The Whole 'Women Talk More Than Men' Thing Is a Myth
LatestThis week, a new study published in The Journal of Neuroscience found that the levels of a certain brain protein differs between the sexes and could explain why girls exceed boys in language development. These findings are being reported by mainstream media outlets like The Today Show and Marie Claire as “Women talk more than men and here’s why!” This isn’t merely an egregious misinterpretation of the facts. It’s a willfully ignorant misreading of a study, combined with some made-up bullshit, that serves only to confirm a sexual stereotype. And even though it’s meant to come off like, “Ha, ha, ha, bitches be talkin’,” there’s a pernicious subtext here: Women talk too much. God, women, shut up already!
Interestingly, the study—from the University of Maryland School of Medicine about the brain protein Foxp2—didn’t mention anything about women (or men) at all. It was about girls and boys. Essentially, Foxp2 has been shown to play a critical role in speech development, and when studying a group of children, researchers found that girls had a higher level of the protein in the cortex, which explains why girls speak earlier and with greater complexity (which is thought to balance out over time). So if anything, the study showed that females speak better than males—not more.