The Misnomer of 'Manterruptions'

The politics of interrupting are more complicated than most headlines suggest. Emilie shares an unpopular opinion, but Bridget's not necessarily convinced.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emilyn, and this is and you're listening
to stuff Mom never told you, so be yes, Eve
a little like psycho about this topic we're talking today.

(00:28):
So this is a perfect example of just as a disclaimer, y'all,
Emily's unpopular opinion about to come out you because I
have been hearing the term man interrupt or, man interruption,
ma interrupting used over and over again in a lot
of headlines, and part of me wants to say, yeah,

(00:49):
stop silencing women, stop interrupting women, stop you know, policing
women's speech, and let her speak, let her hold the floor,
especially when it comes to Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren
and the Hill, or if we're talking about a presidential debate,
of course. But another part of me, the wonky nerdy

(01:10):
research junkie, has looked into these studies and maybe a
little too closely, and have come to find out that
there is very little evidence, very shaky, crappy research that
leads to hyperbolic headlines. And I as a research driven

(01:32):
human being and a feminist and very opposed two and
wary of being accused of being perpetuating feminist propaganda, and
so I think it's important that as we talk about
very real issues that affect women and inequality and injustice,

(01:52):
that we also retain a very high standard for accuracy,
because going out there perpetuating myths in the name of
gen or quality doesn't really help anybody. So today, I'm
curious to see what your reaction is going to be
to this bridget because I'm also a notorious interrupter, and
I'm aware of that. Y'all. We're gonna we're gonna talk
about that. Um, I want to really unpack why this

(02:15):
is such a troubling issue for me and why I'm
not on the bandwagon of calling out man's man not
man splaining, different, interrupting, interrupting. If you are a woman
in and you make your living bea speaking or giving presentations,
it's we've all experienced it, and so I think it
might be one of those things where you everyone has

(02:37):
a story. Everyone didn't happen. There are high profile things
that happen in politics, were in pop culture, and it
can feel very truthy that this is something that we're
living with that men interrupt more, you know, more than women.
That meant that there's a flood of men interrupted women
mid thought and it's really disrespectful and awful, and that
I I want to push back and say that I

(02:58):
think that it's possible for both of those days this
would it be true that it's true that that happens
and it doesn't feel good, but it happens as women,
and it's possible that it's true that scientifically speaking, it's not.
We don't know if it's happening on grand scale, if
men are doing it more to women. I agree with
that completely. I'm glad you put it that way because
I think there needs first and foremost, there needs to

(03:20):
be way more research done. And I have a proposal
for any scientists listening to this episode. I will lay
out for you what I think would be an actual,
well executed scientific studies. So someoney, give me money to
do this study, please, or go do this study and
tell me how it goes. Um. But here's the here's
the beef I have. The New York Times ran a

(03:40):
story recently with the headline the universal phenomenon of men
interrupting women. That's a pretty bold headline, just as bold
Glamour Magazine's headline on the topic, which is a little
older than the more recent moment with Kamal Harris inspiring

(04:01):
that New York Times piece was Yep, science confirms man
interrupting is real. Those don't sound like like this is
a subtle thing we should look into. Those sounds very definitive,
don't just have the pretty explicit. I think I think
I have less of a problem with the first headline
because they they at least are not saying this is

(04:22):
a confirmed thing. I've been saying, like, Oh, it's a phenomena,
universal phenomena. They're kind of saying like what I was
saying before, which is every women have all seemed to
be dealing with this and talking about it on Twitter.
Thus it is a universal phenomena. The Glamor headline, I
think I have more of a problem with because they're
getting into some scientific evidence that I have a lot
of questions about. Yes, and so we're gonna unpack those

(04:43):
studies in a second, But first I want to ask
a couple of questions too that that unpack the underlying
assumptions when we talk about man interruptions. First, is is
an interruption definitively a reflection enough power, disrespect or respect?
Or is it could it be? And I'm very defensive

(05:06):
about this could it be a natural way of completing
each other's sentences, of speaking communally, of you know, chatter
with your girlfriends. Does context make a difference to that?
I think that's so not to interrupt, but I think
that's so true, right. It depends on Like most things,

(05:27):
that depends on relationships and the context. My best friend's
definition shout out to Stephany people always tell us that
when we have like when we're at brunch, when we
have a long conversation, it shuts us. It turns into
just us yelling over each other in a very excited
way and some people. For some people, that would be maddening.
But it's just how we communicate with each other as
people who have known each other for forever and ever

(05:49):
and ever. We see eye to eye on a bunch
of things. We get excited about the same things we
want to agree verbally. Are you trying not to interrupt
me right now? Because you're hamfully trying, I'm like know why.
It's because our cementy listeners have sometimes kindly and sometimes
not so kindly, called me out for my desire to

(06:09):
provide verbal feedback almost continuously or verbal agreement. So I'm
constantly over here like, M yes, get it. I'm like
cheering you on, and people are like, get out of
my earbuds. I'm trying to listen to bridget like shut
up at M l A. But I think if most
people and the right, I think it's different when you
have a podcast. But I think for most folks, if

