Sometimes, in this media circus I forget the most basic form of media; Language. Lucky for me I meet someone really cool at podcamp who is going to be our Linguistical Media corresponded (she has not agreed to do this but, I am very persuasive :)
Meet Char everyone. A few posts back I brought up the fact that the blogosphere/podosphere tends to be male dominated. This started a great conversation but, below you will see some research by Char that sheds some light on the topic.
Char wrote:
So I looked into the whole female language use thing. Suzanne Romaine, a prof at Oxford, wrote a book called Language in Society (Oxford University Press, New York, 2000). That's where most of my information comes from. She's got several pages of references, but she doesn't have footnotes so I don't really know what's got what info. I can kind of guess by the titles, but I figure if anyone really wants to know more than can ask for the references.
So, studies have shown that in all-male groups and all-female groups very different patterns of verbal interaction exist. These patterns "begin in early years when children play in same-sex peer groups.
"Boys tend to have a larger network than girls, who usually have one or two girlfriends with whom they play regularly." This has something to do with the activities girls and boys tend to participate in. You can't really play football with 3 people. And it would be a strange sight to see 10 or 15 kids sitting down to have tea while playing house.
"Although much less attention has been paid to girls' networks than those of boys, there are observable differences in the way in which language is used in boys' v. girls' play. Girls use language to create and maintain cohesiveness, and their activities are generally cooperative and non-competitive.
Differentiation between girls is not made in terms of power. When conflicts arise, the groups break up. Bossiness tends not to be tolerated, and girls use forms such as 'let's, we're gonna, we could' to get others to do things instead of appealing to their personal power. When they argue, girls tend to phrase their arguments in terms of group needs rather than in personal terms.
"Boys, on the other hand, tend to have more hierarchically organized groups than girls, and status in the hierarchy is paramount. In boys' groups speech is used to assert dominance, to attract and maintain an audience when others have the floor. They issue commands to other boys rather than suggest what should be done. Certain kinds of stylized speech events such as joking and storytelling are valued in boys' groups. A boy has to learn how to get the floor to perform so that he can acquire prestige."
There's a whole bunch of examples and studies that have been done, but I won't get into them here. If you want to hear about them let me know.
There's also some info on the theory that all kids start off learning "women's language" at home, then boys in their adolescence break off and start talking like the older boys due to peer pressure. Romaine also goes on to talk about the pressures on guys to talk "rough" or be ridiculed, and the pressures on girls to be polite and not push people too far or people will "judge them negatively".
I'll just say one more thing about how these things translate in adult
behavior:
"Looking at adults, we can see some continuity between adolescent ways of speaking and the management of social interaction later in life. There are common elements in the speech styles of boys and men such as storytelling, verbal posturing, and arguing. Men tend to challenge one another. Women, on the other hand, do not value aggressiveness and their conversations tend to be more interactional and aim at seeking cooperation. They send out and look for signs of agreement and link what they say to the speech of others."
This is pretty important to the point I was making. How can women send out signs of agreement or seek them in others when podcasting is so one-sided?
Obviously once you've built up a community around your podcast you might have people commenting on a regular basis, etc. but at the beginning it would be harder for women. Basically, it's harder for them to get their foot in the door. I think in terms of goals for what podcasting should be (there was a lot of discussion about building networks and communities at podcamp), women have a lot to contribute (to make others feel included in this - but that might just be applicable to other women). But men usually have more success building networks for themselves than women do, so that might explain it.
I just want to say, all of these are trends and patterns that have been studied by various scholars. I always find it amusing when someone argues them and tries to prove how they don't fall into these patterns. There might be a few exceptions, but I've found that most men and women do fall into the designated categories. A lot of times people confuse the content of their utterances with the manner in which they say it. It's much less about WHAT you say as HOW you say it.
That was awesome, thanks Char!
Tags: Char, gender studies, language, podcamp, blogging, podcasting, Suzanne Romaine, boys and girls
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