If women don’t talk about men all the time, what do we talk about?

Remember the Bechdel Test? It’s that set of three rules that helps determine the presence of women in TV and movies? Rule 3 stipulates that two women must discuss something other than a man. Back when I wrote that overview, some hilarious internet denizen wrote back, “but women do mostly talk about men…” Hardee har har. Bro, I think you’ve been watching a little too much SATC.

Though his joke was clearly stupid, it did make me wonder how much of what I discuss with my girlfriends has to do with dating, men, sex, etc. We like data and graphs around here, so we did a little experiment. My best friend and I gchat much of the day most days. Although our gchats are in no way a comprehensive view of communication (lacking face-to-face, phone, text, and email), there’s no reason to think they aren’t a reasonable proxy for our typical patterns of communication.

I went through and tagged two weeks worth of gchats with their subject matter and the amount of time devoted to each item. Then, I graphed that as a ratio of the whole. Bottom line: Gentlemen, we hardly talked about you at all. 

Related Post: What are the most common names of men I’ve dated?

Related Post: Caitlin Moran’s How to Be a Woman

Josh: “In jobland you’re straight makin’ cheddar”

Yesterday, I wrote about the Clay Shirkey essay on gender, ambition, and being a douchebag. Short version: Being an arrogant asshole will land you in jail more often, but it will also land you big money/influence/power more often.

My friend Josh gchatted me about the article, and I think you might find the whole convo an interesting follow up to yesterday’s post:

josh: i read you’re post, it’s good

me: what post?

josh: the being cocky post

me: ah

  yeah

  i need to figure out how to do that

  before i try asking for a raise

josh: “we both know that i’m the shit, give me more to do and more money to do it”

me: yes, that’s the atttitude

  but i literally don’t know what words to say

josh: turn each of those clauses into like 4 sentences a peice

me: lol

josh: don’t use “I think” or “I could/would”

  use I am, I will

me: i need to practice

josh: maybe that would help

   but that’s just an admission that you have something to be nervous about

me: well, that’s how i feel!

josh: and when you’re confident, you’re not nervous about shit

 yeah, but you shouldn’t be

  you’re not going to get fired for asking for more responsibility, so there are no stakes

  and when there are no stakes, there’s nothing to worry about

me: that is the most male thing i’ve ever heard

  because in girl land

  there are stakes

  and the stakes are

  what if they don’t like me?

josh: yeah, but that doesn’t make sense in jobland

me: i realize this is EXACTLY the point of Shirkey’s essay

  i don’t want to be seen as arrogant

  or overstepping

josh: in jobland you’re straight makin’ cheddar

me: right

  it’s just a hurdle that i have to get over

  and i will

  and if he thinks i’m being arrogant, well, it doesn’t actually matter

josh: yeah man

me: easier said than done

 um… can i copy this convo into a blog post? at least the part of it at the end?

josh: oh, sure

me: cool

 it illustrates so clearly the exact difference i was talking about!

josh: yeah i see it

me: you see no stakes, i see public perception stakes

josh: what matters re: a boss is ultimately their perception of you as a hustler

  and you will be displaying that

me: this is obvious to you, it’s not obvious to everyone

kj

So what did we learn? 

1. It’s dangerous being my friend… I’ll take your gchats public.

2. In Josh’ world, stakes are purely professional. In my world, stakes are both professional and social. I want to be successful, but I also want to be liked. I want my smiling face and positive attitude to be a conduit to promotion, but that’s not really how it works. Arrogance, ambition, and a little bravado are better bets, even if those qualities impact my popularity. I suspect that those traits aren’t as admired in women as they are in men. The question is, am I will to dock myself the team-player points which make me well-liked in favor of a few BAMF points that might leader to bigger and better things?

kj

Related Post: Are millenial ladies quitters? What an idiotic article.

ljk

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Sunday Scraps 28

1. REAL: This Hanne Blank essay is featured on I Came to Run this week. It’s the best, most succinct explanation of why any attempt to define what makes a “real woman” is a futile exercise.

2. DATING: The Hairpin did a March Madness style tournament to find The Most Amusingly Horrible Thing Significant Others Have Said. There are some doozies.

3. SPORTS: NYMag summarizes all the reasons why they think a big name male athlete will come out any day now, and why the should.

4. CANCER: Rebecca Armendariz at GOOD writes about how her gchat archives are a record of life she built with Clark, and the cancer battle they fought and lost together. Prepare yourself, this is not a read for public places (unless you are cool with crying in public, which some people are).

5. CAKE: This is Smitten Kitchen entry is a) an amazing recipe for red wine cake that I will be making shortly, and b) the best “how we met” story ever.

6. JANE: The Advocate interviews Jane Lynch about stepmotherhood, coming out, and her incredibly diverse career.

Related Post: “Risk,” Maurice Sendak, inside the mind of a two-year-old = Sunday 27.

Related Post: High heels, are girls bad at math?, and the accuplacer = Sunday 26