When measurements are taken, there is a clear pattern:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/2017/01/03/gal-inte...

https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-in...

http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2015/03/19/google...

(If you look in the articles, they quote studies with 20 participants. At university I would have been destroyed when making fundamental claims on a sample size of 20).

And yes my gut feeling tells me women get interrupted more often. And from this comment you may assume I'm guilty of this, though my bad social habits probably interrupt men as often.

[1] the magazine of business anecdotes.

Another one from 1989 with 186 participants: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/250069045_Interrupt...

The other one only say that "both men and women exhibiting higher levels of interruption behavior in male-dominated groups".

Citations is only as good as the ability it provide to verify a claim. Those do not do that as far as summery goes.

The second study directly addresses this discussion: "The odds of a male attempting to interrupt another male (.078) are less than one-half the odds of a male attempting to interrupt a female (.163). Females attempt to interrupt male and female speakers at essentially identical levels (odds of .146 and .141 respectively). In other words, men discriminate in their interruption attempts, interrupting women much more often than men. Women, on the other hand, do not discriminate; they attempt to interrupt men and women equally. Group composition does not appear to influence interruption attempts."

That changes the tone of the issue. A 0.0195 difference from the norm is tiny on the negative discrimination of men interrupting women if we compare it to the norm difference of 0.0655 as positive discrimination for men interrupting men. As a social issue of 13.6% negative discrimination vs 45.7% positive discrimination, its a good time to ask what we want to fix. Is it the negative 13.6%, which mean we want men to interrupt women at the same rate as women interrupt women, or do we want men to treat other men worse by interrupting men as much as women do?

It also raises questions about moderators. Should we favor male moderators over female ones because they will in average interrupt 20% less (.241 vs .287) for a panel of 50% women and 50% men? The original post had a panel of 80% men and 50% men, which given the above numbers would have a male moderator interrupt a panelist at the rate of 0.095 while a female moderator would have interrupted a panelist with the rate of 0.145. A female moderator would be 52% worse than a male moderator in this specific case.

Ironically, the guy's "fuzzy memories" are more accurate than your "research-based" opinions.

I'll buy that. If this disproportionately affects women then I'll buy that too. I don't buy that men interrupt women specifically out of some sort of bias. My experience has been that the more passionate conversationalists among us will interrupt anyone who will let them.

You were right in your initial assertion: people talk over people. The people desperately trying to prove that "men talk over women" using statistical analysis are all missing the point.

The first thing to do, before looking for sex differences, is to try and identify the reasons why people interrupt, because there are many of them and sometimes there are conflicting or related motives.

Gathering anecdotal evidence would be a starting point for articulating hypotheses. What are the conditions of the discussion? What is at stake? What is the expertise of the participants? What are the personality factors? What is the general conversational ability of each participant? How long is the attention span of each participant? What is the apparent purpose of each individual interruption?

There are so many factors you could look for before looking at sex differences. And would the sex differences persist when those factors were controlled for?

a nice way of saying workplace bullies.

That being said, it seems to me that the broader implication of your position is that when men and women participate in group dialogue the meta-game of the dialogue often leans in favor of the male speakers. I'd need to do more research to prove this but in general, if this was your position, I'd be inclined to agree with it based on my own anecdotal experiences. However, this still doesn't establish the hostile intention or implicit sexism that, from my reading of your posts, is presented in your claims.

But hey, I mostly rein it in :)

So even if you can prove there is a pattern, it doesn't invalidate his statement that "it's generally sexless"

Having read the piece, it is by a woman who spoke up and said "Let her speak, please" and that's fine. But I have mixed feelings about the title of this piece and how it looks before you read it, because white knighting is a big problem for women. Men coming to the rescue of some damsel in distress and championing her often just deepens the problem. It often simply reinforces the idea that the only role women are allowed to play is that of victim and any justice that happens will be credited to some heroic guy. It often gets done in a way that in no way empowers her. It is frequently just some guy coming in, playing hero and getting pats on the back and when he goes off stage, her situation remains just as crappy and disempowered as before.

I am a woman and I personally don't have any problem with giving the guys push back and that gets me perceived as incredibly confrontational and fighty. At one time, my account on HN was rate limited. My feeling on that is that simply standing up for myself as a woman who often gets a lot of pushback merely for being a demographic outlier was being punished. That winds up a no win situation for women. If you don't stand up for yourself, you get walked on. If you do, you can be actively punished for it.

