Pamela Fishman

Pamela Fishman

Pamela Fishman's research theorized the 'division of labour in conversations'. Her research stretched across the 70's and the through the 90's. She looked specifically into the way men and women interacted - she stated the way men and women contribute to conversation varied and women tended to 'work hardest' to enable conversation to take place.

She analysed several hours of the conversation of white, American , middle- class heterosexual couples and categorized the variation between men and women across four main features of interaction. In terms of topic initiation, women were not always taken up in the conversation whereas men were always successful and supported by the women. Women used phrases like 'd'ya know what' to gain husband's attention, whereas men made little or no use of attention getters. Also, women used supportive minimal noises to show interest, whereas men either delayed them or didn't.

 Pamela Fishman's theory contributed to the Dominance Model ( - This is the theory that in mixed-sex conversations men are more likely to interrupt than women. It uses a fairly old study of a small sample of conversations).
 

Pamela Fishman’s Theory, Experiment and Results:

 Pamela Fishman conducted an experiment and involved listening to fifty-two hours of pre-recorded conversations between young American couples. Five out of the six subjects were attending graduate school; all subjects were either feminists or sympathetic to the women’s movement, were white, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. Fishman listened to recordings and concentrated on two characteristics common in women’s dialect, including tag questions for example ”you know?”

Fishman begins by examining the use of tag questions being asked and states that women frequently use tag questions ‘isn’t it?’ or ‘couldn’t we?’ following a thought or suggestion. For females questions are an effective method of beginning and maintaining conversations with males. Fishman argues that women use questions to gain conversational power rather than from lack of conversational awareness. She claims that questioning is required for females when speaking with males; men often do not respond to a declarative statement or will only respond minimally.

 

Fisherman also says this example is part of a malfunctioning conversation, where the women is struggling to keep the conversation going but is receiving no support from the male participant. Men delay their minimal responses to gain control in conversations; Fishman said that this study  proved that women do more 'interactional shitwork' than men.

The conclusion drawn from Fisherman's research was that women became drawn in to lower-status in the conversation, encouraging the men's topic and utterances. Fisherman suggested her findings were reflective of a wider dominance model of society.