Are women bigger whiners?

After a long, tough day, sometimes all you want to do is blow off steam by complaining. But is venting worth the emotional toll that getting trapped in a negativity spiral can take? Cristen and Caroline discuss the pros and cons of complaining and dissect why women are stereotyped as nags.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stuff mom never told you. From house topports
dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline. And Caroline A stuff my mom did
tell me when I was a kid. Don't nag? Oh?

(00:24):
Do you not nag me? Oh? Yeah? Would you nag
your mother? They were probably times when I did repeatedly
ask her for the same thing. So I don't know though,
whether her suggesting requesting that I not nag her was

(00:45):
more a product of her being a stressed out mother
of five and also working, or if I really was
a little nag running around. Yeah, I don't I this
is going to be another one of those episodes where
there's a lot of real talk and a lot of
like looking looking deep inside Kristen. I mean, I don't
mean looking deep inside Kristen, I mean looking deep inside myself. Comma, Kristen,

(01:08):
you can look inside of me too and talk about
all of our complaining. Um, because really, sometimes there's nothing
better than a really good wine. Yeah. But are those
three distinct things, nagging, complaining and whining? Nagging? Is they're
all related? Obviously, it's not a stretch to imagine how

(01:30):
those things are related. Um, complaining and nagging are a
little bit different. There's there's a little Van diagram where
nagging and complaining are on separate circles and they overlap
in the middle. Um, whining. I think it's also it
would be like a three wave in diagram let's get
let's get real interesting, So whining would also be in there,

(01:52):
But that's more of like a maybe you don't want
your problem solved, you're literally just whining. Maybe you're me
and haven't had anything to eat yet and you start
to get like a little bit whiny and sound like
a four year old. Or maybe you're comedian Matt Belassie
who drinks wine and then wines about it and makes
hilarious videos out of it. Yes. No, my friend did

(02:13):
recently have a get together referred to as wine and
whining that was basically meant for us to all just
get together and complain and did it feel good? Um, well,
I think we didn't stick to the whining part of it.
I think we just chitch atted. Winning was certainly a
part of it, because I don't think you can separate

(02:34):
complaining out of any conversation. You've got to really try hard.
There are so many people out there on the internet
right now who are writing columns and blogs about how
they've tried to give up complaining for a week or
a month or a year and and what it does
to them. And it's so funny to see the difference
between the people who are so earnest about it, who

(02:55):
are like, I need to change my life, I need
to get right and live right and stop planning and
be grateful, versus the people who were like, oh, not
complaining is the worst. Complain complain, complain, because I feel
like I would be in that second camp of people
that not complaining it's the worst. Yeah, And and not

(03:16):
that I not that I don't agree that we need
all collectively too maybe complain less, be grateful more. But
there's so many different facets to complaining and what it
means for you and your friends versus maybe your boss
versus maybe your mom and your co workers. Like, there's

(03:37):
all sorts of different language and bonding connections that can
be made around complaining. And so one of those columns
we were reading by one of those women who bravely
tried to go without complaining, she ended up pointing out that,
like listen, it's a noble cause to try to stop
complaining about every single thing every minute of the day,

(03:59):
like let go lighten up. But there is something to
be said for being able to bond over a shared like, Man,
that movie was terrible or that food was gross. That's
stuff I've never told you. Podcasts, thanks, there's so much
vocal fry. Vocal fry. Yeah, I'm personally seeking more of

(04:22):
a complaint balance in my life because on the one hand,
I know that I am probably not a very productive
complainer because if there's something really really upsetting me, once
I get going, I have to tell you every single
detail of it, and that's probably too much. But then
on the other hand, if I'm not telling you anything

(04:44):
that's wrong in my life, that probably means I'm shutting
down emotionally and bottling things up and finding a happy
medium is actually kind of challenging for me. So this
research person and only was very illuminating and gave me
lots of food for thought flash complaining, because the thing

(05:09):
about it, the first complaint we can have about complaining
is that we develop in it a way from our
parents that that parent child communication me talking to my
mom and her telling me not to be a nagg.
It's all rooted back there, not surprisingly. Yeah, so it's
a learned behavior. Basically, we would use it to wear

(05:29):
our parents down to get what we wanted. And it's
often the only way that kids can communicate when they're uncomfortable.
If they're very very very young, very little kids, and
they don't have great communication skills, they might only know
how to tell you that they're uncomfortable, hungry, tired, cold,
scared by whining. And this is especially true if maybe

(05:52):
they've tried to communicate with you quietly or sweetly or
whatever previously, but you don't set down the whatever project
you're doing or whatever and look at them until they
start to throw a fit and wine. An evolutionary psychologist
would tell you that we do this because it's an

(06:13):
evolved instinct to raise a stink essentially about potential serious threat.
So now I like to imagine that like a cave woman,
Mom is pushing a grocery cart through the aisle and
she's got her cave baby, and the cave baby's like, Mom,
the saber tooth tiger watch all. And she's like, oh

(06:37):
my god, we've got to watch out of the saber
tooth tiger sye, so like it has a great evolutionary benefit,
as I just proved for avoiding saber tooth tiger attacks
in prehistoric grocery stores. Right exactly, No, I'm glad you understand. Um. Well,
so if we look at the types of adult human

