negatively about others behind their backs as a sin,
and think women are the ones who participate in
this social evil. Women even fear that other women
will not keep disclosed information to themselves.
Women may try to avoid revealing transgres-
sions, weaknesses, or distress, worrying that others
may take a perverse satisfaction from their misery
or be unable to avoid the temptation of passing on
some juicy, scandalous, privileged information.
Such caution may have negative effects. Frequently
women suffer in silence rather than risk confiding
in others. The reputation of a female influences the
status and social standing of her family, the mar-
riage opportunities for its young people, and even
its economic and political interests. As people
highly value social ties and interaction, they are
extremely sensitive about leaking incriminating
information and becoming the object of gossip.
Much of people’s sense of well-being, for females
more so than males, depends on enjoyable interac-
tion and relationship with others. Females fear the
potential of gossip to provoke disrespect, rupture
relationships, or cause ostracism or perhaps the
need to leave a setting. People often put on a good
front and keep unpleasant realities out of sight to
avoid blame, critical commentary, and public dis-
cussion. Fearing that they themselves will be seen as
the cause, women may keep domestic abuse, phi-
landering of husbands, or children’s problems to
themselves. Sometimes a woman may find a friend
who is outside her circle of neighbors and relatives
with whom she may be more spontaneous and less
censored.
People frequently hold that women waste much
time in idle and even sinful talk about other people.
Males often have a tendency to look down on
females, believing them to engage in frivolous, use-
less, undignified, destructive gossip, unable to
restrain their verbal activity. Unfortunately, the
negative connotation placed on the word “gossip”
in the languages of these areas and the association
of women’s talk with this negative word results in
the obliteration of the important work that women
achieve through their verbal exchanges.
Although fearful that sensitive information might
fall into the wrong hands, women may find other
women with whom they can share confidences and
problematic situations. A women might unburden
her heart, perhaps weeping as she tells her story, to
a neighbor, relative, or friend, and feel catharsis
through doing so. Through practice and observa-
tion, women generally are adept in a listening, com-
forting, and counseling role. Women’s intimate
exchanges with each other, particularly in situa-
tions where marriages are arranged, provide close212 gossip
social ties and crucial emotional support. Women
frequently work with one another, assuming a role
much like that of a therapist. Women learn which
women provide good support and advice and
which women might gossip to others about disclo-
sures. Some women gain the reputation of extending
wise assistance to other women and maintaining
confidentially, and thereby the respect and admira-
tion of the community.
Particularly in times of more rigid gender segre-
gation and where women were not occupied with
schooling and work outside the home, they spent
much time in telling each other stories of their own
or other women’s difficulties. Generally not dis-
closed to men, these stories and the telling of them
developed as underground networks of communi-
cation and reservoirs of tales of women’s troubles,
frequently involving males. Women may use these
stories for various purposes – to provide guidance,
elicit compassion and assistance, build a sense of
community of women as mistreated by males, show
a young relative in an unhappy marriage how well
off she is comparatively, or to arouse awareness of
violence against women and a desire to bring about
change.
Males often left the home, courtyard, and neigh-
borhood to go to school or work. Females stayed in
the home and neighborhood and interacted with
other females more frequently than with males,
sometimes even communicating little with their
own husbands. Such verbal exchange constituted a
main source of a woman’s enjoyment. In groups
and networks, through the use of their fine conver-
sational abilities, women developed gratifying social
lives for themselves, positions of respect within
the world of women, and reservoirs of knowledge
and relationships that could be useful personally,
socially, politically, and economically. Through
such communication networks, a woman could
present her family in a positive light, attempt to per-
suade people to her own or a family member’s view-
point on a situation, disseminate information about
a conflict, or collect data for the benefit of herself,
her family, or her faction.
Women wield their verbal abilities for their group
and goals in local factional, political, and sectarian
competition and conflict. They cooperate to help
other women and to force males into different
behavior. They teach and discuss religion. They
organize gender-segregated religious rituals. They
work to develop and maintain social networks
through their organizing and verbal work in the
area of religion, as well as other areas such as
poetry, literature, sports, women’s rights, philan-
thropy, political parties, kinship, education, and so