hostile act of conversational bullying, portraying the interrupter as the aggressor and the interrupted as an innocent victim. The complaint “You interrupted me” is one that is heard most often in relationships because it raises issues of dominance and control. Women seem to favor conversations in which more than one person speaks at a time, whereas men feel they need their ideas expressed without interruption. It has also been observed that conservative men are intimidated by powerful, “high-involvement-style”, women speakers, such as Geraldine Ferraro, a woman who ran for vice president, or Hillary Clinton. These two women have been called many names by many different people, just because they stood up for themselves and took a confidant role when speaking. Ferraro also happens to be an Italian New Yorker, an ethnic group stereotyped as being boisterous or pushy, qualities that are far more negative in women then in men.Being blamed for interrupting when you didn’t know you did, or didn’t mean to, is almost as frustrating and painful as feeling interrupted. There is nothing more trying in a relationship then being accused of bad intentions, when you know your intentions are good. Women often can get frustrated when men do not respond to their troubles by offering matching troubles, and men often can get frustrated when women do. Two examples: Tannen told a story of a couple she called Eve and Mark. Eve had just come home from having a lump surgically removed from her breast, and the seam from the stitches left the contour of her breast changed. Eve called several girl friends and explained what the result of her surgery had left her, and they offered sympathetic “I understand” comments, such as “I know, after my operation I felt the same way” and “ I know, it’s like your body has been violated”. When Eve told Mark of her concern, he shrugged it of...