To be fair, the current mod team on HN has been great. I am sure they often find me cringe-worthy, but they have made me feel much more like I can report people who are really engaging in bad behavior towards me that is beyond the pale and much more like I can stand my ground without fear that doing so is highly likely to get me banned, no matter how reasonable I am about it.

Hacker News has generally been great about putting up with my outrageous agenda* to open my mouth here and engage in conversation on equal footing with the guys. I am well aware that is a shocking expectation and is simply Not Done in so many spaces, both online and off. I want to thank everyone here for being so good about that.

* http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/11/my-agenda-fo...

Or women, in general, just don't want the bother.

> giving the guys push back

Excellent. Too many women don't, in my experience. In my personal experience, I find women not standing up for themselves in the situation at hand, and then complaining about it for ages after.

> highly likely to get me banned, no matter how reasonable I am about it.

That seems unlikely. If you are getting banned, maybe you're not being reasonable about it?

> If you do, you can be actively punished for it.

This is not a women-only issue. Men get "punished" just as much for unpopular opinions. Just like they get talked over if they let themselves be talked over. etc.

That complaining about it is pushing back. And you whine about it right now.

The "not standing up for themselves" is in the actual situation, against the actual person they need to stand up against.

The "complaining afterward" is after the situation has passed, and complaining to a completely different person not involved in the original interaction.

That is the exact opposite of "standing up for yourself", and it is also not "pushing back", because in order for it to be a push "back", it has to be a push against the original force, not against some random other person.

If I got berated by my boss, which I just let happen, and then reacted by, a while later, berating you, a completely uninvolved third party, would you consider that "standing up for myself" and "pushing back"?

It exactly means standing up, well, for yourself, and not relying on or waiting for others.

Stand up thing worked great in this story. I trust you that your relative could suceed in standing up instead of being treated as crazy bad women. A lot of it is residuum from old times when gender roles were different and some of both genders keep going old way.

Her existence does not excuse dudes who attempt to dominate women more them men. I did won those fights in the past, but the older I am the less I care about whether it was intentional or subconscious. It affects me all the same.

That is why stories like this are good to hear about - it is good role model for women lime your relative - to see that she can stop the dude, not to consider his interest and win.

Maybe you could show her the story to make her inspired for that.

This stereotype doesn't come from nowhere.

I found a video of this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er7qPv8jsZo

This "push to Hubeny's field of expertise" seems to start at 1:02:00, "let her speak" is at 1:05:35.

The OP's account is overdramatized and sometimes plain wrong, like the suggestion that Holt didn't let Hubeny speak at all for these three minutes (she had two long blocks) or that there was a dead silence after the OP spoke up (there wasn't). And that's a part of the problem: feminism is routinely being represented by individuals whose subjective perception of events seems to diverge from what others see. FWIW.

It fundamentally includes "in the face of adversity". And that means that you do it well knowing that there can and likely will be negative consequences. If you only do it under a guarantee of no repercussions, then you're not standing up...for anything, really.

If women have to learn to stand up for themselves as you imply they should, they need to find a way to hurt people who treat them the way they don't like.

Yeah, that must be why blacks got lynched in the Deep South. They just couldn't be bothered to stand up for themselves when the KKK came for them.

/s

This comparison is ridiculous beyond the pale. Show me evidence of women getting lynched for speaking up.

I already said above that I was rate limited. I believe this was essentially because when I first joined, I would get dog piled simply for being a woman opening her mouth here. You ignore that and accuse me of misbehaving as the reason I was concerned that I might wind up banned, no matter how hard I tried to behave. Thankfully, I no longer worry about that like I once did.

That's actually a desirable quality. It means that you are not emotionally attached to your theories (you shouldn't be, it's science not religion) and are willing to contradict them. Still, most people would think that a bad thing.

I would postulate that academia and journalism are still pretty sexist compared to the 'tens of businesses' you observed.

Potentially in support of your perspective: I see the overspeaking roles inverted in the context of reality TV shows, though that could potentially be seen as a counter-action to normal social roles which develops as structure of society is removed... which would imply the sexist paradigm is the prevalent one.

Two industries I have not had the pleasure of engaging with. My coaching experience has been around healthcare, insurance, banking, transportation, energy, construction, software, audit, and a few other random things.

I mean, yeah there's no denying that there exist pushy jerks who are jerks to everyone but guess what? those kinds are more likely to be even greater jerks with women. So either this guy was a regular jerk talking over her because she was a woman or being that special kind of jerk who normally talks over some men but talks over most women. Why is there an difference of opinion about this?