(06:30):
they had a microphone recording a conversation over brunch, they
would be surprised how often they interrupted their friends. I
think you're just trying to be nice to me, but
I'm going to take it. I appreciate it. Um. So
that's the first underlying question or underlying assumption to I
want to push back on. Maybe, like me, you grew
up in a household where air time was limited because
there were six of us around every dinning dinning dining

(06:52):
dinner table, and you know, we had to compete for
airtime and listening to Listening is a skill that can
be taught and learned that I was not, frankly exposed
too much as a kid, So I you know, I
have painfully tried to learn how to be a better listener. Uh,

(07:14):
And my default is feeling entitled to speak. Well, it's
like that that question they ask when people are talking,
do you listen or do you wait to speak? And
I think I definitely wait to speak, really and I
think I've gotten I've taken Honestly. One of the things
that's made it easier for me to listen is going

(07:34):
to therapy, because they really highlight when someone you're in therapy,
when you say something mirroring back what they've said, to
show that you understand, that you've digested it, that you've
internalized it. And if you if someone is just like
black blah blah blah blah blah, and then when you
they stop, you are talking about something else and really
to get back to you, you're not showing that you've

(07:56):
internalized it, digested it, and you that you can, you know,
get it back to them. So being in therapy is
something that will really help you at least helped me
understand how to listen better and how to you know,
glean things from what people are saying, rather than just
wanting to be like, oh great, back to me again, Yeah,
exactly exactly. It's it's a harder skill. It's a harder

(08:16):
skill to learn, uh. And I think some of us
get it more than others, and we can all get better.
I definitely would include myself in that. But it just
reminds me that sometimes interrupting can be acknowledgement, can be
UH agreement or accordance, or it can be very disrespectful.
I think it really depends, and the research doesn't always

(08:40):
differentiate between the intent behind an interruption or the contact
or the contact, the formality, the power dynamic. You know,
some I think it's very offensive when your boss interrupts
only the junior women in the office continuously and not
the men. And I think there's definitely anecdotal evidence to
say that that is a chronic if experience for women

(09:00):
out there, not that the hard research, by the way,
that is out there really reinforces this. The second thing
I want to talk about underlying assumption to push background here,
do men really interrupt women more? Or do they interrupt
women as much as other women interrupt women? So that
was something about this research that I found fascinating is

(09:22):
that everybody, we're all just interrupting women. Men are doing it,
women are doing it perhaps more if this, if this
research is to be you know, trusted, more than than
men are doing it. So everybody is interrupting women. Women
can't finish a freaking sentence pathetically. And that's why, I mean,

(09:43):
one of the conclusions I'm starting to draw personally here
is that the way women speak. I'm not saying this
is victim blaming, that we're inviting this or we're the
ones to blame here, but the way women tend to
speak sometimes leaves us open to being interrupted at a
higher rate than men. And so I, you know, obviously

(10:04):
let's talk about some of the public instances where we've
seen this, because this gets everybody riled up on the internet.
I get it. I wanna, you know, buy a Nevertheless,
she persisted T shirt too, when who it was that
was Elizabeth Warren was told she was warned she was
but nevertheless she resisted. And I find that persistence admirable.

(10:27):
I think all women did well. I think most women
who you know tweeted it out a million times did
because in the light of someone trying to interrupt you,
she asserted herself, she didn't allow herself to be interrupted. Yeah,
And I think what's important to note is that with
Elizabeth Warren's example, it was almost this meta interruption because
Warren was trying to read this letter by Kreta Scott

(10:49):
King opposing Jeff Sessions talking about how awful he was
and that Warren was not permitted, so creta Scott King
was not permitted to sort of speak through right. Did
you hear how I just interrupted, Bridget? Did you hear
how that happen? It happens. This is a very meta,
sorry meta episode. I don't mean to do it with
disrespect either, No, I know, and I think painful speaking

(11:11):
about the like sentence construction and sort of speaking in
ways that make it easy to interrupt. I am known
for like a long run on sentence. I am like
known for this. I love a winding, winding road of
a sentence, and those are the kind of sentences that
are very easy to interrupt. Yes, she said, after taking

(11:32):
a beat and a breath and trying not to be
the ignorant co host. Um. Yes, and that's that's what
actually has come out of to me. Is made in
the most compelling way in some of the research I've read,
which is again, I might be projecting here because I
am accused of interrupting you often, Bridget, But this way

(11:55):
of speaking mid conversation interruptions or mid sort of sentence
instruction interruptions is commonly happening with people who use passive
phrasing and more dependent clauses in their speech. It opens
them up to being interrupted male or female. Now, A
dependent clause, let's unpack that for a second is defined

(12:15):
as a group of words with a subject and a verb.
It does not express a complete thought, so it is
not a sentence and can't stand alone. These clauses include
adverb clauses, adjective clauses, blah blah blah. You get it
right from phonetics one O one. But when we speak
in sort of casual trailing ways, to me, I always