(06:58):
people complainers it we deal with today, it is interesting
to see who complains and how much and why because
there are different wise of complaining. So on average, these
human people I'm referring to complain to each other about
once a minute, which sort of blew my mind. And
then I just, you know, thought about any thought process

(07:22):
or conversation I ever have, and then it made sense
and I was like, yeah, I again again. I'm just
proven research all over the place. And when it comes
to personalities, no surprise. People high on the agreeableness scale
are less likely to complain because there's so gosh they're
in agreeable. But this relationship surprised me. People with high

(07:43):
self esteem, Oh yeah, they're complainers, but they're probably complaining
differently than just your average win er. Yeah. So these
people complain with a goal, and this is what's referred
to as instrumental complaints. And these people with high self
esteem are more confident that their grievances are actually legit

(08:04):
and that speaking up will turn the tide in their favor.
So these are people who will say, instead of just
suffering with a terrible hotel room or a bad dining experience,
they will speak up. They're not gonna whine about it.
They're gonna have the facts and the logic and the
knowledge in their brain of what to say and who
to say it too, not just opening their mouths and

(08:25):
flapping their lips about how terrible an experience was. They
go into a situation with the confidence that I am
going to address this. And there's even a relationship between
that more instrumental complaining and happiness, as psychology professor Robin
Kowalski has researched, because she's looked a lot into mindfulness

(08:45):
and this idea of really focusing on the present and
its connection to happiness, because obviously, if you're more focused
on the present than all the what if surrounding you,
you're probably gonna be a little bit happier. And her
research has found that those mindful people act with more
intention and complain with more intention. They're only complaining when

(09:07):
it's serving a purpose, and that leads to happier outcomes. Yeah, exactly.
And so those are just a couple of goals of complaining.
And there are so many more. Though. I talked about
the facets of a complaint, and there are so many
and you know, maybe some of these apply to you today,

(09:28):
maybe some of them apply to you tomorrow. You can
have many different reasons for complaining. Um, But basically there
are two main types. You're either complaining about yourself or
somebody else. Right, So, when you complain about yourself, that's
called a reflexive complaint. Maybe you're complaining about how I
really screwed up that test, or God, I'm so cold,
this is awful. Um. When you're complaining about someone else,

(09:49):
that is called an ostensive complaint. And the fancy term
for venting, which would usually probably go under ostensive complaints,
would be referred to as an expressive complaints because we
have these things called intrapsychic goals, and that is the
goal of venting or these expressive complaints, because we're looking

(10:12):
to make ourselves feel better mentally. Rather than changing something,
we just need to get it off our minds inventing
that that's my problem, my VENTI problem, which makes me
think that I'm at Starbucks and I need to tell
you every single thing because I just need to get
it out of me exactly and and again. And we'll
we'll get into this a little bit later. But venting

(10:34):
is good. You need to vent, you need to blow
off steam. It becomes bad when it crosses a line
into like, Okay, well maybe you're fixated and you're obsessing
about things that you obviously can't change. And so but
don't worry. I don't want to spoil anything yet. Let's
talk some more about what's called blasting. So this falls
under venting. Uh. Kristen mentioned intrapsychic goals, which is basically

(10:54):
the goal of venting to make yourself feel better. But
there's also interpersonal goals of venting, which is called blasting.
And that's when you complain in order to distance yourself
from someone else, to demonstrate superiority or potentially distract from
your own poor performance. So complaining about oh, he's such
a bad driver, she's so messy, you're then kind of
putting yourself up a little bit higher than someone by

(11:16):
complaining about them. And then you have complaining in order
to convince others of your importance and this is distinct
from blasting, which is just to demonstrate your superiority, because
this belongs more under the old humble bragging umbrella that
we devoted an entire episode two. It's the whole thing
of like, oh, I'm so busy, I work so hard,

(11:37):
I've got so many important things to do, and it
just stresses me out so much. Do you know how
hard it is to be this beautiful? And that's all
about impression management because you want to you want to complain,
you don't want to stay out right, I'm gorgeous, love
me and said, You'll say, you know how hard it
is to be beautiful because no one can relate to you.

(11:58):
Right in the example that in Atlanta article that we
read gave for impression management was you know, going to
a fancy restaurant and complaining that they don't have the
perfect wine, the wine that you just love, because it's
it's giving an impression to your fellow diners that, like,
my standards are just so incredibly high, you wouldn't even
believe in this restaurant. Well, it's it's fine. I mean,

(12:20):
I know, it's three d dollars a plate. It's it's
just okay, talk about whining about it. But then let's
say you're at that fancy restaurant with hopefully not this
insufferable person who is really proud of his or her
wine knowledge, and you need to break the ice. Maybe
you're on a first date, or maybe things are awkward.

(12:42):
Complaining via small talk is a reliable way to bond. Yeah,
it's like it's a really quick and reliable way to
develop a poor If I come up to you at
a party and it's like, oh, hey, it's really it's fault.
It's gorgeous outside, you're like, yeah, it's it's really nice.
But if I come up to you, it's almost like

(13:02):
developing a quick unit. Complaining helps you be like, oh,
I know, I hate when that's so and so person talks,
or oh I know traffic around here is terrible, let
me tell you about what happened to me. We really
seem to get off like as humans on complaining to
each other about stuff around us, and it really ties
into the other another facet of why we complain, which

(13:25):
is to feel more validated, more supported, and less alone.
One example that we read was parents at a play
group complaining about their wild toddlers because not only are
they getting to bonds through this complaining, but they get
to feel less guilty about sort of being annoyed with
their own children because everybody else is complaining about it too.