Does anyone really think there is a breed of jerks who talk over some/most men but will never do that/will do less of that to a woman?

What makes you think there aren't women who also like to claim the center of attention, regardless of other men OR women around them?

I don't understand this need to idolize one sex over the other, when the issue is that some people (like this moderator) are just more tone deaf or inconsiderate than others.

Equality between sexes implies treating everyone as a human rather than assuming that this moderator is a stand-in for men in general.

So are you claiming that those sort of jerks are not going to be extra nasty to women that will tolerate it? That they are going to be equally nasty to people of both sexes? If that's what you're claiming, I'll humbly disagree but won't engage any further.

> What makes you think there aren't women who also like to claim the center of attention, regardless of other men OR women around them?

I never claimed that there aren't such women. Indeed there exist women who behave worse with other women than they do with men. But then what's your point? Women being sexist doesn't make it okay for men to continue to be so now, does it?

That is also my observation. We are just vastly more sensitive to aggressive/jerk behavior against women ("protect the women"), and this is highly emotionally charged for most people.

For a rough intro into the phenomenon, check out the youtube videos comparing bystander reactions to the exact same behavior in a woman -> man vs. a man -> woman setting.

He may not be aware that he is a relative amateur here.

slightly off topic, but with the rise of ubiquitous audio/video and the interview/discussion/panel format, it is infuriating how many hosts just blatantly speak over their guests, over and over and over. it's one of the biggest tells between a professional interviewer and a rank amateur. i can barely make it through my weekly playlist without cringing at half the dialogue.

i completely stopped listening to charlie rose because of this. it's absolutely atrocious. it's not helpful, and makes me anxious when i'm trying to unwind. some guests simply continue speaking, and the entire discussion devolves into little more than a god damn shouting match.

sexism or not, i hope this public assassination at least makes one loudmouth blowhard reconsider his default modus operandi. just let your guests speak! for fuck's sake, it's not that hard.

He also kisses up like mad to a few people (Tom Friedman? Yuck.) while stomping all over experts he doesn’t agree with, often because he doesn’t understand their point.

My favorite was when at some point maybe 15 years ago he was interviewing I think Bill Joy, and asked one of his long multi-sentence leading questions. To which the response was ... pause ... “well, duh.”

* * *

Thankfully Terry Gross single-handedly makes up for all the bad interviewers in the world.

I wish they'd give that position to Alec Baldwin. His work on "Here's the Thing" has proven him to be an adept interlocutor. While he also has a tendency to talk over his guests it's usually to help enlighten or at least to say something funny.

That is, I will pause while speaking, spooling my next thought out to the phonological loop, to review and filter it, before streaming it out through the voice apparatus, but then some jackass will use that break to assume conversational priority when I haven't yielded it yet. So when I resume speaking, they are already talking.

It is practically impossible for me to engage in a conversation with such a person constantly ruining it for me, so I usually just keep my thoughts to myself and regret even showing up for the party.

Even my spouse does this in a 1-on-1 conversation. And then I am the one accused of interrupting, as though it is acceptable to jump in between two sentences of a paragraph. It's like I need that stupid conch shell from Lord of the Flies in order to say everything that I want to say. And I get so irritated when people spew out a stream of content-free babble, for the sole purpose of maintaining priority, to the point where I forget what I have been wanting to say for the last 5 minutes.

It might be a sexist thing, but I think it's more likely that the people with the least latency between brain and larynx--and therefore the fewest speech filters--are the ones that never learned that conversational priority isn't just about refraining from talking while sound is still coming out of someone else's mouth. And, of course, there are also the people who simply decide they are the most important person in a conversation and act like they're the lead actor giving a monologue, and everyone else is the chorus.

So please, have a care as to whether a silence in the conversation is a pause or a yield. You may be interrupting someone giving due consideration to what they will say next.

Furthermore, I have never seen any american interviewer not interrupting their subjects.

This is my bias, so I never see sexism nor racism in this context. I only see idiots who think more of themselves than they should.

In this particular case and in regards to sexism, however, the voice that should be listened to most, in my opinion, is the voice of the subject. If we don't consider her voice the most important voice we put her in the subaltern and that is the worst position you can have. The subaltern being women in the context of patriarchal history.

The person who said 'Let her speak please.', should also be heard, regardless of her motives. The interviewers should shut up and let their subjects speak at all times, so we need more of this social courage.

