Why Women Gossip: Definitions and Explanations

October 3, 2012 by Jonalyn

One of the best metaphors for gossip is offered in the movie “Doubt” starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.

During election month gossip sprouts up louder and larger among both genders. We all have our dirt on the common enemy. We find ourselves feeling closer to those who vote along with us and give us reasons to find idiocy or evil in the other candidate.

Out of the heart our mouth speaks (Matt 12:34). Gossip appeals to any person who has fear in their heart. Gossip is a way to feel superior and tribal and therefore protected. Gossip insulates those of us who are insecure.

So why do women often get targeted as gossipy? First, female friendships don’t abide silence and companionship without talking (not as well as male friendships). Women tend to fill the empty space with something. Second, many women haven’t developed a solid sense of their identity apart from their power over their husbands, children, friends. With less to bring to the table in terms of our own ideas, feelings, hopes, we lean on the stuff we do know.

Sometimes gossiping helps us feel less empty.

Gossip is a crutch to anyone with a undeveloped soul. And rather than draw our censure and disgust, gossip needs to be an alarm bell that this person feels inadequate, hurt, small.

But before we start thinking of all the gossips we know, let’s take a step back and re-evaluate if we really know what gossip is.

What is Gossip?

I am afraid that many God-fearing women and men hold their tongues because they believe gossip = negative words.

Gossip is more than negative reports. Jesus spoke up repeatedly about the evil things people were doing, and not always in their presence. Jesus talked about people behind their backs to unveil lies and truth, to help his followers find goodness.

Gossip is more than “talking behind someone’s back.”

I talk behind my husband’s back when I’m planning a surprise gift for Christmas. I tell his closest friends and we plot and plan to make it special.

But this is not gossip.

Why is gossip so slippery to define? And why does it seem to be part of the sins women get warned against more than men (1 Tim 3:11, 5:13)?

You can’t simply do a word study on gossip to find out what gossip is. Try searching other words as well “slander”, “whisper” to round out the meaning. Psalm 41:7 reveals a key, ”All who hate me whisper together against me; Against me they devise my hurt.”

Gossip requires one necessary ingredients: an aim to harm. If I call my friend and tell her how my husband just crushed my spirit is this gossip?

Depends on my intention. Do I tell her to process before I calm myself down and carefully share my feelings with my husband? Or do I call her to prove how idiotic my husband is?

Test Yourself

Next time you’re not sure if you’re gossiping, ask yourself:

Am I trying to harm my this person’s growth in Jesus? (not simply “Will this harm their reputation?” for all evil things we’ve done, if known, do harm our reputation. It harms the rapist’s reputation to have it known that he’s raped three girls. But telling the truth is not gossip.)
Am I trying to put this person beneath me in value or significance?
Am I trying to gain sympathy to get my friend on my side against this person?

If not, then why am I sharing this? What is my goal?

Put another way, gossip involves these types of motivations (there may be more):

I want to be perceived as one in the know (Listen to the dirt I have on her!).
I want to put others beneath me (Can you believe he chose that?).
I want indignation so others will join my crusade (I was treated horribly by this person, so don’t befriend them).

Sharing news or personal secrets crosses into gossip when we try to shift power in our favor. Proverbs 18:8 puts it like this, “The words of a whisperer are like dainty morsels, And they go down into the innermost parts of the body.”

We share gossip because we want power over someone.

A Challenge to Women

But, if we share personal things for the sake of comfort and compassion, for the sake of clarity and encouragement, for the sake of truth and healing, we are not gossiping.

Many women hold the sole set of keys to out some serious sins of molestation, rape, spiritual, emotional and physical abuse (the latter of which is by and large a male dominated offense). While some disagree with me, I do not believe silence is an indicator of purity.

If we are afraid to speak in the light the deeds someone else did in the dark, if we are afraid of how we may be accused of being negative or improper, if we are afraid that truth-telling may rip apart communities, ruin memories of the happy times, tear asunder families so that we stay still and quiet when we know evil is being done, then we are not like Jesus.

And we will be guilty of overlooking the fatherless, the voiceless, the widow, the orphan. God has lots to say about that, too.

To speak of the ways someone has hurt us is not gossip. To confess that we have been lied to, harmed, assaulted, molested, attacked or raped is not gossip.

not if it is true.

not if we are seeking healing and hope.

not if we are trying to prevent the aggressor from hurting others.

http://timfall.wordpress.com/ Tim

Great distinctions here, Jonalyn. Gossip is hurtful, whether to others or ourselves or both; words that don’t hurt are not usually gossipy.

Your illustration about the rapist is closer to real life than you might think. About twenty years ago I represented a trio of police officers being sued by someone they had put in prison. His claim was not that they had no cause to put him there. He complained that their investigation ruined his marriage because it was through them that his wife found out he was a rapist.

