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Men Interrupting Women

rav3n

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Nope, haven't experienced this. But then, I'm not a chatterbox.
 

Kasper

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Very much so, the respect that men and women show men is noticeably greater for me than what both men and women show women, esp in the business world. Some of the biggest culprits I've seen do this however are women, they refuse to stop interrupting you even if you don't yield (they were all 1s for whatever it's worth), as it's a more male thing to do they stand out for this behaviour, unlike men however they are not respected for their "take charge of the conversation" style, maybe they're just less overt about it, all I know is it does not get the same outcome to their detriment.
 

21%

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I haven't experienced it myself. But I find that I deal with topics in two ways: those I don't care about are everyday chit-chat and anyone is welcome to interrupt me whenever they want; and those I DO care about where I will NOT be interrupted (and if I am I will immediately steer the conversation right back to where I want by interrupting their interruption).

:blush:
 

xisnotx

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i try not to do this with anyone..it's rude and i don't like it when it's done to me.
 

á´…eparted

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I interrupt people, men and women. It's an old habit from when I was young. I try and watch it and I almost never get complaints, but in hindsight I can become aware of it.
 

á´…eparted

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they refuse to stop interrupting you even if you don't yield (they were all 1s for whatever it's worth).

This is a 1 thing, and there are circumstances where I will do this. It's almost always during an argument or some sort of discussion where mutual ground is not being found and I feel that my point(s) are not being heard. I will essentially (attempt to) force the other to stop talking by not yielding.
 

Firebird 8118

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Oh goodness... the number of times I've been interrupted by my dad or brother (especially when I'm telling a story) is too many to count. :(
 

Kasper

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This is a 1 thing, and there are circumstances where I will do this. It's almost always during an argument or some sort of discussion where mutual ground is not being found and I feel that my point(s) are not being heard. I will essentially (attempt to) force the other to stop talking by not yielding.

Fair enough XD

Ofc you know the ironic position of this is if you're concentrating on what you need to say to get someone to understand... you're not paying attention to what the other person is saying and their points are not being heard which means no mutual ground can be found.
 

grey_beard

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basically what i mean is, i don't fault men for this. it's kind of encoded in them by the patterns they learn as very young boys acquiring language and social skills. and i believe that it's so unconscious that if a woman really were to assert herself, in most instances, the men would respect that and give her a voice (slight guilt might even result if the men realized the effort with which the woman had to get herself in there). the myth that women talk more has everything to do with their style of speech rather than the number of words they generate or the length of time they talk for. women take more frequent, quicker turns which might lead men (who are more prone to monologue-style speech) to perceive that a woman is talking a lot. also, women are more prone to spend words on emotional, kind of meta-conversational messages, like encouraging someone to come sit closer, or noticing a partner's reaction to something within the conversation.

An interesting expansion on the thought. It'd be interesting (and potentially useful) to quantify and distinguish the average number of words per conversation, or per day, or what have you, in the following cases:

1) woman one-on-one with another woman
2) man one-on-one with another man
3) woman one-on-one with a man, non-romantic partner
4) woman one-on-one with a man, romantic partner
5) woman in group of other women
6) woman in mixed group, 1 man, 2 or more women
7) woman in mixed group, 1 woman, 2 or more men
8) woman in mixed group, 2 or more women, 2 or more men

BTW I agree that women spend much more time on emotional, meta-conversational messages; but not *just* the immediate social cues you mention, but exploring, defining, enforcing social hierarchies within whichever group is extant at the moment. Men seem to spend much more time discussing ideas (e.g. politics), plans for an immediate or proposed project, or sports.
 

Adam

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The common view seems to be that women use more words to get the same message across. Do you think this is true? If so, it could explain why women are interrupted more often than their succinct, male counterparts.
 

skylights

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My experience has been less simple interruption in excited conversation - that happens with everyone - but particularly assertive/competitive males who will "railroad" conversation completely to have their voice and opinion dominate. They do it to both men and women, but especially quieter and soft-spoken women. I think they are the sort of people who tend to think that if opinions are hesitant or voiced with uncertainty or take a while to get out, they are not useful, which of course is not true. I think it's in part a gender thing but also just partially a personality thing. There are women who dominate conversation, too.

The common view seems to be that women use more words to get the same message across. Do you think this is true? If so, it could explain why women are interrupted more often than their succinct, male counterparts.

Depends on the individual. On average, that's probably true, but I know plenty of talkative men and terse women. I do think men are more socially encouraged to be to-the-point while women are encouraged to be better at finesse, which generally requires more verbal dancing. It probably accounts for some of this.
 

highlander

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My experience has been less simple interruption in excited conversation - that happens with everyone - but particularly assertive/competitive males who will "railroad" conversation completely to have their voice and opinion dominate. They do it to both men and women, but especially quieter and soft-spoken women. I think they are the sort of people who tend to think that if opinions are hesitant or voiced with uncertainty or take a while to get out, they are not useful, which of course is not true. I think it's in part a gender thing but also just partially a personality thing. There are women who dominate conversation, too.



