Women Talk

But men cut in

Wanda: Did you see here that two sociologists have just proved that men interrupt women all the time? They--

Ralph: Who says?

Wanda: Candace West of Florida State and Don Zimmerman of the University of California at Santa Barbara. They taped a bunch of private conversations, and guess what they found. When two men or two women are talking, interruptions are about equal. But when a man talks to a woman, he makes 96% of the interruptions. They think it's a dominance trick men aren't even aware of. But--

Ralph: These people have nothing better to do than eavesdrop on interruptions?

Wanda: --but women make "retrievals" about one-third of the time. You know, they pick up where they left off after the man--

Ralph: Surely not all men are like that Wanda.

Wanda: --cuts in on what they were saying. Doesn't that--

Ralph: Speaking as a staunch supporter of feminism, I deplore it, Wanda.

Wanda: (sigh) I know, dear. qed

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.