Mt23 ft20
mi7 fi3
mq2 fq5
mc7 fc5
mcm3 fcm5
mhm0 fhm0
mom0 fom2
mt39 ft32
The above listed data sent from my cell phone is based on observations made during a conversation of five men and three woman at a restaurant in New York City. The group was out on a casual evening, and they had all been friends since they went to college a few years earlier together. As the data shows, the men were more dominating in the conversation than the women were. The men took a total of twenty three turns speaking, while the women only took twenty (for a total of 43). However, the women did as more questions then the men did. It's interesting to take into consideration that the questions were being asked of the men were for suggestions on to what kind of food or drink to order, even though no one in the group had been to the restaurant previously. The men only asked two questions during the exchange while the women asked five. Both groups made almost an equal amounts of comments regarding the atmopshere of the place and the quality of the dinner they had; men made seven comments while the women made five. There were no hostile moves made by either party during the discussion, and the only real movement made was by one of the women who used her hands to articulate a certain point on two separate occasions. None of them men did this at all.
Although the women took less turns speaking and making comments than the men did, when they did speak they were often more long winded than the males. At one point, one of the females went through an entire story about the group when they went to school together that last early five minutes. No one interrupted during the story however, so either they had no recollection of the event or were lost in reminiscing.
The topics of the conversations started out about how long it's been since the group had gotten together, and quickly turned to the beautiful and unique restaurant they were in. They also talked about the time that they spent in college together, and one of the males who had recently been married and one of the females had not been at the wedding spoke at length about life after marriage. At one point, the conversation turned to the price of gas and how new steps need to be taken to produce energy. At this time, the women were almost silent and the men completely dominated the conversation.
Part 2: In the classroom
I observed my Sociology class called "Moral Problems" last Thursday to see if men or women dominated the conversation there. The number of men and women in the class is about equal with 14 men and 17 women. It seems here, that the majority of the time men were speaking. They asked the most questions about an upcoming exam and made the most comments about articles that were read for class. Also, there was one male in particular who had a tendency to interrupt, especially when females were speaking and interrupted a total of six times during the class. When questions were posed to the class by the professor, it was the men who were called on far more than the women (the men answered six questions and the females only two), but is that because the professor called on men more, or simply because more men were willing to answer the questions?
In both of these observations, it seems that men more so than women have a tendency to dominate conversations. They are more out going and more likely to interrupt than a female is. When conversation turns to a political nature, women have little to say. Why is that? Is it because they feel they are not as intelligent as the men they are discussing the topic with? Or because they are afraid of coming off as 'too smart' and intimidating the men they were with. In the classroom setting the same thing can be said, men simply talk more than women. It's interesting to consider though because while on campus just as casual observations, it seems that women are speaking more freely than men, yet once placed in a classroom setting this changes.
