Blog #3 "Talk Control: An Illustration from the Classroom of Problems in Analysing Male Dominance of Conversation"

Joan Swann's article was fascinating to me because I have found her claims of male dominated class rooms to be true in my life. Women get a bad rap for talking so much, and I have even heard on television that women use twice as many words as men during a 24 hour period. However, in the classroom setting, men talk much more than women. I have experienced this to be especially true in college classrooms. Just last night in my health behavior class, I paid close attention to number of answers and comments by males and females. In a 3 hour long class, only one female offered a comment/answer without being called on by the teacher, and only 2 other females spoke when asked their opinion by the teacher. On the other hand, 8 different males answered on their own accord and 4 answered when called on by the teacher. I was shocked at the ratio! The class was completely dominated by males when there are more females enrolled in it. Since last night, I have been pondering why there is such a big sex-linked difference. I have come to the conclusion that males are more often encouraged by others, including teachers, to be leaders and to voice their opinion. Also, women do not want to be known as a know-it-all while men pride themselves on the amount of facts and knowledge they can present to other people. I will definitely be observing my other classes this spring to find out if they are also male dominated.