(13:46):
And the whole thing about feeling less alone, I mean,
the wine or whoever is doing the complaining might simply
feel powerless over something, whether it is the the toddler
who's out of control, or whether it's something else in
their life. They might just not know how to soothe
themselves or take control of the situation, and so by
complaining to others, you're sort of seeking acknowledgement, like I'm

(14:09):
having a problem. I need you to acknowledge me and
validate me and tell me that I'm not crazy, and
then I'll feel better. Well, And in some regards to
you might not really know how to interact with this
particular person or group of people, because there's also the
aspect of ritualistic complaining, which I think is a common thing,
especially among co workers. You go for a happy hour

(14:30):
drinks and what are you gonna do. You're gonna say
all of the horrible, terrible, no good things about all
of your bosses, which Caroline, for the record, have just
never ever ever done. And there are so many stories
of this kind of ritualistic complaining even within couples. Yeah,
of of it just being a thing where you go

(14:50):
home at night, you pour your glass of wine, you
complain for however long, and that's that's fine to a degree,
but there needs to be boundaries. I a co worker
at my last job who I love her. I love her,
and she'll be the first to admit that she's a
negative nancy and complains all the time, and the job
that she was in at that company, it was really

(15:12):
really wearing her down to the point where she probably
should have quit years before UM because she found literally
zero positive stuff in it UM And so she would
talk about how she would go home every night and
her relationship with her husband was becoming toxic because she
would just go home and literally couldn't talk about anything
else other than how miserable she was. So finally her husband,

(15:34):
UH set up a time limit. He's like, you literally
have thirty minutes or one glass of wine, whichever comes first,
to complain about your day. Like let loose call people names, yell,
do whatever you want, but like at the end of
that thirty minutes, we're changing the subject. We will talk
about our families or the weather, or like what what
I did today? Maybe, but you know, like you can't

(15:56):
spiral out of control. And the thing is that that
could sound patronizing in the wrong context, but my friend
greatly appreciated because she's like, it's it's just taking over
my life. Oh yeah, I mean that kind of accountability
and boundary setting is a super healthy sign for a relationship.
So what about the benefits of complaining, Because counterintuitive, science time,

(16:20):
it can be helpful. Yeah. Well, you know, anybody who's
ever called Comcast and complain and threatened to cancel their service,
you know what I'm talking about when you end up
getting either like a reduced cable bill or something for free. Um.
I've complained on Yelp before about a restaurant here in Atlanta,
which is such a terrible experience. And it wasn't necessarily

(16:42):
the restaurant's fault dot dot dot, but we had a
terrible waiter and there were all these other like weird
circumstances that made it a terrible experience. And I went
on yell and I complained and the manager actually wrote
back and said like, oh, I'm so sorry about this.
Stuff like everything's been taken care of. I would love
to have you come back in on my dime. Of
course I've never on back because no thanks. But when

(17:02):
you do it, like we talked about earlier, when you
do productively complain for a purpose with a goal in mind,
you're more likely to have a positive outcome than if
you're just running your mouth. Basically. Yeah, I mean in
all of the benefits that we just discussing, the various
types of complaining make a lot of sense for how

(17:23):
they could be healthy as well, such as relieving stress,
forging connections with other people we don't feel so alone
and despondent, and might garner you sympathy, all these kinds
of just like very basic human needs that complaining can fulfill. Yeah, exactly.
And if it's constructive, it can be a way of

(17:44):
communicating your pain rather than holding it in and stewing,
which that's not good either. That's what Christian was talking
about earlier. Once you're stewing about something and you're not
talking about it, it's just gonna make things harder to overcome.
You're gonna feel more stressed, more resentful, whatever, and so
Psychology professor Barbara Held was talking to web MD and

(18:05):
she was talking about how you can find the right balance.
She recommended that you be direct about what's bothering you
if your complaint is actually about something solvable, So if
your friend is doing something that's bothering you, or if
you're if you are having a bad dining experience, be direct.
Don't try to post me, foot around and beat around
the bush um. She also said to be up front
about your need to complain. So if you really are

(18:27):
calling a friend to get a drink and it literally
is because you have to blow off steam or you're
going to explode, she says, just be upfront rather than
trying to pretend you're just having a regular conversation. Limit
your complaining time, and don't act as though your grapes
trump everyone else's. Above all, she says, select an appropriate listener.
So if you are just venting, find that friend who's

(18:48):
cool with letting you vent. If you are like having
a terrible experience at a restaurant, find the manager. Don't
just like complain to another customer or whatever. And she
said that the most effective complaints once you found that
appropriate person to direct your complaint too, they use facts
and logic, and they have a clear goal of what
they want the outcome to be. So basically, when you
start complaining, you need to know what you want to
get out of it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's like beyond time.

