Date: Sunday, August 16th 2015

Participants (from 14 countries):

Panel PRO: Rick

Panel CON: Rebecca, Mubarak, Jami, Aziz, Sunita, Santo, Seif

AUDIENCE: Lala, Marissa, Johny, Luz, Leandro, Rojhano

Host: Rick

Moderator: Marwa

Panel PRO summary:

A survey taken in the UK shows that men tend to gossip 10% more than women:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-83255/Men-likely-gossip-women--survey.html
One in 10 men like to dish the dirt on other people, compared with 4% of women.
Some 55% of men said they gossiped at work, compared with 46% of women
Another study made by an university in the US shows the following: As of 2013, a 2009 study conducted by the global research company Onepoll stands as the most recent large-scale report on office gossip, in regard to gender differences. According to the study, which surveyed over 5,000 people, the average woman spends about 52 minutes a day gossiping at work. Men, however, out-gossip women by a landslide, averaging 76 minutes of workplace tongue wagging every day.
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/tannend/
Onepoll reports the reason men gossip so much more than women is because it makes them feel included — 58 percent of men surveyed said they felt like “part of the gang” when they gossiped. The study also found men like to gossip about the workplace while women prefer to talk about the outside world. Other women, personal relationship problems and the relationship problems of others topped the list of common topics for women, while men were mostly preoccupied with drunken friends, old school friends and female colleagues. Both genders have a strong tendency to gossip about the news.
http://woman.thenest.com/gossips-workplace-men-women-19266.html
In societies where women tend to stay at home and men go outside more than women, it allow men to have more topics to talk as well as to gossip more whereas these women have limited topics to talk about.
The majority of men just like to stand around with a cup of coffee and talk about their lives and their problems just as much as a woman does. They talk about the problems with their kids, they talk about problems with managers, and working with other co-workers they feel like have some deep flaws.
In a patriarchal society, men would try to best on each other; one way of showing that is by gossiping.

Panel CON summary:

Some women cannot keep rumors for themselves; they feel the need to tell to another person.
Some women are very skillful at communication, this explains how they gossip in a different way than men do.
When men talk, they often do in very straight forward and often say only what they need to say and no more than that, whereas women tend to communicate more than what they should.
Surveys not always reflect the reality in all part of the world.
Some women take opportunities during their yoga class to gossip with other women whereas most men don’t take these kinds of classes.
Often while men are at work, women, especially in some countries i.e. India (approximately 70% of the women may stay home) will meet with neighbors or socialize with friends, leading to more opportunities to gossip. Often in these countries, the amount of "chit chat" between men are severely limited due to office environment.
Some men base their friendship on more than just talking whereas most women tend to base their friendship on communication and talking.

AUDIENCE summary:

Lala voted for the team A
Johny voted for the team A
Rojhano voted for the team B
Marissa, Leandro and Luz left early.

Team A won this debate, thanks everyone for participating!

There was a bonus chat which followed this debate and the topic was:

Three chances to describe what an alien from outer space looks like, and what you would do if you met one.

This bonus topic will be posted in a separated blog.

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Men gossip more than women - 16-8-015 | Recording file

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