While it is true that both men and women can be talkative, there are good reasons behind the stereotype that women are more talkative.
One day, when I was at school, a female teacher caught a group of boys talking in class and said, “Stop gossiping like village women.” This sentence stuck in my mind and I wondered why women, but not men, were associated with talking and gossiping.
In our culture, as in many cultures, marriage is a big event and many guests are invited. Meals are served in separate rooms for men and women.
I attended many events like this when I was a kid and often found myself in a room full of old men who wouldn’t say a word for hours, and when they did say it was almost always about sports , politics, and other current events. .
A few short sentences here and there and the occasional roaring, nervous laughter indicate less pleasure than desire for the other person to shut up.
On the contrary, the women’s toilet was always filled with noise and laughter. They would talk non-stop for hours and seemed to thoroughly enjoy it.
Purpose of speaking on behalf of men and women
Women, on average, speak more than men because speaking for women is not the same as for men. It cannot be said that men do not talk much. They do, but only about a few things .
For men , talking is a way to convey facts and information. They may go on to explain how a machine works or how they found the fastest route to reach their current destination. They can carry on talking about a topic they are passionate about.
For women, talking is a way to connect with people and build relationships. They may talk about their daily problems and discuss their relationships.
Two men who are strangers to each other rarely bond while traveling on a plane, bus or train. On the other hand, two women who do not know each other are likely to bond while traveling together and may share the most intimate details about themselves and their relationships with each other.
That’s why you’ll find women dominate professions where building relationships by talking to people is required, such as consulting, teaching, nursing, and customer service.
Vocabulary and multitracking
Since men do not talk much, they prefer to convey maximum information in minimum words.
Vocabulary is not as important for women, who rely more on tone of voice and nonverbal signals when communicating. So, while a man may find himself running to the dictionary when he encounters a new word in a movie, a woman will have already correctly guessed the meaning of the word just from the tone of voice and non-verbal signals of the actors.
A man’s sentences are short and solution-focused, and he needs to get to the end of the sentence to convey the point of his message. He cannot stop what he is talking about in the middle of a conversation and start a new conversation.
But women are experts at this kind of multi-tracking. They can multiple track various points at different times in the conversation. In the same conversation, one minute they are talking about this new dress they bought, and the next minute they are talking about the fight they had with a friend last week.
Simply put , men can talk about one thing at a time, while women can talk about more than one thing at a time. Men become frustrated if they are interrupted in the middle of what they are saying because they need to finish their sentences to express what they mean.
However, women are most likely to interrupt men because they can handle more than one topic at a time and feel that two-way conversation is more necessary. Men also interrupt, but only when they are trying to be competitive or aggressive.
Being non-direct in their conversations helps women build relationships and harmony, avoiding aggression or confrontation. That’s probably why they’re accused of being passive-aggressive. When a woman is angry with her man, she is less likely to confront him because she is innately skilled at building and maintaining relationships.
She’s more likely to use indirect speech and beat around the bush, waiting for her man to figure out on his own why she’s mad at him. On the other hand, he cannot understand anything unless it is told to him clearly and directly.
Him: Why are you angry with me?
Him: You need to know.
Evolutionary origins of speech styles
Since the ancestors’ men hunted, talking was not their specialty. They could sit for hours stalking their prey without saying a word. They also had to use short sentences to convey maximum information because making too much noise or talking for long periods of time could alert prey or predators.
When modern men go fishing together, they can only talk 5% of the time and still have a good time together. When women hang out and don’t talk, something isn’t right.
A woman who talks is a happy woman. If she talks a lot, it’s almost certain that she likes the person she’s talking to, though not in a romantic sense. Therefore, when a woman is angry with someone, she says, “Don’t talk to me!” she says.
Men rarely make such warnings because they do not attach much importance to conversation.
Ancestral women spent most of their time gathering and caring for the young. This required them to bond well with others, especially other women.
These gender differences start at an early age
Research has revealed that the part of the brain responsible for speech develops faster in girls than in boys.
Another study showed that young girls (ages 9-15) showed significantly more activity in the language areas of their brains than boys when performing language tasks.
Studies also show that girls have higher levels of a protein associated with speech and language in their cerebral cortex.3 Higher levels of this language protein, called Foxp2, are found in the more communicative of each species.