Conversation a Different Art for Men and Women

I said in my last post “I feel that women can conform to men’s style of language more than men can conform to women’s style.”

Just to back this statement up I thought you might like to read this article on a little bit of research I came across from The University of Queensland, Australia.

http://www.uq.edu.au/news/index.html?article=997

Notes on the Session: 2

We are now in out 3^rd week of the project and conversation is most defiantly in full flow. This week we where treated to two guest speakers, Jackie Hagan (a poet) and Rachel Burke-Davies (a radio presenter for Capital FM breakfast).

Jackie got us thinking about how language can be individual, how children (and adults) make up their own words for things. There is an aspect of play in conversation. It got me thinking about how play is therapeutic, and also how we might be able to use a game as part of the performance.

Rachel spoke to us about how she works with three men, and the role she has found herself having to play. Being the only woman she feels the need to keep conversation, whilst ‘on air’ grounded, and standing up to the men with a woman’s point of view.

What was really interesting was Rachel’s story about one man who was left in the studio with two women presenters. He found it difficult to engage or cope with the change.

I certainly feel that women can conform to men’s style of language more than men can conform to women’s style.

What I felt was the most significant point about this weeks session was the similarities between our two speakers. They work in such polar opposite ways, one is scripted the other improvised. One is presenting and thinks about the way she holds herself, the other we never see… yet both of these women told us about the power of using silence in their conversations. The way that silence control an audience.

I am interested in how silence can be both awkward and powerful. I think that if you are in a conversation, and a silence occurs this can be awkward, someone feels the need to fill this silence. This may be because power and responsibility in a conversation is constantly shifting. In a presentation a silence can be very powerful. When the talker is commanding all the power the silence can give time for an audience to take I what is being said, to contemplate and force people to question what is being said.

Both Jackie and Rachel also spoke about the way they use gesture and facial expression to have silent conversation. I am very interested in this form of communication and I feel it is a skill women exceed in more than men (this is a generalization but I have witnessed men become completely perplexed when women around them use this form of conversation)

silent treatment

We finally got around to playing with ideas for our performance at the end of last night"s session. We got into "pockets of 3" and I had the overwhelming realisation that I wanted to play a listening role! I wanted to be the ears that overhear all kinds of snippets of conversation and "make shapes". i didn't really know what I meant by "making shapes"...just that they would be some physical rather than verbal response to what was going on around me.
Watching the other "pockets" there was a really good interaction when a 'baton" was passed amongst one group to decide who was speaking.I liked this visually as well as it obviously being a useful tool for creating verbal dynamics.It also seemed a useful way of creating a focus and clarifying (at least to ourselves) that a performance was taking place.I think this kind of device will be important if we are to be amongst the audience...
This group also had someone with a really compelling speaking voice which is a real gift in that it meant I could listen to whatever she chose to rattle on about for as long as she liked: much as one of our fab speakers this evening had suggested that we dived in and didn't rely on our individual skills but tried something new...dancers singing or whatever...certainly in our "pocket" we agreed that skills were important to avoid a "bad shit performance"
I woke up this morning and had a flash that what I wanted to play was a street artist. For some reason my first vision was that i would spend the whole performance filling in a huge orange chalk square. Then I thought about those creepy living statues..especially those ones that remind me of the child catcher when they hand out lollies when someone gives them money. I thought maybe being "handed the lollie" might be a bit like being handed the "baton" as a sign amongst ourselves at least that a scenario was taking place. Chucking money in my hat could be a sign that someone wants to perform...well you get the idea...please can I be a ghastly living statue?

Notes on the Session: 1

In our last session thoughts where flying from every imaginable area. Within the first twenty minutes our ladies had discussed everything from the state of the feminist movement (and men’s involvement with it), right through to the difference between men’s and women’s toilet etiquette.

This shift in conversation got me thinking about how rapid conversation can be, and how much our brains process and choose to keep or loose. I wonder if I hadn't been making notes (knowing I needed to write something) how much of this week session would I have remembered, or, if I'd been less subjective about the chat, how much would have resonated with me?

So this week we where graced with the presence of Leeds Met University lecturer in Performance, Teresa Brayshaw. This was Teresa’s second visit to the Art of Conversation, having been a guest talker last year too.