(12:38):
feel like, whenever we're on air or not, we're always
sort of constructing a sentence together and winding our way
through a thought process. It's kind of it's more interesting
to me. I completely agree. And that's going back for
a minute to the kind of examples of ma interrupting
from in the public eye. Uh, That's why I thought
the way that Hillary Clinton was so so often interrupted

(13:01):
in the debates was so awful, because in those debates,
it's very clear, this is your time to talk, and
this is that your time to talk. It's there's no
confusion about it. You're not, you know, it's it's very
very clear. And the fact that she was so often
interrupted when it was not, you know, when it was
not someone else is tarting to talk, it was her
time to talk, that I found horrible. Exactly, So, there

(13:22):
were literal timers for how much air time you have
and and he had. And it's not like she's using
dependent clauses, y'all. She's in the middle of a gosh
darn sentence. And that I think that direct comparison made
him look compulsive, right, That's my biggest concern is looking

(13:44):
that compulsive as an interrupter. When I'm excited and I
have something to say, and I think it's I think
it adds to what you're saying, and I wish I
could talk at the same time. It meld meld minds
in that way. But that is very different than a
timed breathe moderated, sometimes not so effectively debate that the

(14:05):
rules of the game are very clear, and the animosity
was also very clear. Right because speaking of like slogans
that sprung from this last election, that's when we have
the phrase nasty woman. She was in the middle of
saying something and Trump interjected such a nasty woman in
the middle in the middle of her boy, and You're like, wow,
it almost seemed to pathological, like he can't help it.

(14:26):
It's like a tick. And I can relate in a
sad and scary, terrifying way in that part of me.
When I'm listening to podcast is like talking along with
the radio, you know what I mean. But it's not
your time. It's not your turn. And I think the
intent of equal airtime, which is something we bring to
this podcast and something that is imbued in a presidential debate,

(14:50):
is maligned when someone is constantly interrupting the other. So
I think intent really matters, power dynamic really matters. And
you know, to say in a blanket way men are
always interrupting women is not quite accurate, or at least
not based on this researcher, which we're going to unpack,

(15:12):
I promise in a second. But it also um simplifies
what is actually a very complex, uh conversational habit. You
know what I would like to see bridget I would
like to see because of this dependent clause usage setting
women up. If in fact, women use dependent clauses and

(15:32):
passive speech more than men. It sets them up as
women to be more often interrupted. To test that, researchers
take note, to test that assumption, we should have an experiment.
There should be an experiment out there in which, um,
they test whether gender or passive speech is the bigger
indicator of interruption. All it would take is having men

(15:55):
and women researchers engage in conversation for a few minutes.
The test subjects and well, obviously test subjects would be man,
male and female, and they could test men man to
man and woman to woman and man to woman and
woman to man interruptions. But have both the man and
woman who are the researchers be trained to basically read

(16:16):
off of a passive script, right, have both of them
use passive special fascinating? I think to add to that,
it will be interesting to add the nuance of like race.
You know, um, I remember watching this documentary It's it's
hilarious talking funny, and it has these four comedians, It's
Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Luis c K and Rickey Gerais

(16:37):
and they're all like, it's just like them sitting on
a stage having a conversation. Then, because they're all hilarious,
the conversation it's hilarious, but I did know. I was like,
I feel like Chris Rock is getting interrupted by the
other men more and I could. And part of it
is like, these are four hilarious, you know, powerhouses of comedy.
No women, surprisingly because women aren't funny. Um, they should

(17:00):
do a remake with Amy Schumer and Samantha Yeah, I
would love that. Jessica Williams in um my favorite comedian
of all time, Wanda Psykes, which I feel like she
gets forgotten but she's hilarious. Go back and watch her.
She's hilarious. Um. But yeah, part of it is that
you have these funny men who were all funny, all
got something funny to say, but you can't help but

(17:23):
watch these dynamics that play. That you've got Jerry Seinfeld,
the richest and most successful comedian of all time, blah
blah blah, and Chris Rock's also successful and also probably
very rich. But you can't help but see power dynamics
at play. And it's unclear whether or not it's something's
going on or if it's just funny people who are
all friends talking. And I wonder do you think they

(17:45):
got called out for it? Because I get called out
for it, and I wonder if we call out women
interrupts more than male interrupted. I definitely think that's there's
something to that because I don't I don't think anybody
would have ever tweeted at them like Jerry let Chris
finish his thought. Don't think that whatever happened, Yeah, I
think it really boils down to entitlement and power and

(18:06):
who we see is having something to say. And that's
where I think, you know, the reasons so many of
us find those moments of women in power with something
to say getting shut down so offensive and so triggering
really is because we've all been a woman with something

(18:27):
to say in a room where somebody assumes we don't
have something to say. Yeah. Just recently, there was this
really kind of viral example of a female scientist who
was at a panel with I think three men on.
The scientist's name is Veronica hub Me, and she was
basically being constantly interrupted by the moderator. And what made

