“Yo”
If you had to guess which greeting came from a male and which from a female, you undoubtedly identified the first as uttered by a girl and the latter by a boy. Not so fast.
For 15 years the claim has been floating around that females talk more than men, with last year’s popular book “The Female Brain,” by neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, asserting that women use 20,000 words per day while men manage to spit out a mere 7,000. In reality, these estimates are based on little-to-no data. One study that tried to be systematic gave manual tape recorders to 153 volunteers in Britain, and estimated that women speak 8,805 words per day and men, 6,073. But the researchers had no say in whether the volunteers turned off the recorders, or even knew when they did so, making it possible that the verbal gap reflected men’s reluctance to be recorded.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have done better. For eight years James Pennebaker and colleagues gave volunteers electronically activated digital recorders. The devices were programmed to record for 30 seconds every 12.5 minutes, night and day, for two to 10 days. The participants neither knew when the device was on nor could activate or deactivate it manually. Analyzing the transcripts of 396 students in the U.S. and Mexico, the scientists find that women speak about 16,215 words per day and men about 15,669, they report in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Science, a difference that was statistically insignificant.
Many of those who have repeated the 20,000/7,000 claim go on to conclude that the difference is biologically based, and not, say, cultural or social. The next line in the argument often goes something like, “evolution selected for talkative females because they were more likely to bond with one another and survive and reproduce.” Quiet, non-verbose girls and women were, by default, flouting their evolutionary heritage. As has happened before to claims about a biological basis for one or another behavioral difference (whether between genders or among races), this one, too, evaporates under the light of rigorous, empirical scrutiny. According to the Texas scientists, none of the groups of volunteers “provided support for the idea that women have substantially larger lexical budgets than men. Further, to the extent that sex differences in daily word use are assumed to be biologically based evolved adaptations, they should be detectable among university students as much as in more diverse samples. We therefore conclude . . . that the widespread and highly publicized stereotype about female talkativeness is unfounded.”
I could go on, but I wouldn’t want to validate any remaining stereotypes.
title: “He Said She Said” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-18” author: “Lyn Nusbaum”
On the timing of their separation: “On Sunday, February 4, 2001, petitioner told respondent that he no longer wanted to live with her and that he wanted a divorce. This came as a shock to respondent. [On December 24, 2000, the parties had happily celebrated their 10th anniversary with a group of friends. During the balance of December and thereafter, the parties were intimate; in fact, respondent became pregnant by petitioner but lost the baby through miscarriage.]
“Respondent protested petitioner’s intention to dissolve their marriage and urged him not to leave but to enter marriage counseling with her or to take other steps to address whatever problems may have existed in their marriage relationship. Petitioner said his decision was final, and he departed the parties’ home.”
Kidman’s lawyers are claiming a new kind of marital asset, “celebrity goodwill,” which comes when one celebrity marries another. Under the heading, “Community and Quasi-Community Assets and Debts,” Kidman claims:
“The parties have community and quasi-community assets … including the post-marriage increase in the value of petitioner’s ‘celebrity goodwill’ and the post-marriage increase in the value of respondent’s ‘celebrity goodwill.’)”
In the following passage, Kidman is insisting on face-to-face meetings in the future with Cruise. As for legal custody of the children:
“Respondent’s request for an award of joint legal custody of the parties’ children is contingent upon petitioner’s agreement to communicate, consult, and-from time to time-meet directly with respondent as to all important issues affecting the children’s general welfare.
“In the event petitioner were to be unwilling to communicate, consult, and meet directly with respondent as to these issues, it would be impracticable for the parties jointly to make and to execute decisions relating to the children. In such event, respondent would request that the Court award her legal custody of the children.
“In the event the Court were to award respondent legal custody of the children, she would nonetheless make her best efforts to consult with petitioner as to the foregoing issues.”
As for where Kidman would like to live:
“Respondent would prefer to reside with the parties’ children primarily at her home in her native country, Australia, or elsewhere in the United States. However, respondent believes that-at this time-it would be in the children’s best interests for them to continue to reside with her primarily at the parties’ residence in Los Angeles.”
Other relief Kidman is seeking: “Respondent intends to make her best efforts to continue her career in the performing arts, subject to limitations imposed upon her by reason of (i) the need for her to care for the children and to safeguard their emotional well-being and (ii) the recent serious injury to her knees. Nonetheless, in order for respondent and the children to maintain their standard of living following dissolution of her marriage to petitioner, it will be necessary for petitioner to pay “family support” to respondent.
“Respondent believes that it is appropriate, fair, and in accord with controlling principles of law for the children and her to maintain their standard of living through the time when Conor, the parties’ younger child, graduates from high school or attains the age of 19 years (whichever is later) …”