Tim
- Jonalyn
  
  Just wrote a longer response to Josh below, would love your feedback if I’m missed a point about punishment in the court system as an appropriate aim as a Christian.
Jim

Appreciate your careful thinking about what makes gossip malicious or toxic, some form of false witness.

I like to reflect on the fact that our word gossip shares some common ancestry with the word gospelling. But as you point out, other things need to be called out or whispered in appropriate places, besides “good news.”
- Jonalyn
  
  Jim,
  
  I’d very much like to hear more about the common ancestry between gossip and gospelling.
  Is it a connection of “speaking openly”?
  - Jim
    
    My reflection is pretty rough, Jonalyn.
    
    I believe the anglo-saxon etymology of “a gossip,” before it took on a pejorative sense, had to do with a godparent (or “God-sibling”) naming or otherwise speaking about or on behalf of the one they are sponsoring. Both shared a kinship with God and each other that gave a warrant to do this, at least under some circumstances. It created an awareness of communual identity and the bonds, privileges and obligations belonging to it.
    
    I suppose that one “gospels” to better establish that spiritual link, or to invite others into it.
    
    But in a world where shalom has been vandalized, people take an unwarranted interest in the business of others, speak untruths or half truths about others, or state the facts with malignant purpose, etc.
    - http://www.patheos.com/blogs/ellenpainterdollar/2012/06/tim-fall-money-marriage/ Tim
      
      Jim, that is an excellent reflection on the etymology. Thanks for giving it to us.
      
      Tim
  - Jim
    
    Just to make my thoughts a bit more concrete, relative to our contemporary world …
    
    I’m sometimes asked to serve as a reference, provide recommendations, etc. Typically, those begin with “how long have I known this person and in what capacity that establishes my right to speak.” Am I friend, employer, teacher, … did we share some intense experience like a back-packing trip together … are we kindred spirits in some other sense?
    
    Most of what we know we take (at least initially, before we test it) on the testimony of others (e.g., the etymology of “gossip”), and so we do well to establish the basis on which they qualify as “God-sibs” and the limits that pertain to them.
    - Jonalyn
      
      Jim,
      
      I’m fascinated at the communal and shalom aspects you’re bringing to mind. What is now gossip could have once been bond-creating to praise or build proper intimacy founded on the god-parent, god-child relationship. Once shalom is broken, the words we speak are more laden with power to break than to build.
      
      But I love thinking of the original goodness of words that get twisted into gossip.
Josh

Hi Jonalyn,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments on an interesting and important issue.

I don’t think you got gossip quite right. One can gossip without aiming to harm and one can aim to harm without gossiping. For the first possibility, you acknowledge that one might speak negatively of someone because they seek to be accepted or make oneself feel better of oneself without even recognizing that by so speaking one is bringing harm on another. “I didn’t mean to hurt you” is a common and often honest response when someone is caught gossiping. For the second possibility, think of someone who is reporting some negative action/character so that someone is punished. If the report is true this should hardly constitute gossip. In fact, it seems to me that gossip can be totally divorced from harm since it need not harm nor intend to harm. I suspect that gossip involves inappropriately sharing some piece of information, regardless if the information is positive or negative. Spoiling someone’s pregnancy announcement may be gossip if it was not yours to share, even if it brings no harm to another and even if one did not intend to harm another. What constitutes ‘appropriate sharing’ or ‘inappropriate sharing’ is complicated. Although you are right that sharing negative information with the intention to harm often constitutes gossip, I don’t think you’re at the heart of the matter yet.

More importantly, I don’t know if you really answer the question “Why women gossip”. You seem to imply that women gossip more than men. Perhaps that is true, but it isn’t obvious to me. I suspect that showing this is incredibly difficult. One way is to gauge it is via self reporting but this is often unreliable. I don’t think one can determine this from thinking about what it is to be a woman or a man in the way you do. The two reasons you give in the third paragraph don’t seem to be established (yet), though I grant that they are often the stereotypes we have of women and how their friendships are structured.
- Jonalyn
  
  Josh,
  
  I’m honored you took time to engage me in these distinctions on gossip.
  
  In doing some reading on definitions of gossip I think you bring up some interesting ideas on what gossip may include.
  
  I’m having trouble define gossip as ‘inappropriate sharing’ mainly because we then have to figure out who decides what makes the sharing inappropriate: the sharer or the one being shared about? To push it farther, what distinguishes between sharing news and sharing gossip?
  
  An example might help. Say I share with Dale about how a woman broke her wrist at book club. I believe I could share this as news and not as gossip. According to my definition if I had an aim to make my friend look stupid or harm her reputation then this “news sharing” would become gossip.
  
