The Women's Register

[JesusFightClub]

Let's not forget contradicting anything a man says. It doesn't really matter the tone, if a man says something and you respond by saying "Well we can't do that because X" then watchers assume you're having an argument, not a discussion.

Plus the masculine register of "needing to explain this to the woman". Guys seem to do this when there isn't any need. It causes the assumption by the woman that she is presumed to be less intelligent, causing resentment.

This.

I know more than most men on a variety of different "masculine" topics. Weaponry. Political violence. That sort of thing. And it never ceases to amaze me how angry they get.

Also how they will argue anything, even when they must know they are wrong. I always wonder about this. Both you and I know how HK5 variants are adapted for the UK market. Why is it so important that you beat me in an argument that you will lie to do it? I know you are lying and you must know that too. Why?

[Olive Plant]

This is an interesting topic, and I was actually just researching it the other day. I was looking for scholarly literature trying to back up the different register thing, but there's actually conflicting literature about if tag questions etc actually are used more by women. I think it might depend a little bit. In real life, I'm usually pretty direct. More so than my boyfriend in some ways. He's very deferential and uses "yes ma'am/ yes sir" a lot, and I really don't. I think it depends a lot on culture. In a lot of Asian cultures, this is WAY more pronounced from what I understand. They're very aware of hierachy and women are low on the totem pole.

On the other hand, I've had a lot of people tell me I'm argumentative, and I don't think I am. If I say, um, no, that's not correct, in a conversation, that doesn't (necesarily) make me argumentative.

[CynicMom]

Actually if I say 'tea again?' I'm pre-empting her choice.

If I say -'Are you sure you want coffee? You almost always want tea' I am firstly implying that she is unable to articulate her choice correctly (which she effectively is, but that's her upbringing) and secondly critiquing her choice in a directly confrontational way that may make her unable to feel she can articulate a different choice from the usual one.

(Furthermore, neither of those methods of speaking correspond to my idiolect, so I wouldn't use them.)

Could I ask you to point out to me where I, in the scenario I mention, refer to convenience? I can't find that bit. My mention of 'trouble' is a direct response to her mention of 'trouble, and refutes her suggestion that she is one.

There's a certain hint of pejorative dislike in your 'you had to talk about'. Just saying.

Grr. I was trying to deliberately type that without using Women's Register and it came off pejorative. Not my intent. Let me try again: I think we, as women, sometimes encourage this type of passivity by not facing it directly. You knew your friend likely had a preference for tea but didn't feel empowered to say it out loud. In a similar situation, after you'd finally got her to admit her preference for tea, I'd have called her out on it. At least it could save you some hassle next time.

A little girl did the "I don't know what I want" routine on me last night. I stopped her by saying "She won't say what she wants so she wants cockroaches!" She then immediately declared she wanted a cowboy hat.

[Artemis]

Let me try again: I think we, as women, sometimes encourage this type of passivity by not facing it directly. You knew your friend likely had a preference for tea but didn't feel empowered to say it out loud. In a similar situation, after you'd finally got her to admit her preference for tea, I'd have called her out on it. At least it could save you some hassle next time.

Definitely, definitely agree with the bolded, and I would expect a friend to be clear and direct. I don't like passivity either. With a colleague I would challenge, I hope.

My issue, and it's one I struggle with a lot is that this was my 91 year old mother in law. My 79 year old mother is very very similar. They're both doing as they've been taught. They think my daughters are rude, because they don't use women's register as much as the grannies think they should.

I personally feel that people should be called on unclear communication like this but what do you do when that conflicts with your ingrained respect for the elderly? I stand very little chance of being able to change MIL, so I suppose I just tolerate it. I do encourage her to say what she wants but it's uphill work, because she really feels she has no right to. It's all about being seen to keep sweet, just like a fundie: such people can be the nastiest-tongued people on this green earth just because they feel obliged to operate in subordinate status mode all the time.

That's what oppression and subordination does. It means you're always looking for people lower in status than you are to turn on. Educating the young out if it and making them aware is probably a better bet than trying to push the old, which is why discussions such as this are valuable, and have reminded me to have another chat to my daughters about it.

[Coconut Flan]

I've spent about thirty years dealing with that crap at work and about ten years in decided to game play the men. It's kind of fun. It all changed for me the day that I realized that almost every meeting I was the only woman in the room.

