of men women and the art of gossip

In the brilliant movie Doubt,
perhaps the most intriguing
scene is the sermon delivered by
the Father Flynn to a
congregation about the futility
of gossip and how it cannot be undone. He gives the analogy of
a woman who gossiped and
later, feeling guilty of her
rumor-mongering, went to
confession. In the booth, her
priest told her to cut open her pillow and leave it in her fire-
escape window for a day. The
next day upon returning to
confession, she explained to the
priest that all the feathers in
her pillow had been blown away ad recovering them was
impossible. The priest then made
a direct comparison between the
spread of gossip to the
feathers. He also used this
analogy to prove just how a rumor spread is undoable and
harmful, or is it? I love it when people talk of
equality, especially gender
equality. Just a few decades
ago, it was a spectacle seeing a
male chef or a female pilot but
with the advancement in law, politics and reason, it has
become politically incorrect and
backward, to discriminate on the
basis of gender. Apart from the
obvious differences between the
sexes, the ultimate difference comes in variations of gossip. It
has been a female specialty,
until recently. Ever heard men
gossip? It is outrageously
hilarious at times, idle most of
the time and honestly speaking, still developing. Compared to
gossip among ladies, male gossip
is more interesting to listen to,
perhaps due to its novelty and
vanity. Gossip is defined as idle talk; it
is also called groundless rumor,
chatter or news mongering,
however, gossip serves more
functions than one and
according to my interactions with ardent gossips, it is a key
part of daily life, among men
and women. In my informal
research on gossip, I came
across categories of gossip
among women and men. First among the women varieties
is House Talk. House talk is
helpful and catching, pardon the
pun. It is the exchange of
husband hunting tips and
cooking recipes, child raising tips and attitudes about work.
According to Deborah Jones, a
scholar, House talk provides
informal female education and
emotional support, which further
creates more questions on whether gossip in inherently
harmful or not. The second category of gossip is
Scandal. This is classic malicious
rumor mongering. Scandal
promotes competition, even if
unfair, among women. Scandal is
also a source of raw and brazen entertainment. The sweetest
part of scandal is that it is
focused on other women and
does not include men, bitching
does. The next category is
bitching and is the fear for most
men. It is a private expression
of anger to others and is
emotionally cleansing. It is what I
call a “poor woman’ s shrink talk”. In political situations, bitching is important in raising
political awareness and
conscientiousness on various
issues. Most of the fights for
equality and feminine
advancements were initiated and perpetuated by such gossip.
Remember the saying, heaven
has no rage like love to hatred
turned nor hell a fury like a
woman scorned? Yeah…with words and gossip a woman can
break your bones. The last category is chatting,
which is described as endless
and intimate self-disclosure
among women. It is “a continuous chorus and
commentary on various aspects
of a woman’ s life and is an evaluative process that provides
daily sustenance and a valve for
release”, says Jones. Chesler, an expert on woman
gossip studies writes that “while many dialogues between women
seem "senseless" or "mindless" to
men; two women talking often
seem to be reciting monologues
at each other, neither really
listening to, or judging, what the other is saying. Two personal
confessions, two sets of feelings,
seem to be paralleling one
another, rather "mindlessly", and
without "going anywhere". My
idle research confirms that indeed men and women are on
different wavelengths as far as
gossip and its benefits and uses
are concerned. Gossip takes skill and practice.
Emotion, choice of a “co-gossip” and place affect the quality and
depth of gossip. Gossip is a
delicate art and while a co-
gossip’ s house, a bar or a car may be suitable gossip stages,
none come as suitable as the
classroom. Why do you think
students scramble for back
seats in class? Unlike a sports
game, to enjoy the game of gossip, you need a backseat,
from where you can carefully
study your subjects of gossip. Cometh the hour, cometh the
“man”. Male gossip as I said earlier is still “infantile.” Men are yet to master gossip and
with help from the artists of
gossip, it may develop into a
powerful tool of expression. So,
the informal gossip sessions I
was part of were dubbed “man talk” or “boy zones” or worse, but true to their promises, the
idle talk was just that, idle. Of
course talk about girls featured
the most, with cars, movies, and
FOOD a close second. Technology
was also high on the list, as well as wealth and ambitions. This is
so different from the subject of
ladies’ gossip which was about family, careers and what most
people would consider
“important”. While most of gossip is culturally
rebuked and destructive, its
importance as a voice for the
weak and voiceless is key to
sustaining a stable society. Male
gossip however, in all fairness, serves little if any purpose,
maybe because the male was
the predominant figure in the
past society and is now losing
touch and slowly adapting to
feminine tendencies? Perhaps so, only time will tell. There is a thin line between
truth and fiction. This is that
line.