It’s always been an accepted idea that women talk a lot more than men, but it turns out that it’s simply not true. Surprisingly, sexist pseudo-science isn’t actually backed up by facts!
A study published this year by Princeton University showed that even gender parity doesn’t insure that women will talk as much as men in any given setting.
In fact, according to The Silent Sex, men will out-talk women even if a room is 60% female.
Shockingly, women need to outnumber men 4 to 1 in a social situation for them to actually talk more than men. A team of researchers at the Personality and Social Psychology Review in the US published a study in 2007 which backs this up.
In mixed-gender conversations, men not only used more assertive speech, but also consistently did most of the talking. The social setting is also utterly irrelevant: men will be the ones talking the most in universities, laboratories, classrooms, town meetings, and others.
There are many possible solutions to this problem, but the easiest one would probably be for men to shut up once in a while, eh.
You heard that, men? Good. Hush now.
Source