Rudeness or strategy?
From “Analyzing Gender in Public Places: Rethinking Goffman’s Vision of Everyday Life” (Gardner 1989):
…access information demonstrates the creative strategies of women who must deal with public places, which Goffman’s view neglects, along with the heavy obligation on women to remain apparently unavailable.
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The first notable conceptual absence in Goffman’s sociology of public places was, for me, the reality of street remarks, that is, free and evaluative commentary that one individual offers to an unacquainted other in public places (see Gardner 1980). As common an occurence and possibility as this may be for all women, it is one that, by Goffman’s analysis, is delimited to the young and attractive and carries with it no dark contingencies.
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For young women especially, however, appearing in public places carries with it the constant possibility of evaluation,, compliments that are not really so complimentary after all…
…If the woman has ratified the comment before it becomes clear that it is no compliment at all, she will feel taken advantage of all the more. …When a women responds with ‘Thank you,’ as in compliment etiquette among the acquainted, a man sometimes escalates into outright suggestiveness or abuse. A middle-aged man in Santa Fe pleasantly tells a young-middle-aged woman how lovely her dress is. When she thanks him, he offers to take the dress off for her.
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Access–in Goffman’s sense of openness to and availability for interaction–is the theme in urban gender relations whose importance both for women and men Goffman underestimated.
Gardner repeatedly makes the point that women are faced with contradictory constraints on their publlic behavior in wanting to appear, at least, not rude, but also wanting to avoid negative attention, primarily from men. The old bait and switch compliment routine is, I think, a particular problem; I frequently receive remarks on my hair in public spaces, and obviously I don’t find this surprising, given that my hair is bright pink. If I felt that all remarks on my hair from strangers were an imposition, one could reasonably argue that I should stop dying it pink.
The problem is that I am always conscious of the possibility for uncomplimentary escalation when the remark comes from a man, based on experiences like having a guy on the corner near my apartment tell me, “Nice hair,” only to follow up with (after being thanked, no less) “Does it match down there?” paired with a vulgar gesture. I feel more comfortable about male strangers on the street when they are with a woman, which I think I tend to interpret as a de facto check on any such behaviors.
But anyway, going back to the point of the post as projected by its title: people frequently complain about the widespread use of cell phones in public, particularly by people walking on the street. Certainly you will see hoardes of cell phone users at any given time on State Street; I frequently call people when I am walking between campus and home. This behavior is often decried as an undesirable consequence of technological saturation in our society.
Gardner notes that many of the women she interviewed engaged in extremely complex charades of male companionship, going so far as to keep men’s outerwear in their cars and shout to imaginary boyfriends when opening their doors–strategies designed to create the impression of close accessible masculine aid, should the need arise. Women may also use “involvement shields (Goffman 1963) such as dark glasses to maintain an integument against which street remarks may not penetrate or through which their effect cannot be observed.”
Cell phone use actually combines these two types of strategies: on the one hand, the woman is clearly talking to someone, who might be expected to provide aid from afar if they detected aggression against their conversation partner. At the same time, being visibly involved in a phone conversation creates a definite interactional barrier; I have at times purposely employed it to avoid being panhandled.
Ironically, if one observes that this behavior is concentrated among young women, as I have a general sense that it is, it might reinforce perceptions of young women as a group as being self-absorbed and flighty/gossipy/superficial, unable to detach themselves from their phones even when they ought to be more considerate of others in public. In fact, young women talking on the phone as they walk may well be quite conscious of their environment and feel a real need to display a level of detachment.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
I am interested in the assumption that a cell phone is ruder than talking to a “real” person. Because we can see/hear the other side of the conversation, it automatically makes it more acceptable? I mean, that’s how it sounds when most people talk about cell phone calls in public, but why?
July 19th, 2006 at 4:10 am
I don’t much care for people making loud mobile calls on the bus - because the other passengers are a captive audience, that does seem rude. But walking along the street? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complain about that. Maybe it’s because mobiles have saturated UK culture even more than US (I believe this is true, mostly because rates were cheaper at an earlier stage).
On the other hand, I have seen people who were obviously texting on their mobiles step into traffic without looking properly. That seems like more of a problem!
I’ve never been on the end of a bait-and-switch compliment, though I have apologised for accidentally knocking into someone male, and been told “You can do it again if you like”. Which I dislike quite intensely.