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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@scottwilson lol, I couldn't to much worse then the current asshole!
@alice @semitones Ooof, Alice! Understatement of millennium!
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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 pre 2000s our international group calls would default to giving the mic to whoever spoke loudest. Leading to exactly this battle of the bullshitters.
However one day the intern fell asleep in an empty conference room while on the call. Their snoring out did all of us and nothing could wake them.
Still makes me laugh to this day.
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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 Exactly that! I am male but am a bit softer spoken, I always do my best to not interrupt people, and when I am interrupted I typically wait until the interruptor is done before I continue.
Absolutely sucks cause I was raised to be respectful and let people say their peace but as I've learned over the years as an adult that is not the standard
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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 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.
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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
You're describing the family I grew up in, everyone talking over each other.
It wasn't until my third year of college when a woman I was interested in pointed out how rude I was. It hurt, but it was true and I changed my ways. I would skip back into those habits when visiting family.
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@alice I think you are right.
Men need to unlearn this when we leave the schoolyard and enter the adult world.
I think part of the resistance to learning this is imposter syndrome. Young men are full of fears they often cannot share. Those fears get paved over with hostility and domineering, which they pretend is strength. By the time they end up in a meeting with female peers, they have an inescapable need to prove themselves. Their inexperience leads them to believe respect and admiration is a zero-sum game. At that point, any chance of being a good team mate with women is practically lost.
It doesn't have to be that way. But, I'd say it usually is.
I've seen men who respect women in meetings. I learned to do it better, from them. It can be learned, and then things are so much better. A team fighting itself doesn't win very often. More importantly, life is shitty when it's full of conflict, and much more joyful when everyone feels good about their part in a team effort. The team wins together.
@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.) -
@alice
Honestly, I hear so many storys and I see them myself in team meetings, etc. And I always realize: "That's not me, I don't do that."But I do. 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!
After I realized that I started to observe myself, try to suppress impulses. Medication helps and I think I have this more under control than ever before.
Not because I count my self as "not all men", but because I realized "actually, me too". So thank you and everyone else who spoke up. Please don't stop. And everyone, please don't stop listen, even if you are not all whatever. Because it could be you anyway.
@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.) -
@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.
