally? (They might even like it better!)
@_L1vY_ @alice Probably because the centuries of patriarchy have shaped current business structures.
This is not an excuse! Being aware of the history just helps to understand the issue.
In this case change is necessary, but fighting expectations shaped over decades will take time as well.
It is also a question of business type: I worked in marketing companies (85% women, meetings still dominated by dominance and hot air) and now industry (no nonsense attitude, even though 90% men).
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Recently, I was thinking about why men¹ talk over women, and I think it's less a gender thing, and more of a...
"men¹ are taught to talk over anyone who doesn't talk more assertively than they do"
In my roles as an executive at several tech companies, the one negative feedback I got on almost every review was that I wasn't assertive enough in meetings with other execs. One male CEO even told me "you need to interrupt more, talk more—even if you don't know the answer. Otherwise they'll think you don't have anything to say". Which, honestly, churned my stomach.
The feedback was clear, if I wanted to succeed I needed to talk like the guys¹ in the boardroom—the same ones¹ who'd interrupt to ask a question I was already in the middle of explaining, who'd repeat a suggestion I'd just made—only louder, who'd make some cute comment that would derail my presentation, who'd explain my position back to me as though they'd just thought of it.
I needed to do that...and I needed to do it louder.
Otherwise men¹ weren't going to listen to me.
¹ not all men
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@momo @alice
Long reply
We all do it; we are human. Things we are passionate about we can't help ourselves.What I am **trying** to learn to do when I interrupt someone else, and I realize it during - I apologize. "Sorry for interrupting, I got ahead of myself. Please continue". If I realize afterwards, I apologize as well of course.
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Recently, I was thinking about why men¹ talk over women, and I think it's less a gender thing, and more of a...
"men¹ are taught to talk over anyone who doesn't talk more assertively than they do"
In my roles as an executive at several tech companies, the one negative feedback I got on almost every review was that I wasn't assertive enough in meetings with other execs. One male CEO even told me "you need to interrupt more, talk more—even if you don't know the answer. Otherwise they'll think you don't have anything to say". Which, honestly, churned my stomach.
The feedback was clear, if I wanted to succeed I needed to talk like the guys¹ in the boardroom—the same ones¹ who'd interrupt to ask a question I was already in the middle of explaining, who'd repeat a suggestion I'd just made—only louder, who'd make some cute comment that would derail my presentation, who'd explain my position back to me as though they'd just thought of it.
I needed to do that...and I needed to do it louder.
Otherwise men¹ weren't going to listen to me.
¹ not all men
@alice I remember this one coworker, Dave, who was so sharp, insightful, etc, but also soft spoken and didn't speak up that often. He had one of those vibes where everybody else could be talking over each other, but all he'd have to do is clear his throat and everyone else would stop their chest pounding and stfu because they knew whatever he was about to say was going to be gold.
I aspire to be like Dave.
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@alice @cyberspice fucking flawless.