(18:48):
it worse is that this was sort of a combination
of so called man interrupting and man explaining, because the
moderator was clearly explaining her own research to her. And
eventually there was where she just kind of sits back,
and they all the men just all talk, and somebody
from the audience eventually screams, let her finish her thought,
because you know, it's her theory, right, And so I

(19:09):
think people gathered this is a woman with something to say.
This is her theory. She should be talking about it,
and they won't let her. So I think that context
definitely matters. Yeah, and in that case, like, it's not
like she wasn't using the right phrasing, So we can't
victim blame universally. Um, let's let's dive into the research
when you come back from a quick break, because there's
three studies that are often cited on this and are

(19:35):
really falling short unfortunately at proving what is probably a
very real phenomenon. So we'll be right back after a
quick break. And we're back and we're trying really hard
not to interrupt each other. No, we're not just kidding, um,

(19:56):
but you know this comes from a good place. So
let's talk through some of the research that is commonly
cited in articles like glamour magazines. You know, yup, this
is a thing that really exists, that science confirms it
or is often cited in the New York Times and elsewhere,
the first of which is one of the most recent
studies that was done in two thousand fourteen at George

(20:20):
Washington University. In the study, they had forty participants, twenty
of whom were male. Uh that they set up with
three minute conversations, so they monitored and recorded a three
minute long conversation between men speaking with men, men speaking

(20:40):
with women, women speaking with men, and women speaking with women.
On average, the study concluded that women in the study
interrupted women two point nine times on average over the
course of a three minute conversation, so it's just about
an interruption a minute, which is probably what we've been averaging.

(21:01):
And then men interrupted women two point one times on average,
which is almost a whole third less than women interrupted women.
So really women are interrupting women more than men are
interrupted women. But that's not the headlines it but the
headline is man interruptions and more like beyond that is

(21:22):
that and this is where there is some credence to this,
that men interrupted other men one point eight times, so
that is you know, a whole third, no, not even
a third, it's point three difference. The point three difference
in terms of how often men interrupt women versus interrupt men. Right,
that's not very significant. Yeah, it's not. And honestly, that

(21:43):
reminds me just anecdotally of you know, being in a
lot of progressive professional spaces. I've actually found men who
are very and I'm not saying this is all men,
because Lord knows there's some interrupters out there that will
shut up, but at least my experience, I've been around
a lot of men in progressive spaces especially, who are
very particular about interrupting women, and they they'll say, like,

(22:05):
if they find themselves interrupting, they'll say like, oh, no,
I don't want to interrupt finish your thought. That is
something that I think a lot of spaces have tried
to normalize. But this research really aligns with that that
maybe men aren't the ones doing all the interrupting. Yeah,
so clearly women are being interrupted more than men are
being interrupted, but it's not necessarily by men. So how

(22:26):
can we take this and run with it and say, oh,
men are the perpetuators of interruptions. They're not, according to
this research, by the way, which has forty participants total,
which is free compuni. Okay, it's a really small really
small sample size, the differences are not that statistically significant,
And you know, one way of looking at this research
is saying, Wow, women interrupt women more than anybody. Yeah,

(22:48):
and and really women just aren't being able to finish
their thoughts or their sentences, regardless of whether it's a
man or a woman on the other side of that
interruption exactly. The other thing that I thought found interesting
about the study is that they concluded that when speaking
with a female, participants interrupted more clearly and used more
dependent clauses than when speaking with a male interested So

(23:11):
it's like, the people who are speaking to these women,
even though they were interrupting, we're using more passive language.
And I think that, to me is the very interesting
part I'd like to lean into and get more more
research done on. And maybe there is more out there,
but y'all have to help me find it, because we
we've been looking and this is These are the commonly
cited linked to, as you know, taken as pure evidence,

(23:34):
totally conclusive evidence that writen Ma interrupting is real, which
I find really problematic. And this other study that's often cited,
which I think is just it really tells you a
lot about the research is out there, that fact that
this is a sided so often. It's from nineteen and so,
first of all, that's a really old study things of

(23:54):
you know, I mean I don't I'm a scientist, but
like I would imagine things maybe are different. You know,
I wouldn't rely on a study from seventy five to
make claims about what's going on with men and women. Now,
that's probably interesting when it comes to speech, correct, it's
something that's changing so quickly that you know, historically young
women have been linguistic innovators. Remember we talked about, you know,

(24:15):
these things changed very quickly, and they changed quickly, so
we shouldn't be basing you know, large, large, boombastic claims
on you know, the study. So the study was from
seventy came out of UC Santa Barbara, and basically, despite
being very old, they only looked at thirty one quote
conversational segments overhood and coffee shops and drug stores on campus.