I've learned techniques to shut down the men that think that they can talk over women.

The most maddening thing to me has been when a woman disagrees or points out something is illogical or won't work that the charge of arguing or being contentious is brought up. Not having a Y chromosome does not mean my knowledge of something basic like geometry does not work.

[kiwimusume]

I tend to agree with one of your later thoughts; that maybe men should be more polite in their speech, rather than us aim to be "more assertive," which as jas been mentioned can be interpreted as rudeness. By implying that we should not be afraid to be more 'like a man' pretty much states that the man's way is better, and we should emulate it. I am not sure that's true.

I have thought about this before. What really made me think of it was listening to my husband. He has two distinct voices, one he uses when talking to women and one he uses when talking to men. Within those are many slight variances, and after years together I can usually correctly guess who he is talking to on the phone by his voice. He does this entirely subconsciously, as most of us do to some degree, but I have noticed that he uses higher tones for the people he respects most, with his highest pitched tones saved for me and his mother. You elude to this is your post when you refer to subordination (I think- I am on my phone and it won't let me see the OP but I am pretty sure that was the gist) but simply rephrasing it as "respect" gives me a new look on it. Yes, even by that logic, we are assuming that women should respect men more than men should respect women- but I don't think we need to pattern our speech to be less respectful- men should pattern their speech to be more respectful.

I mean, I havent studied this in depth but one of the things I keep hearing is that women, apparently, are better communicators. Communication is a good thing. Assuming that is true, speech and speech patterns must be a main aspect of "good communication" so why would we want to do anything that might reduce our ability to communicate well?

Then again, I am Canadian, and I have been taught to apologize when someone else steps on my foot, and not because I am a woman, so I probably am biased, lol.

I agree with this a lot. Speaking forcefully is not an inherently and universally better form of communication. It can be the best way to deal with certain situations, but am I the only one who read this:

This. My chap and I were stuck at a train station. I phoned my BIL ' Sorry to bother you, any chance if you are not busy, you could maybe pick us up?' (questioning up tone at the end.) He was unable.

My chap phoned his friend ' Name, stuck at the station, give us a lift home pal'

Like you I find it uncomfortable but see it a lot.

and found the second example problematic too? Maybe Mr OkToBeTakei and his friend have that kind of relationship, but I expect people, regardless of gender, to show respect for my right to say no.

[morfydd]

No interesting personal experiences, but:

1) I was shocked and infuriated this summer when my mom mentioned she'd wanted to do her MS Linguistic thesis on grammatical and vocabulary differences between men and women's speech in Taiwan, and her thesis advisor (male, natch) shot it down because he *refused to believe such differences existed*. Ok, it was 1965, but really. It's so good to know it's an accepted idea in linguistics now.

2) Suzette Elgin Haden discusses this quite a bit, both in her Handmaid's Tale-ish SF series, and in her Art of Gentle Verbal Self-Defense books, all of which are excellent. She also used to have really interesting things to say in her LJ "ozarque" but I haven't stopped by in a few years.

[FlorenceHamilton]

When I began practicing medicine, I was a little, curvy buxom 30ish imp with a Medical degree and some clinical training. I had never really learned to use any method of communication but the women's register. I found that it was not effective to be passive. I was taught the the doctor must be the "Captain of the ship". I actually lowered my voice an octave and made my statements with finality. I remained friendly and open to ideas, but made it clear that my decision was the final decision. I think it helped that my son was becoming a toddler at that point and he responded better to admonitions given with authority. Once the clinical staff had gained experience with me, they trusted my decisions and followed the things I told them. They also knew that they were free to question me in private and that I would respect and consider their concerns. I did not abide a public display of dissonance and there were occasions that I dressed people down for doing so.

In every organization there are administrators. Many of these people have authority in certain parts of the workplace. These were the people that were problematic. It was particularly a problem with female administrators/executives. I would often be targeted by these sorts of individuals. The only way to get temporary relief from their attacks was to interact with them in the female register. When I was young, I begrudged this requirement, but it was so useful that I eventually just did it. The sorts of things that these people with a little power did and said are actually very similar to haw the fundy women we snark on say about the FreeJingers. They would often bring complaints about the way I dressed. They made disparaging remarks about my life choices and my habits. They would heavily monitor my arrivals and departures, marking any moments of distraction I may have had, whenther to answer a personal phone call or go to the bathroom. Male physicians did not receive this scrutiny. I was the target. It happened no matter how perfectly I tried to execute my job duties. There was only one instance where it was a male. And that male was shorter than I am (I am 5 feet zero). The male was the only one who was able to actually force me to leave a job because he simply did not like a petite attractive woman in an authority position.