  Let’s say I share with the desire to let Dale know how our mutual friend is hurt. If this friend called me the day after and said, “Jonalyn, you had no right to tell your husband about my broken wrist. That was gossiping”, would this mean I’ve gossipped? Do you believe her accusation is enough to change my news-telling into gossip? That would then make gossip dependent on the sensitivity of the person being talked about. If she didn’t care, would my news-telling be acquitted as gossip?
  
  Feels too relative to me.
  
  If someone says, “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” when they share news, I think this could indicate that they are ignorant or unaware or insensitive, but I don’t think their news sharing is gossip. Someone feeling hurt is not synonymous with my wanting them to be hurt. As Tim mentioned in the comment above, a man sued three policemen for ruining his marriage because they informed his wife that he was a rapist. This man felt hurt, but I don’t think his “being hurt” is sufficient cause for calling these policemen gossips. Gossip, as far as I can tell, requires malicious intent on the part of the gossiper, not just the receiver.
  
  To put it in philosophical terms, “an aim to harm” is a necessary condition. To use your example (someone who is reporting some negative action/character so that someone is punished. If the report is true this should hardly constitute gossip), I disagree due to the nature of seeking justice. Shouldn’t we as Christians be working against vengeance but for justice? And in doing so aren’t we aiming to help and rehabilitate even the worst criminal? I know when I used to tell on my brother so that he would be punished, I was doing so with malicious intent, not so justice would be served or that he would be rehabilitated. But our aim in witnessing about a crime ought to be truth and justice not “so that someone is punished.”
  
  Let’s say a girl tells her youth pastor that her father is raping her. I believe this girl ought to tell on her father, not to see him punished, but to see him prevented from hurting her and others again. If she’s witnessing against her father in order to harm or hurt him, then I would say she is crossing into gossip. For even testifying against someone who has committed a crime ought to be for the sake of truth and justice, not “an aim to harm.”
  
  I’d love to see Tim weigh in on his as well as I may be out of line in terms of judicial aims, but this is what I believe right now.
  
  I still see an aim to harm as a necessary condition in gossip. There may, however, be more.
  
  Regarding why women gossip, my reasons hinge on the “aim to harm” definition. If you don’t believe gossip always involves malicious intent, I can see why my arguments are less persuasive to you. Since women are disempowered in most societies (do you find this idea unsubstantiated?), gossip provides a passive aggressive way for females to grab at power. It’s a way of “shooting your enemy in the back” because it’s often quite difficult to find the source of the gossip. An analogy may help.
  
  In the sobering movie Doubt, the popular priest Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) loses his position because the school’s principal (a nun played by Meryl Streep) suspects him of molesting an altar boy. She speaks up about her suspicions and Father Flynn is asked to leave.
  
  In his farewell sermon, Father Flynn tells the story of a woman who told a tale about her neighbor. The woman feels guilty and goes to confession. The priest tells her to go to her tenement roof, rip open a pillow and throw the feathers into the wind. We see hundreds of white puffs drifting across the town, over roofs, into alleys.
  
  “Now, go collect all the feathers,” the priest perscribes.
  
  I cannot,” the woman says.
  
  “So it is with gossip,’ Father Flynn preaches.
  
  Gossip wreaks such pervasive, unimagined harm on a person’s reputation mainly because the damage can never be totally undone. My suggestion here is that gossip is a tool of the oppressed, more than a tool of the empowered. When you hold most of the cards you don’t need to gossip.
  
  Most women, even in the West, feel that they need to gossip to hold onto power over those they don’t like. More women report feeling insecure than men, more women act as if they don’t know who they are during psychological evaluations. More women than men report feeling depressed (double to 70% more likely than men). More women attempt suicide than men. More women are raped than men. Women are still disempowered.
  
  This leads to a power differential that can be soothed by, among other things, gossip.
  
  That said, I found this article in “The Telegraph” polling 5000 men and women interesting in that it found men are more apt to gossip than women. I did, however, disagree with their definition of gossip. Men Spend More Time Gossiping Than Women
  
  Thank you for writing in with your thoughts. You always push me to think more.
  - http://timfall.wordpress.com/ Tim
    
    When it comes to talking about someone else in a judicial setting*, I think it falls under the biblical instruction to honor those God has put in civil authority over us.
    
    Also, when a crime is prosecuted it is done so in the name of the government (U.S. v. Jones, California v. Smith, etc.). While victims may testify, their interests are not paramount. In fact, some victims ask that charges be dropped. Whether to prosecute, though, is the government’s sole decision. Witnesses who testify for the prosecution or defense are doing so as part of acarefully developed judicial process, not in a gossipping context.
    