(24:37):
And so they don't know what these people are peers.
They don't know if it's a student meeting with a
professor or you know, two friends who've been friends forever.
They don't know the context of what kind of conversations
are having, and so from the study, three quarters of
the thirty one conversational segments analyzed in this paper were
two party interactions recorded in coffee shops, drug stores, and
other public places in the university community. Such places reviewed

(25:00):
as routine settings in which everyday chit chat takes place,
but kind of talking we all do, even others are
likely to overhear us. So not even all of these
conversational segments had the same number of parties involved. Right,
So it just seems like apples to oranges, three people
around a brunch table versus one, you know, professor talking
to a student. So different, it's so different, and so

(25:22):
it just seems to me it's I wouldn't be if
I was a journalist, I would not be basing this
claim that, oh, this happens a lot or women are experience.
I think it's fine to have that be an anecdotal
thing where people on Twitter are fired up about men
interrupted women, because that's true. But I wouldn't then try
to ground it in some scientific evidence if that evidence

(25:42):
is just a little bit lack. And that's where, like
you mentioned earlier, the New York Times headline is slightly better,
but Here's a paragraph that they put in in this
New York Time story as they introduced the phenomenon. They say,
quote academic studies and countless anecdotes make it clear that
being interrupted, talked over, shutdown, or penalized for speaking out
is nearly a universal experience for women when they are

(26:05):
outnumbered by men. So yeah, that's true. But I mean
I'm just looking at the language. Now. You know what
they say here is that being interrupted, So they don't
even say by men, just being interrupted, So really that
is yea, that is true, that is true, right, women
are interrupted more than men, but man interruption And the

(26:25):
headline says the universal phenomenon of men interrupting women not
as true. But again I think I think that could
be true. Yeah, Like, not to get nippicky, but calling
it a universal I would say that calling it a
universal phenomena is not incorrect because it's something that women

(26:45):
clearly are dealing with. We have personal examples that women
are talking about on Twitter. We have like high profile
examples Kanye West, Taylor Swift, what have you, And so
I think it's not it would be a little bit much,
but it's not wrong to glean that this is a
universal phenomena in the sense that like it's something that happens,
Like you could say the universal phenomena of I don't

(27:05):
know anything and not have it be I wasn't ready
for that. I see, I had not I didn't interrupt that. Yeah,
and that sentence construction. I did not have an example.
You're coraborating at me that this is like the Google
Docs of conversation. You and I like to collaborate, create sentence,
my sentence, and I get yelled at, and so I
think I think it is I think it is a thing.

(27:28):
And so I just want to be clear that I'm
not saying, like when I see women on Twitter reeling
about this, I'm like, yeah, it sucks to be interrupted
and I hate it and it sucks and you should
call it out and I don't like that and go you.
But I wouldn't then say it's a fact that men
do it more than women. And I think that's gotten
that rap well because of the word band corruption, which

(27:51):
is a misnomer in my opinion, which is I know
that's an unpopular opinion to take, but I'm taking it.
So here's here's one other study that I do want
to tip my hat too, because to me, it's the
best study out there in that it actually deals with
race and power and privilege in a much more interesting
way than gender alone, without even controlling for race or

(28:13):
age like all of those other studies. I didn't see
any any acknowledgment that they were controlling for other factors,
which also seems like an oversight. But it was some
graduate students paper in, so you know, I probably didn't
she needed to graduate or something, you know what I mean.
But let's talk about the Supreme Court study. Um, and
I want to make sure I get the headline right,

(28:35):
but what it was or the name of the study right,
because it was a really interesting analysis of the Supreme
Court and in terms of the public arguments that were happening,
arguments is at the right or whatever. They were hearing
court cases. They were hearing cases in court. Things were
being recorded, thank you stenographers, so we were able to

(28:56):
really analyze word for word what was happening. And what
was interesting is they looked at how often judges or
justices rather interrupted other justices, and how often advocates a
k a Like attorneys and plaintiffs and all that jazz
were interrupting the justices. Even though that is expressly forbidden,

(29:20):
it happens. So this is called justice interrupted. The effect
of gender, ideology and seniority at Supreme Court oral arguments.
So they were not only looking at gender, but they
were looking at partisanship or ideology, like, this is a
conservative person interrupting a more liberal justice and uh, seniority,
how long have you been serving on the bench? So

(29:40):
check out these findings. We find that judicial interactions at
oral argument are highly gendered, with women being interrupted at
disproportionate rates by their male colleagues as well as by
male advocates. Oral argument interruptions are also highly ideological, not
only because ideological foes interrupt each other far more than

(30:03):
ideological allies do, but we show that conservatives interrupt liberals
more frequently than vice versa. Seniority also has some influence
on oral arguments, but primarily through the female justices learning
over time how to behave more like male justices, avoiding

(30:24):
traditionally female linguistic framing in order to reduce the extent
to which they are dominated by the men. So that's
really fascinating. Um. First of all, conservatives be interrupting, not surprising. Um.
I also I mean this really to me takes me
back to the episode we did around women in policing speech.
I think, if you it's not surprising to me that