Depends on the individual. On average, that's probably true, but I know plenty of talkative men and terse women. I do think men are more socially encouraged to be to-the-point while women are encouraged to be better at finesse, which generally requires more verbal dancing. It probably accounts for some of this.

Re bolded - yeah I hate that. I've seen both men and women do that but it's usually men. It's incredibly annoying.
 

skylights

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Re bolded - yeah I hate that. I've seen both men and women do that but it's usually men. It's incredibly annoying.

Yeah, I hate that too. Pricks!!

Yeah, ha. It just always smacks of immaturity and impatience, I think. I try to get away from them. I've definitely had women do it too. Always unpleasant regardless. And I tend to trust their opinions less when they present them so aggressively. IMO a good opinion will tend to prove itself with time.

To me this is less a gender problem and more an overconfidence problem, lol.
 

Totenkindly

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An interesting expansion on the thought. It'd be interesting (and potentially useful) to quantify and distinguish the average number of words per conversation, or per day, or what have you, in the following cases:

1) woman one-on-one with another woman
2) man one-on-one with another man
3) woman one-on-one with a man, non-romantic partner
4) woman one-on-one with a man, romantic partner
5) woman in group of other women
6) woman in mixed group, 1 man, 2 or more women
7) woman in mixed group, 1 woman, 2 or more men
8) woman in mixed group, 2 or more women, 2 or more men

BTW I agree that women spend much more time on emotional, meta-conversational messages; but not *just* the immediate social cues you mention, but exploring, defining, enforcing social hierarchies within whichever group is extant at the moment. Men seem to spend much more time discussing ideas (e.g. politics), plans for an immediate or proposed project, or sports.

yes, I think the group context (composition, size, etc.) will definitely play a role in who interrupts who and how often; the blanket statement doesn't have as much granularity.

My general experience is that I do find myself interrupted by guys more nowadays than in the past, especially in groups where I'm in a minority or the only woman, and I basically have to "change gears" and start talking over the men if I have something i want to say... and then they shut up and listen if I keep talking. That is not a natural approach for me, so I have to consciously choose to push through the discomfort of that if I wish to be part of the conversation.

Overall, I think the female socialization patterns are different, and there tends to be more observance of voice dynamic, inflection, body cues, eye/face cues, etc. (I think it's the same reason some men feel really uncomfortable in groups of chatting women and "complain about the estrogen level" -- the style of conversation can be very different. Even some women can be put off by that style, if they are more practical or have traits that are socially neutral vs gendered.) If a woman walks into a group of men and expects them to respond to those kinds of things, well, she's probably mistaken .. or at least a smaller amount of men will be consciously aware of them. You need to employ different conversational strategies.
 

Kullervo

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I think that this would have more to do with personality than gender; there are a lot of extroverted, intense women out there as well. [MENTION=20856]grey_beard[/MENTION] makes a good point too, there are likely to be situational differences.
 

Totenkindly

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I think that this would have more to do with personality than gender; there are a lot of extroverted, intense women out there as well. grey_beard makes a good point too, there are likely to be situational differences.

I would agree that personality is a contributing factor.
 

Nara

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I found this article to be really interesting.

Basically what is says is that men interrupt women in conversation a lot more than women interrupt men and that men and women don't interrupt men nearly so much.

Do you see or experience this?

To tell the truth, I never really had this experience with men, on the contrary I tend to be listened quite easily. Nevertheless, I should say that it's a bit different with the old ones (not all of them) who still nurture some archaic values.
I remember this time when my boyfriend's uncle was contemptuously explaining to him what is a bipolar disorder, and I just COULDN'T put any word of mine in this conversation, it was very frustrating, as if I was a disturbing noise which he had to drown out with his voice.
Of course, I didn't give up, interrupting him a dozen of times at least until I was listened because I knew I could explain the thing better than he did. And yes, at last, my ego was satisfied haha.
mmmfff.gif


In a group of women, it's a little more difficult because I think there's a struggle for influence, just like men but it's more subtle: women make alliances while men are more confrontational...
Moreover I realized that, unconsciously, I was stifling myself to avoid this kind of competition so I didn't take the risk to be interrupted anymore. Not a good strategy because after a while you start to develop bad habits: never finishing your sentences, you speak too fast, mincing your words because you think it doesn't worth it, nobody will listen to you. And indeed, that's what happens because actually your speech becomes unclear. Vicious circle...

Otherwise when I interrupt it's because I hate losing any occasion to precise my thoughts and yes it could be boring for others even if we generally laugh at it.
 
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