When sociolinguist Deborah Tannen published her book "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation" in 1990, it helped me understand a pattern I'd noticed during my years in journalism.
Many of my male colleagues, including me, seemed to get ahead in media companies faster and win more awards than our female colleagues, despite the fact that IMHO we were not better reporters or writers.
If anything, when it came to interviewing sources, women seemed to be the better listeners, generally, so they often got better and deeper information than we did.
Tannen's book at least provided a context for all of this. She wrote:
"For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships ... For most men, talk is primarily a means to preserve independence and negotiate and maintain status in a hierarchical social order."
Although she was talking mainly about personal rather than professional relationships, her book proved useful in my teaching jobs. I started pointing out to my women students that they might use their conversational preferences to their tactical advantage when interviewing men in positions of power.
Also, women journalists inside the company faced a similar challenge and therefore an opportunity. In that era, female colleagues tended to speak less in meetings, and when they did have something to say it more often was to raise a question, whereas the men favored making declarative statements and staking out a position.
The men also interrupted the women much more frequently than vice versa.
I'm not pretending that I was some sort of genius for noticing this stuff, because I wasn't, but I could see that the whole situation was pretty unfair. And when around the same time the pay disparities between men and women surfaced, the whole thing started to sicken me.
I developed the kind of bad feeling I always get when confronted with injustices. All too easily, I knew, it could have been me on the outside, left out, feeling diminished. Despite whatever successes I had had, there were plenty of failures too, setbacks, betrayals and disappointments -- mainly but not exclusively dealt me by men.
And to be fair, there were some pretty mean moves put on by women colleagues as well, including behind-the-back betrayals that hurt a lot. In fact, they still hurt to this day. So I concluded neither sex had any claim to a higher degree of morality or decency in the media environment; it really boiled down to how each individual behaved.
Systemic discrimination existed, yes, but the impact of that reality varied widely person by person. Some turned out to be kind; some turned out to be mean.
Not to sound cynical, but I'm not sure all that much has changed to this day. At least at work, men and women still seem to misunderstand each other pretty much as ever. But least there is a much broader consciousness of the problem than in the past.
In that spirit, I haven't met the person yet who couldn't try just a little bit harder to understand the other. And that includes me. Maybe we just have to switch roles now and then. Isn't that what the Golden Rule is all about?
***
A bit of personal news: I'm to get vaccinated today.
The news:
* Why Are Republican Presidents So Bad for the Economy? -- G.D.P., jobs and other indicators have all risen faster under Democrats for nearly the past century. (NYT)
* Biden Signs 3 Executive Orders on Immigration -- President Biden on Tuesday signed three executive orders aiming to roll back former President Donald J. Trump’s policies on immigration and reunite migrant families who were separated at the Mexican border (AP)
* House votes to levy fines of up to $10,000 on lawmakers who flout security screening (WashPo)
*The vaccine created by Oxford University and AstraZeneca reduces the spread of the coronavirus, according to the first research showing how vaccines affect transmission of the illness. Further, a single shot can provide significant protection against COVID-19 if its second dose is delayed by three months. The findings could allow countries to vaccinate many more people with their first shots with less fear that they won’t have enough on hand for a second jab. [HuffPost]
* U.S. extends arms control treaty with Russia for 5 years, Blinken says (Reuters)
* First Came the Lockdown. Then Came the Wildfire. -- Residents on the outskirts of Perth in Western Australia fled their homes in the middle of the night, just days after being told to stay in because of the coronavirus. (NYT)
* President Biden, first lady pay respects to Officer Brian Sicknick at U.S. Capitol (WashPo)
* Nearly a year after suspending a presidential campaign that she built on the idea of a national wealth tax, Sen. Elizabeth Warren is poised to join the Senate Committee on Finance and introduce legislation to make her stump speech a reality. Warren pledged that she will “press giant corporations, the wealthy, and the well-connected to finally pay their fair share in taxes.” [HuffPost]
* Under Pressure to Rebuke Their Own, G.O.P. Leaders Face a Critical Test -- The fates of Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Liz Cheney have become a proxy battle for the soul of the party, prompting a clash among top Republicans. (NYT)
* WHO team probing COVID-19 visits Wuhan lab, meets 'Bat Woman' (Reuters)
* San Jose and Oakland may require grocery stores to compensate workers with additional “hazard pay.” [The SJ Mercury News]
* One of the first things experts will tell you about trauma is that the body never forgets. This is what Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was referring to when she told more than 150,000 people who tuned in to her Instagram live to hear her recount her experiences during the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol: that “trauma compounds.” [HuffPost]
*Amazon Inc. agreed to pay more than $61.7 million to settle allegations it cheated Amazon Flex drivers out of nearly one-third of tips from customers for more than two years. The money paid to the Federal Trade Commission will be used to compensate drivers. The FTC said Amazon in 2015 advertised that a program called Flex would pay drivers $18 to $25 an hour to make deliveries and that they would receive 100% of any tips. But in late 2016 Amazon “secretly reduced its own contribution to drivers’ pay,” according to the FTC complaint. [Reuters]
* Deranged Conspiracy Theorist Convinced Large Cabal Of Americans Want Her To Disappear (The Onion)
***
On my pillow
Leave the winter
On the ground
I wake up lonely
There's air of silence
In the bedroom
And all around
Touch me now
I close my eyes
And dream away
But it's over now
It must have been good
But I lost it somehow
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