I would find it very odd to save a string of questions until the end.

It's much more fun to engage in the conversation actively.

I'm not saying control the conversation. Good conversationalists listen more than they speak.

But having fun in a conversation is engaging in it. Not replying paragraph after paragraph, in my opinion.

In the context of interviewer<-->interviewee, though, I think it is generally more interesting to listen to the interviewee than the interviewer. It seems to me that the whole premise of the interviewer<-->interviewee is for the interviewer to get the interviewee to talk.

An interviewer’s job is to let the interviewee speak to the audience, even though the audience doesn’t get to directly ask questions.

In general nobody cares what the interviewer thinks, and we don’t want to hear them blab about themselves.

(This makes many “podcasts” unlistenable.)

If you want to get the most out of those conversations, you need to meet the other person halfway: be more assertive about your time to speak, while also letting them know that they’re trampling you and need to back off a bit. If you don’t tell them they’ll just think you’re a shy person with nothing to say.

Other cultural differences cause similar problems. If someone I don’t know is mad at me and just silently stews with a vaguely grumpy neutral expression on their face, I’m not going to have any idea they’re mad, because in my culture we just come out and tell people what we’re thinking. By contrast I know people who are deeply humiliated by (what seems to me like) light criticism, because it is huge faux pas and therefore never happened in their culture. Similarly, I know people who simply don’t understand the concept of teasing, at all, and others who are almost cruelly biting in their teasing: when those two collide it’s not pretty.

Or if I’m listening while someone tells one thing to one person, and something contradictory to someone else, I will consider them to be dishonest/untrustworthy and start discounting everything they say. But in some cultures, it’s normal and expected to say what you think the listener wants to hear, and listeners just have to learn to read between the lines and interpret subtle distinctions in presentation style.

Etc.

Good conversationalists will match each other's way of speaking and come to some common ground. It usually happens really quickly.

So you'll know when someone is done, or you'll be able to interject ideas into what they're saying.

It isn't rude, in my opinion, to interrupt someone in this way.

"So, I saw the craziest thing the other day when I was driving by the coffee shop..." "The one on main?" "Yes, that one!"

Etc...

It's called a conversation. It'd be really weird to save your questions until the end in a setting like that.

That said, let people speak. Listening is more important than talking.

I find myself interrupting my children a lot more than I like (and while it often feels like it's because they're interrupting me as well, I'm certain that's usually not true). Having a stuffed animal or similar "conch" talisman might help us actually listen, because each of us could point out who has the conch.

You can be upset about it and say that people were unfair, or you can make yourself a better person by learning from others mistakes.

The world would be a better place if people put less energy into being upset, and more energy into mutual empathy between sexes.

Leaders, make an effort to listen and clear the air for others to speak up. Don't beat them up if they don't articulate brilliantly right away -- it takes practice. You'll be surprised at the rate of improvement.

For individuals, I use this trick when people cut me off AND it's unjustified: saying "hang on, let me finish" and then driving my point aggressively. It has mostly worked though I am male.

Maybe you think otherwise. Why would you say this incident is a "painfully frustrating reminder that women get talked over by men"? Surely you can't construe this incident to mean that when all panellists alike suffered the same treatment? What's your take?

Honest question: Did you watch the rest of the video?

I did and completely disagree with your assessment.

Also, the panelist herself wrote that she thought it funny that the guy was asking and answering a question at the same time; she didn't feel she was targeted or silenced during the event.

This guy just likes to dominate conversations and lacks self/social awareness. I bet he's like that all the time. Does he do it more to the woman in the video? Yeah, you might have a good argument that he does. But I've met plenty of these people in management-level meetings and they do it to everybody; it's soooo annoying. Very hard to assert yourself without making things awkward. Impossible to assert yourself when it's a woman who's overriding everyone else.

The solution is usually to appoint a meeting moderator that everyone knows to be fair beforehand (obviously, this isn't always viable), but we found it shortened up our medical practice meetings quite a bit. The guy who likes to hear himself talk still goes overboard from time to time, but we have a third-party moderator who can cut him off without worrying about upsetting a supervisor.

There's an objective answer and opinions don't really count here.

In fact what YOU wrote is actually sexist, since it suggests that the corrective action would be to act differently toward her, but not the men. Perhaps you might merely argue that he should not behave that way to anyone simply because of the disproportionate impact. But even if that's the case, you are still saying that women are incapable of speaking up for themselves the way the men did to gain their voice back from the moderator. How is either of those scenarios not sexist on your part?