Naturally, being interested in performance herself, Teresa helped us to discover and discuss the ‘liveness’ of conversation, and how the smallest things can influence how we talk. For example a spontaneous phone call can interrupt a line of though or the reaction of a person you are talking influences the way you may respond.

One of the main interesting points to come out of this was the question of ‘speaking Vs conversing’. Who has the power in every form of conversing? Is it equally shared, or is it one sided? Then, following this, do we all feel a responsibility when we are talking to make sure what we say is relevant and interesting? Abraham Lincoln said "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt"? In what situations do we agree with this, and in what scenarios will we truly express exactly what we think?

This led us to discussing the performative nature of a listener, an audience member, or an eves-dropper. The way we listen to people in public places and how much we can find out about strangers lives when they think no-one is listening (weather we want to hear it or not).  We discussed the way proximity to a speaker has an effect on the way we listen and how comfortable we feel. It was nice to discover that It’s not just me who has an “I’m not listening to you… but I’m really hanging on your every word” stance and demeanour we portray in public places when eves-dropping.

The thought’s that the week’s session have left me with are;

Is it really "better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt"?

How many people are actually listening to me at any point when I’m talking? And should I be censoring what I say because there are people listening who I haven’t intended to hear me?

…and

Which is worse, being asked to talk, or being asked to ‘shut up’?

What to say and how to say it

A conversation can be a tricky thing to negotiate at the best of times, but in a relationship it can sometimes seem impossible. How do we find a way to balance what we need to say with the best way to say it?

Plenty of women don’t find it difficult to say exactly what’s on their mind. Some shout, some fiercely lay out their position, some calmly sit down and talk things through, all perfectly happy to put their feelings out there in the open and deal with the potential fallout later.

I’ve never been able to do that. Instead, I tend to rephrase things over and over, from a million different angles, until eventually I’ve analysed it so much that either I neutralise it or, more often, end up empathising with a partner’s point of view so much that I feel guilty and apologise for being grumpy in the first place.

I’ve been thinking about this habit of mine since Art of Conversation started. In every other area of my life, I’m a fairly forthright, ballsy kind of a creature. I can hold my own in contentious meetings. I can write a letter of complaint that would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. I once got ripped off on the internet and pursued the man who scammed me with such ferocity that he not only gave me my money back but apologised like he’d killed my firstborn too.

But when it comes to relationships, the truth is that I become a bit.. errm...  rubbish.

I know I’m not the only woman out there who has this going on. Maybe it’s because we’re socially conditioned, as females, to nurture and protect. Maybe it’s because on some level we still find it unseemly for a woman to shout and scream and lose her temper. Maybe it’s because we still believe that a good wife or girlfriend should put her partner first.

I’m working on it. My new partner was a good friend for eight years before we got together and he’s wise to my neuroses. He’s seen me in action before and he’s not interested in the Stepford Wife that he’s seen me become with other boyfriends. We first knew each other back in Leeds and we’ve instated something called the Rule of Yorkshire Bluntness – whenever one of us finds something difficult to say or we’re worried about phrasing it right, we say “Yorkshire blunt?” and then just blurt it out and worry about the phrasing afterwards.

It might sound strange to ask permission before saying what I really think, as though I’m not being honest the rest of the time. But that’s not it. Instead, it’s a way of sidestepping all the complications that come with being in a relationship so I can get to the point.

I guess each of us has to find a way of expressing ourselves when it comes to relationships. For some women, a big blowout will clear the air. Others need linguistic tricks to get them off the hook. Perhaps it’s not about finding the balance between what you say and how you say it, but what you say and how you feel about saying it that matters...

Should men have a role in feminism ? If so , what should it be ?

I pose this question as a fervent proponent of women's rights . he problem I have with modern feminism is that it too easily demonises men for perpetrating sexism without calling out women who do the same , which , in the spirit of sexual  equality ,  is inexcusable.Men may have benefited more from sexism but they are in no way solely to blame for its existence or dissemination.

I'd like to hear the responses of others to gain a more rounded perspective on this issue , one that will hopefully inform my writing.

Diane Ofili

mary kelly projects

If you haven't yet seen the Mary Kelly retrospective at the Whitworth Art Gallery go see how a visual artist uses words as her material and turns voices into visual form. Her famous documenting of the first five years of her son's life...in particular his development of language...is here, amongst other treats.
I am looking forward to learning some "pigeon theatre methodology" to help us turn our conversations into creative outcomes!