Middle age has helped. I don't take shit from anyone at work anymore. I do not speak in the female register at work. I simply have no time for it. I have not gotten any push back in my current position for this. I do not know if it is a sign of changing times, or if my age has given me privilege.

All of that said, using the active, authoritative tone is work for me. Socially, I revert to the female register most of the time. Interestingly, I recently went on a third date with a man and I made it clear that I was taking him out this time. I handled the reservation, the seating and the bill. I do think that it affected my speech patterns during the interaction. My body language (as the person in charge) was different. It was also interesting to see the awkwardness of changing the dynamic back to a male dominant tone. I did accommodate this and he paid the valet. After that, our roles and speech reverted to the more typical male/female.

[celestial]

This is a fascinating thread, and it's given me a lot to think about. I definitely use the women's register a great deal, and am going to start trying to be more aware of when and why.

[BlueChair]

I tend to agree with one of your later thoughts; that maybe men should be more polite in their speech, rather than us aim to be "more assertive," which as jas been mentioned can be interpreted as rudeness. By implying that we should not be afraid to be more 'like a man' pretty much states that the man's way is better, and we should emulate it. I am not sure that's true.

I have thought about this before. What really made me think of it was listening to my husband. He has two distinct voices, one he uses when talking to women and one he uses when talking to men. Within those are many slight variances, and after years together I can usually correctly guess who he is talking to on the phone by his voice. He does this entirely subconsciously, as most of us do to some degree, but I have noticed that he uses higher tones for the people he respects most, with his highest pitched tones saved for me and his mother. You elude to this is your post when you refer to subordination (I think- I am on my phone and it won't let me see the OP but I am pretty sure that was the gist) but simply rephrasing it as "respect" gives me a new look on it. Yes, even by that logic, we are assuming that women should respect men more than men should respect women- but I don't think we need to pattern our speech to be less respectful- men should pattern their speech to be more respectful.

I mean, I havent studied this in depth but one of the things I keep hearing is that women, apparently, are better communicators. Communication is a good thing. Assuming that is true, speech and speech patterns must be a main aspect of "good communication" so why would we want to do anything that might reduce our ability to communicate well?

Then again, I am Canadian, and I have been taught to apologize when someone else steps on my foot, and not because I am a woman, so I probably am biased, lol.

Pretty much everything I would have said, especially the bolded. But it may indeed be a regional thing so others' MMV.

[freedomrocks]

Hi everyone-lurker for a few months; my guilty pleasure. Thanks for the laughs and challenging conversations.

I thought this post would be about a newspaper or women's voting, ha ha. About the topic, I know that this has been about tone and inflection, but my DH and I have always had this inside joke that when we hear a grown woman talk in a "baby voice", she must work at our former church's children's ministry. This grates on my nerves so badly. I think it is their way of deflecting criticism from themselves. One such woman I met years later who had been married and had several children had totally lost her baby voice-I guess now it was time to be taken seriously.

On another side, I have always been aware that I tend to be too aggressive in my speech, and have tried to soften myself tremendously, to my loss. Now that I have shed that crappy ideology, I speak much more confidently. Still in progress, though.

[OkToBeTakei]

I agree with this a lot. Speaking forcefully is not an inherently and universally better form of communication. It can be the best way to deal with certain situations, but am I the only one who read this:

and found the second example problematic too? Maybe Mr OkToBeTakei and his friend have that kind of relationship, but I expect people, regardless of gender, to show respect for my right to say no.

He would most definitely have respected his friend if he had said no. Then moved on to the next solution/friend. He would have given it no thought.

*I* on the other hand would have felt uncomfortable and given it way too much thought. So really his way is better it gets results, does not beat around the bush and has to my knowledge never offended anybody. He also is far more brutal when dealing with his business and yes at times I cringe, but I think I cringe because 'women's register' is ingrained in my social contact etiquette.

ETA For clarity Scottish people are extremely forthright anyway to put in a cultural setting for those who are not this way.