Women have to be active listeners and interrupters - but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It might seem at first surprising that when I studied women and men talking at work, I found that women 'interrupted' each other more often than men did - when they were in all-women conversations.
An assumption underlying almost all comments on interruptions is that they are aggressive, but the line between what's perceived as assertiveness or aggressiveness almost certainly shifts with an interrupter's gender.
At the end of the day, women are a distraction. Whether you realize it or not.
We women must listen to our inner voice. It is easier for women to do this as they are not afraid to say what they feel.
One of the issues I kept saying to my students is you have to learn to interrupt. When you raise your hand at a meeting, by the time they get to you, the point is not germane. So the bottom line is active listening. If you are going to interrupt, you look for opportunities. You have to know what you're talking about.
One of the first studies in the field of gender and language, by Don H. Zimmerman and Candace West in 1975, found that in casual conversations between women and men, women were interrupted far more often.
Women have a greater verbal capacity.
I was brought up in a house full of women; the first time I realised no one was interrupting me was when I was on stage - that's probably the subconscious reason I became an actor.
Women like silent men. They think they're listening.
When a man interrupts a woman in mid-sentence, it reveals much about him. First, it shows he hasn't been listening to what she is saying, and secondly, it indicates that he doesn't want to listen to what she will say. Her views are not important.