(19:12):
Don't flake on me. Give me more money, right exactly, Yes,
give me more money. I'm complaining about that to all
sorts of people. No wonder, it hasn't worked out yet well,
And sometimes the whole complaint could just be listened to me,
Listen to me complain. You never do that. But of course,
sometimes complaining, especially if it's not this more productive and

(19:32):
focused kind of complaining, can totally backfire and destroy your
chances of affecting any change, whether it is changing your
own comfort level or change of the things that are
bothering you to begin with. And this is something that
frequent complainers should watch out for because a lot of times,
if you are known as a negative nancy, you're viewed negatively,

(19:55):
your thought up as grumpy, argumentative, or just boring. Because yeah,
if you are only complaining about things, that gets very boring.
That's very predictable. Oh, let me guess you're not gonna
like it. Surprised, Uh, Kristen drops real talk. Uh yeah.
And the whole thing is that chronic complainers get stuck
in victim mode, which should be no surprise to anyone
who ever hangs out with a chronic complainer. This is irritating,

(20:17):
It spreads negativity. You're bugging the universe, as dude groommate
would say. And these whiners are chronic complainers because they
get trapped in this cycle, right, They feel hurt or
rejected or mad, and then they complain about it, and
then they get rejected for their irritating behavior, and they
feel hurt and mad about getting rejected, and then it
just spirals on and on and on. But the thing is,

(20:38):
these chronic complainers might not even realize what they're doing.
They might just be struggling with obsessive thoughts. They're so
in their own heads and can't break out of it,
so they just might not even hear themselves. And this
is especially irritating if you're if you're friends with a
chronic complainer because a lot of times these people don't
take advice. And the thing is, there's an actual psychiatry

(20:59):
term for this. They're called help rejecting complainers. I remember
when I worked at the newspaper. A coworker of mine
was just sort of helpless in love, like he could
not find a date to save his life. Or he
could find a date and then he would muck it
up by doing something silly, or they just didn't have chemistry.
I mean, then there was nothing wrong, like whatever. Um,
And so he would complain and complain endlessly, bless his

(21:23):
hard he's happily married now, um. And I would give
him advice like, hey, have you thought about this? Try this,
what about this? And the thing is he didn't want
to hear it. And so I finally like had that
crystal clear clarity moment of like, oh, he just wants
to complain. I'm not interested in this anymore, because that
becomes incredibly boring and energies dapping to the people around you.

(21:44):
If you literally are just complaining to hear yourself complain
and you're not interested in fixing the situation at all, well,
in one way that you might not. You might think
you're interested in fixing the situation, but you're handicapping yourself
from doing that. Is relying on humor too much to complain.
And I have been guilty of this, just being like, well,

(22:04):
well if I deliver it with a laugh and a wink,
but it'll be fine. But research has found that humorous
complaining can Yeah, I mean like it engenders sympathy and
like people laughing and people enjoying your your clever tweets,
but it backfires because people are laughing, Yeah, they're not

(22:26):
really taking you seriously. Yeah, because I mean, it makes
your complaints seem almost positive, and that leads to the
fact that you're less lucky to be taken seriously. People
are going to know that you had a negative experience,
but it will come off like you don't need your
problem addressed. And one of the in the paper we
read about this, the example was this musician who had

(22:48):
had his guitar busted on a United Airlines flight and
he made a humorous video about it on YouTube to complain.
And the thing is it just it was shared a
million times. United was fully aware of the problem that
they had broken his guitar, but because he presented it
in a way of like ha ha, I'm gonna poke
snarky fun at you and and make this video, people

(23:08):
were like, oh, well, clearly he's not too upset about it,
when really it's a great coping mechanism and people are
more likely to approve of that type of complaining, but
it's still just complaining. So what about nagging though, because,
like you said earlier in the podcast, the ven diagram overlaps.
But there are distinct hallmarks of nagging and this especially

(23:32):
is one that will almost inevitably backfire. Oh yeah, oh
my god, come to my parents house. Jeez. Uh So,
nagging is the chronic ostensive complaint. You're trying to get
someone to do something, but they're obviously not complying, or
your nag does work in the short term. It does,
finally you browbeat someone into finally washing the dishes, but

(23:55):
it's not a long term solution because by definition, a
nag is something that you know goes on for ever
and ever. And I what I thought was so interesting
about nagging though, and this is so true if you
think about it, we nagged the people were closest to
So just think about that the next time your mom
tells you to clean up after yourself. And there's typically
a good motivation. You're trying to help a person avoids

(24:17):
in your mind, you're trying to help a person avoid disaster,
You're trying to be nurturing or be helpful. Uh, if
it's you and your partner, maybe you're trying to get
them back on some safe, happy common ground of like
you're thinking, oh, well, when we first started living together,
he did the dishes all the time, and now I
can barely get him to pick up his shoes off
the floor. So it's just like, I just want us

(24:38):
to be happy again, Please do this thing. Um Or
maybe if you're a parent, you're just trying to get
your kids to be their best. But the downside of
all that, no matter how good your intentions are, is
that everyone hates nagging. This should come as no surprise.
The person who is nagged ends up feeling guilty because
chances are they know they should be doing it. Chances

(25:01):
are my father knows he should be putting away all
of the mail off the counter and just doesn't do it.
They end up feeling judged out of control, so like,
I already know I need to put away all the mail,
but I just I feel like it's too much to do,
And they end up feeling unappreciated, like they're not trusted
or good enough or smart enough to actually do something
on their own. Well, then the person doing the nagging

(25:23):
just feels resentful and unheard. So it's lose lose for everybody.
And if we look at it on a more biological level,
nagging impacts of people around us negatively as well because
it sets off fight or flight responses, which then tends
to result in a demand withdraw pattern within the relationship. Yeah.