(30:46):
female justices sort of learned to speak in a way
that was that would mean that we be they be
interrupted less. But I don't know that I like that,
because I don't like the idea that in order for
a supremn justice to get her point across, she needs
to be more like a man. I think that the
answer should be, you know, people should follow the freaking

(31:06):
rules and not interrupt that they're not supposed to. Um.
I'm such more of a pragmatist on this front. So
here's where all my training at bossed Up comes into play,
because I'm constantly saying to the women who I work
with and who I train, especially on my most popular topic,
which is assertive communication, which is, there's nothing wrong with
the way you speak. Here's how to speak. If you

(31:28):
want to get that raise, here's how to speak. If
you're in an interview, here's how to speak and you
want to be interrupted. And the reality is that the
way that women are socialized to speak or naturally speak,
whatever nature or nurture argument you want to take on
that does not always set you up to be respected,
even though it should. It should, but we got to
play the cards we've been dealt in the world that
we've you know, that we live in. And I'm way

(31:50):
more practical saying good on you. So to Mayora, especially
because she was interrupted more than anyone. Well, she's a
woman of colors exactly, and so they were acknowledging that
although again sample size problem here one woman of color,
you know, and Clarence notoriously doesn't speak. He said like

(32:11):
a sentence his whole time, and it made the headline,
so they couldn't even include his oral arguments as part
of the sample. So it really was like a seven
person sample with a one person of color, you know.
Variable it's hard to draw conclusions, but the study really
acknowledged like, these are questions we need to learn more about,
you know, is power based on gender, you know, compounded

(32:32):
by race? And so do Mayor's case in that it
set her up to be interrupted more than anybody. I
would venture to say, yes, But again the research here
is not perfect, but interestingly so do Mayor did it
sort of adapted faster? Which isn't that interesting? If you
have been a woman of color your whole life, and
you've had to adapt from a gender perspective and a

(32:53):
racial perspective because of the way that the world police
is your speech. It doesn't surprise me that maybe she learned,
not learned, but adapted the fast. So the inc article
on this study that was titled how Ruth Bader Ginsburg
cut down on the Supreme Court's ma interrupting cites that
during their time on the Court, O'Connor, Ginsburg and Elena
Kagan cut their use of this sort of language they're

(33:16):
talking about passive language in half. So Mayor did it faster.
By the end of her first term, she had cut
so called polite phrasing from seventy five percent of her
questions to twenty, putting her in league with the Mail justices.
So she really learned with the quickness. And again that
doesn't surprise me at all in a world where women

(33:38):
of color often asked to adapt and change, and you know,
do this to not be threatened to this if you're
to the reatenaing with this to you know, in all
the ways, I think it doesn't surprise me that she,
you know, learned to adapt or adapted so quickly. Right,
So I think I want to talk about what we
can do to avoid interruptions in a second, but but
I think we should probably take a quick break. I

(34:00):
just want to conclude this segment by saying, Yo, cognitive
linguistics scientists out there, please point me in the direction
of better research on this, or let's get some better
research on the books, because if we are going around
perpetuating the phrase ma interruption, which I think is a misnomer,
we are going to get called out for perpetuating propaganda

(34:22):
in a world that clearly interrupts women more. But I
don't think it's there's strong enough conclusive empirical evidence to
say that men are the ones perpetuating it. Sorry on
popular opinion. Sorry not sorry. Yeah, let's talk more about
that when we come back from this word from our
sponsor and we're back just talking about some you know,

(34:48):
really getting heated talking about interruptions, and we all do it,
and women are getting interrupted left and right, um, and
there's really it's obnoxious to be interrupted, I think in
a lot of different contexts, and we wanted to talk
through some things you can do about it on both ends,
both as the interrupter, and the interrupted. And so one
of the things I was talking about earlier is active listening.
And this is something that I used to be terrible at,

(35:11):
and it was through things like therapy, through training, through
just really thinking about the ways that we listen that
I think I hopefully got a little bit closer to
someone who really listens. I'm not someone who waits to
talk and is listening to the absorbing the information that
someone else is telling me. And so really, I just
like with our police who given speech episode, I am

(35:35):
my advice as always, well, what if, why do the
women have to change themselves? Why don't the men change themselves?
But as a society change and so I think we
should all be better at active listening and getting better
at that. I agree. And as someone who has a
lot of trouble with that myself, I have found uh
in a in a it's it reminds me of the
advice I give often on buzzwords, how to eliminate buzzwords,

(35:56):
which are meaningless verbal ticks. Right, So if you if
you have trouble keeping your mouth shut like I do
and don't want to be interrupting, substitute the vocal like
the vocalization with some other physical manifestation, but snapping, And
if you have ever been like in an activist space,
people snap to agree, and that comes from because you

(36:18):
don't want to interrupt what they're saying, but you want
to or occupy. We used up twinkles, so when you
are really into something, you would twiggle your fingers and
point them upwards to indicate agreement. But you don't have
to stop what they're saying. And it's easier from a
physiological standpoint. Apparently I don't have the research right in
front of me, but I remember when I was researching
for our curriculum on a sort of communication. It's easier

(36:39):
to substitute instead of eliminate. It's hard to eliminate the
iteration of the utterance right. Instead, I like to nod vigorously,
which sometimes makes my head fall off in the studio,
in replacement of, or at least I'm attempting to get
better at nodding verbally. So replace your vocalization with a
physical movement, like if you like me, struggle with that.

