According to a new study, women talk less about themselves and are more uncomfortable when they felt men were looking at their bodies instead of at their faces.Saguy found that women talked about themselves for less time than men, but only if they thought they were being visually inspected by a man, and particularly if they thought their bodies were being checked out. They used the full two minutes if they were describing themselves to another woman (no matter where the camera was pointing) or if they were speaking to a man who could hear but not see them. But if their partner was a man watching their bodies, they spoke for just under one-and-a-half minutes.
Men had no problem talking about themselves, no matter who their partner was:
They used the full two minutes regardless of whether they were being watched or listened to, and no matter the gender of their partner. The fact that men didn't react in the same way is important. For a start, it shows that it's a man's gaze and not just any downward glance that affects a woman's behaviour. It also puts paid to the false equivalence arguments that are often put forward when discussing gender issues (i.e. "women look at male bodies too").What causes women to react this way?
As Saguy explains, "When a woman believes that a man is focusing on her body, she narrows her presence... by spending less time talking." There are a few possible reasons for this. Saguy suspects that objectification prompts women to align their behaviour with what's expected of them - silent things devoid of other interesting traits. Treat someone like an object, and they'll behave like one. Alternatively, worries about their appearance might simply distract them from the task at hand.
If it were me, I'd stop talking so that the dude would stop looking at me. Obviously he wouldn't be paying attention to what I was saying anyway, and maybe if I stopped talking he wouldn't focus his attention on me anymore. Anyone else have a different theory?
5 comments:
If it were me, I'd stop talking so that the dude would stop looking at me. Obviously he wouldn't be paying attention to what I was saying anyway, and maybe if I stopped talking he wouldn't focus his attention on me anymore. Anyone else have a different theory?
I think you've pretty much got it, though I'd add in - in many cases, feelings of embarrassment or just plain uncomfortableness. When I'm embarrassed or uncomfortable, well, I tend to talk more - I just get red. But if I were a different person who didn't talk nervously, I'd be more inclined to shut the hell up due directly to those feelings of uncomfortableness and/or skeeviness.
I totally love the title of your piece, btw.
It's distracting. If it's a person that I know (or someone I don't feel completely uncomfortable with, like a stranger), I would stop or stutter because it was distracting and I'd be too noticing his gaze, wondering what was going on with him. A stranger, or an uncomfortable situation, I would stop talking or walk away, or try to make it less uncomfortable.
I don't think this is possible to study in an experimental (controlled) setting. The threat of reactivity is so overwhelming.
Does anyone really think that participants were ignorant as to what was going on? It's pretty easy for female participants to infer the premise of a study where a camera is overtly focused on their bodies rather than their faces. And if the participants were filmed once by a female and once by a male, isn't it obvious what's really being observed?
Maybe they broke the participants up into subgroups, so as to limit reactivity? Maybe each participant was exposed to only one method of observation? If so, there would have to be 6 subgroups. With 114 female participants, that would mean 19 subjects per subgroup. That's an insanely small sample size from which to draw inferential conclusions, don't you think?
With a study like this, you need to know the details. They're extremely important. And, unfortunately, this article reads more like a piece of advocacy.
Ah yes, I knew you would point out the lack of details.
You're right about that. It was probably a small group because it doesn't mention women, like petpluto, who would talk more out of nervousness, or maybe women who would get a confidence boost due to a male gaze.
What drew me to this article were my own experiences and those of my friends. I know a lot of us become uncomfortable when we receive unwanted male attention, especially when we're trying to engage in a conversation. I guess going on this alone doesn't exactly make it scientific, huh?
What drew me to this article were my own experiences and those of my friends. I know a lot of us become uncomfortable when we receive unwanted male attention, especially when we're trying to engage in a conversation. I guess going on this alone doesn't exactly make it scientific, huh?
Yes, and this is my central complaint. What bothers me is the implication that we now have scientific "proof" of this phenomenon. But complex social interactions are almost impossible to operationalize into a laboratory experiment.
And even if we do accept the results at face value, the social and theoretical implications abound. Advocates tend to use social science as a sort of trump card, but with studies like this there are often enormous (and unavoidable) flaws in the experimental design and the results are open to interpretation.
Post a Comment