(25:45):
So like if you imagine if you go back to
the cave mom and the cave baby in the cave
grocery store. So if you imagine though, that the mom
the cave mom is nagging at the cave baby, um,
that is going to set off a fight or flight
response because they're like nagging about how we've got to
get away from the saber tooth tiger. And so it's
a good idea for that fight or flight to kick in.

(26:07):
But if you're just like a couple sitting around on
a Tuesday night and you start in about the dishes,
if your partner's fight or flight kicks in, that's really
not healthy because then your partner obviously doesn't want to
physically fight you because you are not a saber tooth tiger.
So that a lot of times can then spark the

(26:27):
demand and withdraw your partner will choose to withdraw instead
of engaging, and they're all sorts of negative mental and
emotional effects of this will have in addition to the
ones that we've already outlined, because, for instance, excessive complaining
is linked with depression and anxiety. One Stanford study found

(26:49):
that just a half hour of complaining a day does
not keep the doctor away like an apple, which also
doesn't keep the doctor away, but just a half hour
of complaining will release stress hormones that harm our neural
connections in the brain's problem solving areas. And I, for one,
can attest to the feeling of those stress hormones being released.

(27:10):
I mean, you can physically feel what happens if you're
complaining to a toxic extent. Yeah, exactly, And and I
you know, just here's Caroline go and proven research again.
But you know, do you ever feel like you're in
the thick of a complaint and you literally are so
wrapped up in it that you can't see a way
out of the problem. And the person you're talking to

(27:31):
might be like, like like with my coworker who was
complaining about his dating woes, and I was like, well,
it's obvious that you could just try this, this or
this that doesn't seem that complicated, but he's so wrapped
up in it that he lost sight of there even
being a problem solving opportunity. Well, and wouldn't that fuel
this whole cycle of helplessness where you wallow, you feel powerless,

(27:53):
nothing will help you, And so I mean, it only
disengages you further for a solution, and then when you're
inevitably disappointed yet again, it starts a new Yeah. And
as my therapist frequently says, energy flows where attention goes,
and so Will Bowen, who's an author of The Complaint

(28:14):
Free World, says that when we complain, we are using
our words to focus on things that are not as
we would like. Our thoughts create our lives, and our
words indicate what we're thinking. It's vital that we control
our minds in order to recreate our lives. So changing
your focus, if you're focusing literally on nothing but the negative,
it's just going to get you back in that cycle

(28:34):
of helplessness, that wallowing. Well, one focus of this nagging issue,
especially in that word nagging, is gender. So it should
come as no surprise to you, honestly, if you if
you think about it when I say that men and
women complain equally, like, that's not surprising, But women are

(28:54):
naggs Caroline, the nagging wife, right, that is the stereotype.
And so Christen and I wanted to look into why,
if men and women statistically complain just as much as
each other, why do we have this image of women
being the complainers and men being like the stoic, silent type. Well,
it turns out, according to research that yes, of course

(29:19):
we all complain about the same amount, but we complain
slightly differently. And then, of course, as we'll get into
the way that we perceive each other's complaints colors the
whole situation. So there was a two thousand six study
in Women and Language that found women were more likely
than men to use complaints as an indirect request for action,
So like, man, I sure wish the sinc we're clear,

(29:43):
or god, this floor really is a mess. Passive aggression
in other words, yeah, while men in this study were
more likely to use complaints to excuse behavior or to
make themselves seem superior. So complaining about a situation, well, oh,
if he's complaining about it, then it's clear that he
would take action. To fix it or whatever, or that

(30:03):
superiority distancing yourself motivation that we talked about at the
top of the podcast. But the thing is our complaining
can even depend on the audience and whether we want
to maintain our image and reputation. So this is coming
out of a study from fourteen in the Journal of
Consumer Research, which surveyed men and women about a hypothetical

(30:24):
terrible restaurant experience. It was Caroline at that awful Atlanta restaurant,
as she later yelped um, and the researchers then asked
them what they would do if they ran into an
acquaintance and a really good friend after having this horrible
dining experience, and there were some gender differences, so women

(30:45):
who cared more about looking good in the other person's
eyes were less likely to complain to the acquaintance, not surprisingly,
but they still told their bff all about it. Meanwhile,
for dudes, didn't matter the relationship, whether it was an
acquaintance or a best friend. If they cared a lot
about their reputation or image, they were just going to
keep quiet to both parties, but if not, they complained

(31:07):
to both people. So researchers say that men's communication goals
tend to revolve more around reputation, achievement, and self because hey,
they don't want to look bad or like they made
a bad decision. Hey, you should have known not to
have gone to that horrible restaurant, whereas women's complaint motivations
revolve more around care and protecting others. So it's like

(31:29):
your best friend being like, hey, you can't go down
to that all you can eat buffet because they run
on a pizza too quick. Don't go. Yeah, And of course,
you know, there are issues that we could bring up
of like, oh, is this just falling along those weird
stereotypical lines of women as nurturer and man as stoic

(31:49):
like hunter gatherer or whatever. And yes, I'm sure if
we had the time we could get more deeply into that.
But for these particular researchers, they did find those correlations.
And we do tend to complain about different things, at
least according to a Staples Advantage survey. How about that, Yes,