(37:03):
It's tough, it's really, I mean it's tough. I think
we must keep in mind that women interrupt women too,
and you know, question why question your underlying assumptions. Question
whether you're interrupting people who you see is having more
authority or power or credence for some reason. Is there
unconscious bias there based on race and gender? Probably take

(37:26):
an implicit bias test, like check your privileges and check
your biases when it comes to interrupting. But just know
that women perpetuate that bs as much as men do. Yeah,
I think it's and I think that's the like just
to lift up from that. I think that's really difficult
advice because it's very hard to unpack, you know, ugly
stuff that's inside of us, right, the things that when

(37:47):
we I think we all have motivations for things that
we do, whether they're you know, small things, are big
things that we that it might be difficult to turn
a lens in at. That's hard for everybody. It's hard
for me, it's hard for you. And I think that
is really a challenge. Like when you interrupt somebody, unpack
why that is? Do you find yourself interrupting women more

(38:08):
or women of color more? Are people who are more
senior or more junior like? And what what could it mean?
Maybe it means nothing, Maybe it means you're really excited
to talk about this topic, or maybe it doesn't mean that. Well,
that's why this has been such a horror like and
I don't want to say horrible, but a really vulnerable
experience for the first couple of months of going live
with you. Because the last thing I want to be

(38:30):
seen as is a woman who is silencing a woman
of color who I respect and admires, I adore you.
I mean, holy crap, you don't want the antithesis of
my intent in my career. And yet I have gotten
some very legitimate criticism about that, and you know, I
think it. It was really hard, and it was very

(38:52):
guilt inducing and shame inducing, and you know, to look
at that underlying thing and ask myself and my interrupt
doing bridget because she's a woman of color, and that's
that is a hard question, an uncomfortable question to ask ourselves.
Agree here here? So what else? What else can we do? Um?
We have a couple other pieces of advice here that

(39:14):
I found interesting. I'm again I'm the big advocate for
you know, love the way you speak. You can speak
the way you want to speak, but when you want
to be strategic, maybe like a supreme Court Justice wants
to be strategic about preventing interruptions. Learn to speak more assertively,
and that sounds like reducing the length of pauses in

(39:36):
your phrasing whenever possible, thinking about intonation ending not with
up speak as though you're continuing your thought and you're
just keep on going and you're sort of meandering vocally.
But instead speak like a gymnast like Yabby Douglas flying
off the balance being example, landing stick your landing like

(39:57):
a gymnast, and you know, say you're point, and if
you do get interrupted, you can say, oh, no, I'm
not quite done yet. Oh that's a good way to
to to come back from I'm not quite done yet. Yes,
And I'm pairing that here in the studio with a
hand gesture, you know, putting up your hand and saying
I'm not quite finished, putting up a finger and saying,
let me finish my thought, hold on just a second.

(40:18):
Hillary Clinton does that masterfully whenever she's not whenever, but
often when she's interrupted. I've seen her do it on
the debate stage and say hold on, let me finish that.
And then of course someone snaps a photo of her
with wagon her finger and says Hillary Cluton's an upity,
you know what. So it's you know, of course it's
not a perfect solution, but if you want to develop

(40:40):
your a sort of communication, you can. It is a
skill that can be developed, and it can, you know,
help you speak in a more active tone and use
less passive phrasing instead of saying, and this is straight
out of that ink article around the Justice is instead

(41:00):
of starting your phrasing with may I ask? Or could
I ask? Or excuse me? Would you mind if I
clarified this? You know, that sort of disclaimer type approach
at the qualifying approach to just getting to your point. Yeah.
And another really exciting, at least for me, exciting example
of ways that women have found to kind of gamify
being interrupted is um from the women of the White

(41:23):
House and your Obama administration this great amplification strategy. They
noticed they were getting interrupted. They people were taking credit
for their ideas, and so when one woman would state
an idea, they would all amplify it, and so they
would they would say it again, and they would give
credit back to the originator of that idea. So if
you've said I think we should do X, y Z,

(41:44):
and someone interrupted you or moved on or didn't you know,
spend time with that idea. Someone else would say, well,
it's just like Emily was just suggesting she thinks we
should do X, Y Z, and it forces people to
take a beat and deal with what the you know
what the women in the room have said. Yeah, it's
kind of like active listening, but in a proactive allied way.

