Pamela Fishman

Pamela Fishman

Pamela Fishman argues that the conversation between sexes sometimes fails because of the way men respond or if they don’t respond. She says women ask questions to get a response from men. She argues that women have to do most of the ‘conversational shitwork’ when having a conversation with men. She says the differences in men and women’s conversational behaviour is caused by their expectations as men are seen to be more dominant.

Experiment:

Pamela Fishman did an experiment that involved listening to fifty-two hours of pre - recorded conversations between young American couples. 5 out of 6 subjects were attending graduate school. All subjects were either feminists or sympathetic to the women’s movement, were white, between the ages of 25 and 35. She listened to recordings and focused on two characteristics common in women’s dialect, including tag questions such as: “you know?” 

 She states that women frequently ask tag questions following a thought or suggestion. She says tag questions are an effective method of maintaining conversation and gaining conversational power for women rather than lacking conversation. She says women feel the need to ask questions when they are having a conversation with males as they don’t respond to declarative statements or their response is minimal.