No, the effects of deliberate, targeted differences in socialization by gender aren't the fault of the people experiencing adverse impacts because of the intersection of those with social structures that respond better to people socialized in the manner which is targeted at the other gender.

> In fact what YOU wrote is actually sexist, since it suggests that the corrective action would be to act differently toward her, but not the men.

It's not sexist to recognize that the consequences of past sexism may require corrective action that is sensitive to the gender-differentiated effects of that past sexism.

I've heard this argument before - that women are deliberately socialized to be subordinate.

Personally, I believe in the strength & agency of women.

>It's not sexist to recognize that the consequences of past sexism may require corrective action that is sensitive to the gender-differentiated effects of that past sexism.

I don't understand how using a persons gender for gauging ability to cope with forceful men isn't sexist.

That's because it's a fairly well established fact.

> Personally, I believe in the strength & agency of women.

Yeah, so do I. That doesn't negate the effects of differential socialization; objective external circumstances have real impacts.

* For women to have strength & agency

* For external circumstances & socialization to have impacts on individuals

But what I don't understand is how you can maintain simultaneously that women are strong & have agency, but must receive corrective action sensitive to gender-differentiated effects.

Are the strong women you're thinking of incapable of overcoming societal pressures without gender sensitive treatment?

Apples and oranges, though.

Physical violence, threats, and calls to action must not be equated to expression. The urgency & rigor needed to address violence would be inappropriate applied to expression.

As an aside: it's not always possible to take action to defend yourself, but this does not necessarily mean that passive or defensive actions are all that you have.

> Are the strong women you're thinking of incapable of overcoming societal pressures without gender sensitive treatment?

Strength and agency are relative, and different in principle and in fact. All women (and men) are theoretically capable of asserting themselves even against an expressive bully (which is what I think you mean when you say " I believe in the strength & agency of women"; in practice many are not for a variety of circumstantial reasons--bad day, bad upbringing, cultural background, misinformation, fear, insecurity.

Whether men (especially conference organizers and panel moderators) should do something differently in light of received knowledge about sexist patterns of socialization, there's no contradiction with believing in the agency of women. Affirmative action might be problematic at the legislative level, but strongly indicated at the social level.

In other words, Jim Holt could be conscious of the fact that sexism against women in science is a real and ongoing problem, and make a point of being deferential to female speakers; at the very least, he could avoid actively preventing them from speaking more than he was preventing the men. The first would be a positive good; the latter a basic expectation. Neither is an infringement on Holt's expression, nor is a social backlash against Holt for failing to meet even the basic expectation of civility.

A society righting wrongs proactively will never run out of wrongs to right.

Yes! That's the entire point I am trying to make. You just said it in far less words.

"It's not sexist to recognize that the consequences of past sexism may require corrective action that is sensitive to the gender-differentiated effects of that past sexism."

True, but if the corrective action is treating women differently, then yeah, that's sexist. You can't say this guy is being sexist because he acted differently toward her and then say that we need to treat women differently than men to correct past sexism, but that different treatment is somehow not sexist.

No - the "correct" response is to avoid talking over everyone. Helps everyone, overall helps women (as a group) a little bit more.

> But even if that's the case, you are still saying that women are incapable of speaking up for themselves the way the men did to gain their voice back from the moderator.

Nope, I'm saying that there's a sort of cultural training against interrupting people, and women are more severely affected by that cultural training since it ties in with a lot of "be nice/the good girl" pressure that women get while men are pressured to be more competitive. What I'm specifically not saying is that this is something inherent in being female - it's a cultural issue, not a female one.

Or, in other words - it's easier for men to interrupt people because it's the norm for men to interrupt people and so they have practice at it. It's harder for women to interrupt people because it's not the norm for women to interrupt people and so they have less practice at it. Doing something you don't normally do is hard, even if you have the knowledge on how to, and it's especially hard when you know you're going against the norm to do it.

I'm sure most people go against the norm sometimes - but we should really be creating social environments in which people don't have to go against the norm to get the same result as their peers.

Saying "women should just act like men" is actually pretty sexist.

And the commenter said - "women often have difficulty interrupting in the way that the men here did"

At minimum, that fits at least the stereotyping requirement of the definition.

I'll strengthen my position this way instead. Let's assume the definition is garbage and ignore it. Are stereotyping examples things that fall into the category of sexism? I think they absolutely are. And I think most people would agree.