(42:06):
Verbal active listen. Yeah, it's like a vocalization of active listening.
So maybe the person who immediately spoke after you didn't
actively listen because they moved on to just they were
waiting to talk. They were waiting to talk and not
really listening. That's a great strategy. I love that there's
a Washington Post article all about it, the women of
the White House, like how they made sure people got
credit for their ideas. I love definitely include that. So

(42:27):
there's one other stupid So there's no other way to
put it. I think this is the dumbest thing I
came across in this whole research. And y'all remember the
the chrome app that we kind of threw some shade
at during the whip policing women's speech. That helps you
eliminate passive language when writing an email or whatever, stop
saying sorry and all that good stuff. There's another app

(42:51):
for being interrupted for ma interruption. It's called women Women Interrupted,
which is like a play on girl interrupting, which shout
out who was that was that Winona was in Angela?
That was disturbed Susannah Casey. I loved that. I could
do an episode all about it because I watch it
like every month. We shouldn't. Also, the late Pretty Murphy

(43:15):
I love, She's great. Rolling with the homie, Yeah, clueless,
we should do an episode. Oh my god, don't even
get me started. We're gonna have to do that. Okay. Anyway,
we were about to make fun of this terrible, stupid
app that I think is the dumbest thing I've heard
of all day. Um to put it assertively, So there's
this app, women Interrupted that supposedly picks up on vocal

(43:36):
tone in a way that would tell you whether you
have a man's voice or a woman's voice, which, first
of all, that's really a rude limited It's not it's
gender is not that simple. Yeah, it's just totally erasist.
Transgender people from that spectrum, or women who have deeper
voices or men who have Yeah, so there's that, and
then it automatically picks up on supposedly when how many

(43:59):
times you've been interrupted, and it just tells you that
number at the end of the day, so you can
look at your phone and be like, I'm terrible. I
allowed myself to be interrupted to any live times today.
It's like, how unhelpful and statistic is that. I don't
get how that would make anything. What that do for you?
It would make you feel bad. Yeah, at the end
of the day, it's like, oh, I didn't feel bad enough.
It's being interrupted all day. Now I have an actual

(44:21):
like timer telling me how many times it happen. It's
like wearable tech gone awry. Yeah. I generally this is
a whole other episode. But I generally hate anything where
it's a a clunky tech solution for women. I hate
that to a feminist issue like I remember there was
a very well meaning group of scientists who designed nail

(44:42):
polish that you could dip your fingers into your drink
and it would tell you if your drink had been
spicefeed And I thought like, maybe we should tell boys
not to roofy with right. I thought that was I
had a real problem with that I know. It's it's
just like all of our STEM classes are going, you know,
overdosing on gender quality. I get it. They're like, how
can we make technology interesting for women? Let's make it

(45:04):
a date rape technology, or let's make it a pink
you know, let's pink a fy the Lincoln logs and
it's we should. We could do a whole lot on
that anyway, hopefully, y'all. I don't think we're that mean,
but but I just had to say, like that that
app is not the solution here. I I'm curious to
hear how this goes over because I was looking on

(45:26):
the internet, was like, tell me there's another level headed
feminist out there who has said interruption is a myth,
like the science doesn't back it up. Yes, we have
boatloads of anecdotal evidence, but that's not enough for me
to point the finger at all men and say, men,
you should feel bad because you're interrupting women more when
the one study that actually measures the difference shows that

(45:50):
women interrupt women. So I think, honestly, it's not um
prudent or responsible to even perpetuate this the word man interruption.
I don't even think that it makes sense or that
that word in and of itself holds water based on
the current research we have, and I hope to be

(46:11):
proven wry, I hope. So are you officially advocating that we, like,
we get rid of the word. I think it's a misnumber.
I do. I think that women interrupt women too, and
I think that interrupting women is not cool, especially when
uh power, gender race combine. But I don't I don't
feel comfortable personally using the word man interruption as though

(46:35):
that's a empirically, you know, solved reality. I mean, here's
the thing. If you're a woman interrupting Hillary Clinton on
the debate stage, it's not going to make headline. So
I think there's an overreporting car Hillary Clinton. That's not

(46:55):
a headline. So I think there's a higher likelihood that
Mitch McConnell makes headlines for being a jerk to Elizabeth
Warren the same exact action being taken against another man.
So I think there's a higher level of reporting happening
on that front. We really need some better science before
I feel comfortable using that term. And I think, but
I think it's just like you said, it plays into
a certain cultural dynamic that is that has immerged, and

(47:19):
I don't think that cultural dynamic is necessarily wrong. Do
you get it? I hope so. I mean, honestly, I
actually do want to hear um. I want to hear
your I mean, I'm sure we all have our interruption stories.
I want to hear these interruption stories. I want to
hear if folks think that MA interrupting is a thing,

(47:39):
and even if the science has not proven it yet,
it could or will or should. I'm really curious to hear.
I know that a lot of the people out there
probably have um have dealt with this in a personal way.
If you're if you're a dude, I want to know
what you know, what steps are you taking to be
sure that your female colleagues are being heard. You can
tweet at us at mom Stuff podcast on Twitter. You

(48:01):
can hit us up on Instagram at stuff mom ever
told you, or send us a good old fashioned email,
which we love reading so much at mom Stuff at
how stuff works dot com