(32:09):
I am talking about Staples, the office supply store. Yeah.
So in this very specific example from the Staples Advantage survey,
they found it at work, women are more likely than
men are to complain about working extra hours and feeling
burned out. They found that men were more likely to
basically put up and shut up and just deal with it.
And in another incredibly specific study coming out of the

(32:32):
Journal of Gerontological Social Work, they looked at nursing homes
and what people were complaining about. In nursing homes. They
found that male residents actually lodged more complaints than women,
which made me think back to our earlier conversation and like, oh,
are they more confident? Why are they complaining more than women?
Maybe they're just crankier about the pudding running low. Well,

(32:53):
if the pudding is technical pudding, then yeah. They found
that male residents complain more about technical, imper personal and
legal issues going on at the nursing home, whereas female
residents were complaining more about personal care and socio emotional
environmental issues like quality of life. This still sounds like

(33:14):
it breaks right down gender stereotype exactly. Ladies always be
so emotional, that care and of about that pin so much. Uh.
But here's the thing. We also clearly tend to perceive
complaining both ours and other people's complaining differently. Yeah, exactly.

(33:34):
And I was wondering if that was the reasoning behind
why we say that women are the ones who nag
versus men, and yeah, kind of, and all of the
reading we did it seemed like it's all in the
perception of who's talking and how we think about their
language or their complaint or their requests, sort of like
it's all in the ear of the beholder. So what

(33:55):
is nagging? Right, We've talked about nagging. It's making multiple
requests for an action, and it can come from a
place of asking for something indirectly, which is more of
a hallmark of stereotypical women's communication. But the whole thing
is that this indirect communication can also lead to the
assumption that it's not urgent. If I'm just like man,

(34:16):
I'd love it, like, you know, if the floor were swept.
I'm totally not using an example from a conversation my
boyfriend and I had last night. There's just gonna be
this assumption that it doesn't need to be taken care
of right away, which then might lead hypothetical Caroline to
feel ignored and unheard. That's only going to trigger me
complaining about it more, and then I'm going to end

(34:38):
up being perceived as the nagging woman. But this is
still just blaming the nagging woman for how she communicates.
The onus is still on you, right, It's not focused
on in this situation. When you're just calling someone a
nag um, there's no focus on actually fixing the situation

(34:59):
or the communication on either person's parts. And this is
something that Susan crass Whipborne wrote about in Psychology Today.
She said that we frame women's indirect requests differently than
we do when it comes to men. She says, by
using the derogatory term nag, a man trivializes the woman's
request and at the same time puts her in her place.

(35:20):
In other words, it's a double edged power play. It
saves the man actually having to do anything in response
to her request until he's good and ready, if at all.
By resisting her efforts to mold him to her will,
the man can look as if he's in control when
he agrees to the request, which everybody in the situation
just sounds like the worst. I hate it, I don't
want to be in it. Yeah, And I think it's
also worth remembering, as we often have to do with

(35:43):
so many of these relationship psychology topics is that this
is working within a very heteronormative framework and that obviously
nagging patterns can take place within any relationship. And it's
how well to remember that, I think across the board,
regardless of the gender of the person you're talking about,

(36:05):
nagging is a trivializing or marginalizing kind of term. Now,
sometimes yes, I mean the nagging pattern is unproductive and unhelpful,
and it is a nag. But if you write someone
off as just being a nagg, and it's a person
you're in a relationship with, then you might need to
step back and check your own communication skills and what
you're doing or not doing that might be contributing to it.

(36:29):
But when we look at that very female gendered nag,
it has a really scary implications, as noted by Jane
Mockton Smith in her book Murder, Gender in the Media,
which is just a perfect page turner for the holiday
season as it is right now. In the recording this
podcast um she cites research of Susan Lees who looked

(36:53):
at a sample of cases in which quote female provocation
in the form of nagging was used as a nationalization
for homicide in court because essentially it was the whole
thing of like, well, the husband killed his wife because
she was such a nag. She never she she provoked
him by nagging. Yeah, it's seen as a particularly female

(37:16):
deviant behavior that can drive men in these cases in
the court opinions to try to correct women. And there
was one case, one example she gave where they the
judge was essentially saying like, listen, I know that your
wife was clearly an unpleasant person. She was clearly a nag,
as you said. But also you're still going to jail

(37:37):
because you killed her. But the fact that it's even
like it holds water at all is so terrifying because
everybody complains. Everybody complains, Um, we all have communication difficulties
sometimes and misunderstanding not mean definitely not definitely not Christian,
but like especially for feeling powerless or helpless in a situation.

(37:58):
Uh So that leads us to communicate into directly the
fact that that coming from women is so dismissed as
nagging and used as an excuse of like, well, of
course you should be annoyed. You could kill her, that's fine,
just kill her, kill the nag. Well I mean that
that's horrifying. Well, and I mean, And I do wonder
how often that comes up just in domestic abuse cases especially,

(38:21):
I mean that word in particular. I bet if you
start going through case files it comes up over and
over and yeah, well it's such a chilling The word
is so chilling, and it's such a hurdle to appropriate
communication and healthy relationships because, like we were saying, if
you're just dismissing someone as a nag, if you are nagging,
or if you're dismissing someone as a nag, then both

(38:41):
of you need to examine the way that you communicate
and what you're trying to accomplish. And a more productive
way to communicate it would be a little something called
carefrontation love it. Yes, that is a play on confrontation.
And this is something Lisa Belkin was writing all about
in one of Caroline's phaves Oh magazine, Oh that's right. Yeah.

