Melanie Page

D. Tannen’s (1994) second chapter in Talking from 9 to 5: Men and Women at Work left me feeling bristly. Communication norms I saw my mom navigate in the 1990s in her office seemed just plain stupid to me. For instance, Tannen mentioned the complaint sessions women feel it is normal to engage in that men do not. Sometimes, communication rituals are more like games that uphold gender norms. There is a reason women complaining all the time at work became known colloquially as a “bitch fest.”  

I have spent my entire adult life not only avoiding such complaint sessions and leaving the group if they start, but actively telling people that if they are going to be constantly negative, they may need to speak to an authority figure; if things are so bad, the complaint needs to go up the ladder. Usually, they quiet down after that. I am not a dumping station for negativity because of my gender. 

It is not natural for women to constantly complain; it is a gender norm that is upheld until we decide no more. In fact, when I first joined my cohort at Bethel, a couple of folks were content to complain about…everything. I knew I could not do two years of that, so I made it clear not by calling out the complainers, but by refusing to participate in the ritual. Typically, I would say something positive about the student’s work or work ethic. After a couple of weeks, the complaining stopped, and in general, I insist that the class of 2025 is a group of can-do pupils who recognize when we have hard work ahead of us, yet face it without the ritualistic group whining. That is not to say that people do not air their concerns. Stating a concern and complaining every step of the way have different communication functions. 

Another section that made me defensive was Tannen’s experience being interviewed by a man and then a woman. The man pushed her to defend herself while the woman befriended Tannen and then wrote a negative piece. While I have been aware of how friendliness can be weaponized for a long time, I forget until it is too late, trusting the other woman because I want to believe that women support each other because we are a team. I catch myself opening up and deeply regretting it, wishing I could reel my comments back in and reposition myself more professionally. What the woman who interviewed Tannen did was manipulate her into a place of trust and then used the relationship to write an article. Had Tannen not been open, she could have been described as “cold” in the article, so Tannen played the game because the interviewer was in a position of power and abused it. 

References 

Tannen, D. (1994). Talking from 9 to 5. Virago.