"Women aren't as good as men at [whatever]" - sexist? Yep "Women often have difficulty interrupting in the way that the men here did" - sexist? Sure sounds like it to me.

I can't say whether either of your statements are substantially sexist because they only have real meaning once you get at what underlies each one. "Women aren't as good at men at critical thinking because they're genetically programmed for motherhood while men are programmed for leadership" seems very sexist because it's talking about essential traits of men and women. "Women aren't as good at interrupting as men are because they're socialized to be deferential while men are socialized to dominate" seems not sexist because it's describing an accident of history that could as easily be the other way.

EDIT: Found it at the bottom...

For anyone interested, the link is here.

http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/programs/big-universe-bi...

edit: The moment happens at roughly 1 hour 7 minutes in.

Also, in case someone does a Ctrl+F for "timestamp", there you go.

[1] http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/programs/big-universe-bi...

men get talked over as well

some people just talk over other people

nothing new

Men are 3x as likely to interrupt women. Women will interrupt women, but rarely men.

Informal study, but decent sample size.

I'd put the emphasis on the outcome: women being able to express their opinions and contribute to the conversation / problem. Being interrupted (while speaking less in the first place) seems counterproductive to that end.

Is there a better solution? I'm being serious.

(At the very least, we don't need to accuse men of being sexist if is proven to be a biological tendency—we should call a spade a spade)

The equal outcome is men and women both being given equal and fair opportunities to express their viewpoints.

If this isn't the case because {reason}, then to me that's justification enough to attempt to redress the issue through modified behavior.

/sarcasm

But "if men are 3x as likely to interrupt women" is literally an example of sexism... the likelihood of interrupting a woman over interrupting a man.

Sexism IS a biological tendency. There is no rational basis for it when scientists are contributing to something as esoteric as string theory. This story overwhelmingly demonstrates how absurd sexism can get.

In any case it is perfectly acceptable to shame someone when they are being rude and excluding someone one from contributing. Especially when that someone is an expert.

The reason why I think she did not take any affront is because she already understands the subject matter. She's motivated not only in understanding herself, but in determining and helping others to comprehend. She can't actually engage in a proper discussion until she realizes that her counterpart also understands the material. When things get complicated, you have to continually establish a common basis for discussion which requires fostering patience.

not at all

sexism is behaviour

sexism is believing that women cannot do something because women are inferior by design, not thinking that they are generally weaker (biologically true) and it's probably best if it's the man who carries the heavier luggage

no. because men don't interrupt women 3x as likely but it's sexism to assume they do just because you believe it's true

so you're just like my dog, you don't listen, bark and don't care if you're right or not

you just wanna bark for the sake of barking

and threats of ban are laughable

if they ban me, I can create another account

it's not really important what HN commenters thinks of me or what I write

Yes, hypothetically, if women acted the same (or interrupted only males), she would be as bad as he was. Yes, hypothetically, if he treated males and females the same, he would be just equal opportunity asshole.

Nevertheless, in this specific case, the only women was treated differently.

https://hbr.org/2017/04/female-supreme-court-justices-are-in...

All different settings.

We all know US men are generally terrible...

I don't believe it is always necessary to counter-exemplify what you experience as a general trend.

Now I'm perfectly willing to believe that other people find the opposite experience more common. But I have to admit my initial reaction to statements like "this is a painfully frustrating reminder that women get talked over by men" is not positive, and I really do wish the conversation could be about people dominating conversations rather than men dominating conversations.

I'll grant that I've seen both in casual social circumstances. But in this kind of situation, fairly serious and focused around competence/status, I'd say I see women get less space.

> Extraordinarily, we do not know how listeners actually assess how much is spoken. Common sense tells us that someone who drawls a sentence slowly is not considered to have said more than another person who gabbles the same sentence twice in less time than the first person took to say it once. That is, we normally make allowance for speaking rate in judging who says most; amount of linguistic material produced is what really counts.

They do not analyze this issue at all in their paper and I don't see how they can just handwave it away with "common sense tells us". My common sense understanding is that our assessment of speech vs talking speed would be some kind of curve, with the extreme ends ending up with underestimation(spoke too fast, could not remember all the words said; spoke too slow, lost track of conversation) and the rest trending as slower -> overestimated and faster -> underestimated. But we both only have our "common sense" to put forward for this conjecture. Either way, it would have helped if they measured the talking speed of the speakers, so we could at least see if there was any statistical difference.

You're probably going to get "all lives matter"-alike reaction on this.