(39:04):
She was citing research from psychologists Harold A. Straightener, basically saying,
instead of indirectly communicating your annoyance or your problem or
your question, to someone, uh, try employing empathy. Try being like, hey,
I know that this X y Z thing is very
hard for you, and I really feel like we could

(39:26):
reach some common ground. Let's work together. For instance, my
mother for years has complained to my father about the
state of the basement at the house because my dad
is a hoarder, true story, and the basement is crazy.
It's totally insane, and so for years my mother has
been sort of brating him about it, and finally she

(39:47):
broke through to him by employing a different tactic, because
she finally said, Hey, it's kind of crazy down there,
and I know that you probably go down there and
don't even like to spend time down there because it's
so overwhelming. And I'm sure the idea of even starting
to clean seems overwhelming because where would you even start.
And so I just want to let you know I'm here,

(40:09):
like whenever you want to tackle this, like, let's do
it together. And I'd like to say that they rode
off into the clean basement sunset, that they did not um.
But that's the whole idea behind care frontation, that you're
removing the shaming and blaming from your complaint and employing
empathy instead. And I guess, regardless of the side of

(40:30):
the nagging equation you might be on, awareness is important.
Paying attention to what's coming out of your mouth and
how people react to you approa trip. If you're someone
like me who is a granular complainer as the needs
to get down to the granular details, and you notice
the person you're talking to his eyes start to glaze
over on like minute, you might be over the line.

(40:55):
You might be going into unnecessary detail that that guy
of awareness can be really helpful. I've been there. Yeah,
they've been there in front of me. Five No, I've
definitely been been in that that chair of like I
just have to analyze everything about why this is the worst.
And the thing is if you get together with someone,

(41:17):
like if you and I are complaining about something a
situation that we're in together, or like when I was
with living with dude roommate and we were working together
at the same time at my old company, and we
would be complaining about a coworker or a policy or
like the day that was so bad. Like there's no
breaks on the situation because you're both in it and
you're both just it's so satisfying to root out every

(41:38):
granular detail of how annoying that person was or that
event was. Um. But if you are literally just telling
a friend who's outside of the situation. I was yelled
at and I appreciated it. My friend Miranda, Um this
was years ago, and I worked at the newspaper and
we would go out and we would complain about working
at the newspaper after work, and finally Miranda looked at

(41:59):
all of specifically me, and was like, enough enough enough.
You're either going to quit your job or you're gonna
figure out how to deal with it. But I cannot
listen to this anymore. So anyhow, that was appreciated. Uh.
And I think what uh if in in her yelling
with some love uh And I think what she would

(42:21):
have said also would be that we should be mindful
and intentional. We talked about this with those confident complainers earlier.
It's really about recognizing that it's up to you to
control your own behavior and your own perception of events
in the world around you. You can choose to engage
in activities that make you feel good, that are rewarding.

(42:42):
You can choose to say, hey, I get to pick
my kids up from carpool today, not I have to
pick my kids up from carpool. I hate that I
have to get my children back, or in minding Caroline's cases,
we'd be like, why are we picking up kids from carpool?
We don't have children? What is happening? And get to
pick up chill Aldren. This is weird. I'm not complaining,
I'm just scared. But if you're on the receiving end

(43:06):
of complaints, if you are Miranda, if you're the Miranda
of the group sex in the city terms, or if
it is your partner who's complaining. My my fiance is
just endlessly patient with my granular complaining. There are things
that you can do that can help direct more productive complaints,

(43:28):
such as expressing sympathy and also pointing out patterns I
as a complainer, yes, have found it very helpful when
the complainee has been able to say, hey, you know
what you were talking about this X time ago, or
you've been saying this. I've heard you say this, not
a judgmental way, but just say this sounds very familiar.

(43:50):
I've heard you say this many times. Because I think
when we're complaining, when we get so caught up in it,
we don't even realize, oh, we're talking about the same
thing over and over and over again, which is a
massive red that we need to make some changes. Yeah,
there was a Wall Street Journal article that even talked
about how there are therapists who now employ this tactic
of basically telling you to get over it, which can

(44:14):
be horrifying if it's like an actual deep rooted problem
that you need to fix. But it's not so much like, hey,
let's not talk about the abuse you suffered as a child,
stop being ridiculous. It's more like when you literally can't
stop talking about the same thing, and you talk about
the same thing over and over and over again, that
more and more people are going to therapy requesting this
sort of tough love approach of your therapist, being like

(44:36):
you've literally talked about going to the grocery store every
single time you've come to see me. Enough about it,
all right, the savor tooth tiger, it does not exist.
And that reading about that kind of therapy, Oh, it
made me so nervous. I couldn't imagine that I could.
I don't know. It's not for me. No, I don't
think it's for me either. I think what is for
me is what you were saying in terms of helpfully

(44:57):
pointing out like I've heard you talk about this one
on saying a lot, and so like, what's really going on?
What's behind that? Well? An accountability is important because while
not being allowed to complain whatsoever does sound very harsh
to my ears, accountability is crucial because it's like, Okay,
if you're coming to me complaining about the exact same

(45:20):
thing over and over and over again, what are you
going to do about that? And you need to be able,
especially if you are the complainer. You need to be
able to accept that accountability. Yeah, And I mean once
you do it, it does instill a sense of control. Finally,
you feel less powerless when you finally sit down and say, Okay,

(45:40):
I'm going to tackle this, I'm going to handle this
um because so much of that chronic complaining, like we
talked about, comes from that sense of powerlessness. I literally
don't know what to do except complain about it. And
maybe if your friend is complaining to you can help
them think of alternatives, like have you thought about keeping
a journal and writing the stuff down? If you thought
about maybe going for a run every day to help

(46:03):
alleviate that stress. And also, like my friend's husband did
set a time limit, be like, hey, I hear that
you're going down this road and I hate it for you,
and it sounds so awful what you're going through. But
like you get, you get fifteen minutes, which also sounds
really productive. I mean I would take fifteen minutes or
a glass of wine. Hello, just like free complaint zone.

(46:27):
I might have to pass that along to my fiance. Yea,
set the timer, set your little kitchen timer. But you
can also give positive reinforcement and help redirect the conversation
as the friend. You know, encourage your friend to tell me,
tell me what it is you love about your mother,
or about your job, or about I was going to
say traffic, but well you could even say, well, hey,

(46:51):
I get to listen to podcasts. I was about to
say the same thing. That's a positive thing about traffic. Yeah,
when I over the holidays, all the driving that I
have to do back and forth, do parents house I
catch up on the pods or should I say my casts?
I don't know what the kids call it these days,
we make them, we should know, but we don't. We
don't really don't help us listen to hers. But seriously,

(47:13):
being mindful like this is so hard, Caroline and I
know this well. It is a daily and sometimes minute
by minute practice. So listeners were really curious to hear
your insights, tips and experiences on this. What do you
do to manage you're complaining or what do you do
to manage your partner or friends complaining? Mom? Stuff at

(47:36):
house Stuff works dot com is where you can send
your emails, and we've got a couple of those who
share with you right now. So I have a letter
here from c and I'm I'm assuming she might just
want to remain seat because she's writing about our Crisco

(47:59):
episode see Rights. And by the way, this sea is
neither see nor Sea of Christen and Caroline Differency writing
about loub It's fine Differency Rights. I'm still listening to
the latest podcast about lub, but had to jump right
on my email with a story I thought you'd find funny.
I'm American but live in Northern Europe, and a couple
of years ago, an American friend and I were trying

(48:20):
to make old fashioned, homemade American biscuits from her grandmother's recipe.
It's often difficult to find products we know well here,
like Libby's pumpkin pie, Graham crackers, or chocolate chips. These
biscuits called for Crisco, which is so impossible to find here.
My friend had her family sent her a care package
full of Crisco sticks. A few months ago, I happen

(48:41):
to be searching for some eco friendly lube on an
adult website locally and was absolutely shocked to find those
big tubs of Chrisco advertised as lube. Checking a few
other local places confirmed Chrisco is available, but only insect
shops in Northern Europe. And they don't even change the packaging.

(49:02):
It's the blue can with the picture of pie on it. Oh.
I love that so much. I just thought it was
funny that you mentioned this. It was a huge culture
shock to me, and I thought you might like to
note the practice is apparently alive and well here in
Northern Europe. Keep up the great work you make us
all more informed and entertained about our world. Oh my goodness, DIFFERENCYE,

(49:25):
this is just a fantastic story. Thank you so much
for sharing. I have a letter here from Samantha about
her hashtag blessed episode, which she said was really on point.
So Samantha writes, I've seen a lot of my Facebook
friends posting about how hashtag blessed they are to have
great office views of Manhattan, or the first red cup
Starbucks of the season, or whatever. But I'm emailing because

(49:47):
I want to tell you about a more bizarre, humble
brag I've encountered on the Internet. After the birth of
my daughter, I spent way too much time on the
Baby Center birthboards. If you don't know, the birthboards are
for people who are having or have had babe these
in the same month or year. Once our babies were
all born, the boards started to fill with posts about
how these new moms haven't brushed their hair, how to
shower in days, or slept more than an hour, but

(50:10):
we're loving every minute of it. It was very strange
to me, like a which mom can sacrifice herself the
most and therefore be the best mother competition. Very few
people bragged or even just talked about doing laundry or dishes,
or god forbid, leaving the baby for more than five
minutes to do just about anything other than stare at
the baby. I'm sure there's a class component to this.

(50:30):
I don't think many single moms are working class moms
feel very hashtag blessed if they have to go back
to work only a few weeks after postpartum or struggling
on one income. Most people don't have the resources to
be able to take the time to just lie around
in breastfeed all day. It all reminds me of something
I've read, I think in Jessica Valenti's Why Have Kids,
about how motivated and intelligent women who leave or forced

(50:52):
out of the workforce when they have kids throw themselves
entirely into motherhood. I guess if you can't humble brag
about your promotion, you can do it about your dedication
to wearing spit up covered sweats. Anyway, she says, keep
up the good work. I love having a weekly dose
of feminism during my commute. Well, thank you, Samantha, and
thanks to everybody who's written into us complaints and all

(51:14):
bomb stuff at how stuff works dot com is our
email address and for a links to all of our
social media as well as all of our blogs, videos,
and podcasts, including our sources that you can learn more
about complaining. Head on over to stuff Mom Never Told
You dot com for more on this and thousands of

(51:35):
other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com