    I don’t know if that helps, but those are the thoughts that came to my mind.
    
    Tim
    
    *We call it testimony
    - Jonalyn
      
      I think the fact that witnesses are called to tell the truth, not seek prosecution or draw up the sentencing is important here. Thanks for your input, Tim. Yes, testimony does seem different from gossip!
  - Josh
    
    By saying that gossip is better conceived as ‘inappropriate sharing’ I don’t intend to suggest that what counts as inappropriate is relative to an individual. Something can be objectively inappropriate. Perhaps ‘improper sharing’ makes this clearer. You are right that we now have to figure out what makes sharing proper/improper or appropriate/inappropriate, but this is not an objection to the account just a call for more information. That’s where hard work is required.
    
    I am quite certain, however, that malicious intent is not necessary condition for gossip. One can gossip because one is in need of attention, bored, hoping to get accepted or liked. In fact, often people gossip because they don’t think that the person they are gossiping about will find out and as a result think that the person won’t get harmed.
    
    Also, I don’t think you are right that gossip is only for the disempowered. Because gossip is often, though not always, used to harm, it can be a way for the empowered to retain power to to disempower another group of people. Think about the slander/libel used by authoritarian governments or by the ‘popular crowds’ in school. They could be guilty of gossip without being a disempowered group. So even if women are disempowered (a claim I don’t intend to dispute) that does not show that they gossip more than men.
    - Jonalyn
      
      Hi Josh,
      
      Dale and I discussed this after dinner and he agrees with you that malicious intent isn’t necessary for gossip. So I want to be humble about this and revisit my definition, if necessary.
      
      I think this definition is helpful for me, but may not be for others?
      
      Dale prefers to think of gossip in terms of a power play. In other words, our motivation is to gain power or attention or being perceived as “knowing more” than others. I mention this in my post as well.
      
      Good to hear that you don’t think the person being spoken about gets to determine what makes sharing proper or improper (nice clarification on that). And yes hard work does need to be done on this. I like to think we’re doing some of that hard work here.
      
      I really liked and resonated with this line “One can gossip because one is in need of attention, bored, hoping to get accepted or liked.” I would say, though, that each could be argued as trying to harm or using someone for your gain (which is the opposite of love i.e. harmful). For instance, if you’re seeking attention then you are using someone else’s life as a leverage for your own notice and this is not loving. Or if you’re bored you are using someone’s life to provide interest to your own and this is a parasitic way to get your kicks (also using someone as a means not an ends and not loving). Or if you’re hoping to get accepted and liked then again you’re using someone’s news as a social stepping stone. This is a harmful as a girl using me to meet my brother so he’ll notice them, it’s harmful, it’s treating humans as objects not subjects and therefore aiming to harm them.
      
      To say someone’s motivation to gossip is so the subject of their gossip won’t find out is an example that, I think, gives more weight to my definition. If we really don’t want the subject to find out isn’t it because we know it will hurt them to know we’ve been saying THAT behind their back? Why else is gossip “whispered” about?
      
      Great point that powerful people gossip as well. Power does seem to be a huge part of gossip.
      
      I think at this point I’m defining gossip as anything we communicate with an aim to harm for the sake of gaining power.
      
      What would your definition of gossip be?
Nichole

Jonalyn,

I question your unqualified statement that “female friendships don’t abide silence and companionship without talking.” As an off-the-charts introvert who shares friendships with many other (female) off-the-charts introverts, I am happy to report that we can indeed abide silence very, very well.

Aside from this point, I found your discussion insightful, thorough, and appropriately complex.

Regards
- Jonalyn
  
  Nichole,
  
  I’m glad you challenged me on that. In my friendships with (mostly) introverts I find they are very talkative. But this is anecdotal evidence and easily pushed aside by one example. I’m glad you offered yours.
  
  Thanks for commenting!
  - Nichole
    
    I always tell people to consider it a high compliment when introverts are chatty around them
    
    In my own inner circle of friends, we have all agree to operate on the principle that great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss other people. In the past, whenever one of us has begun to slip gossip into a conversation, the others can always be counted on to charitably remind that person to “strive for greatness.”
    - Jonalyn
      
      My husband tells me the same thing.
      
      How do you suggest your friend “striving for greatness” without it sounding judgmental?
      - Nichole
        
        I suppose within the context of our relationship and the history of our relationship, the exhortation is not so much a judgment as an expression of concern for the other’s character.
Beth Wettergren

I have read that gossip served to socialize a community by letting the “talkers” examine behavior as good or bad for the community. Of course, there are few communities nowadays that are isolated enough for this cleansing and unifying aspect of gossip to act. However, in a small Massachusetts town of my youth, in the 1950′s, gossip about a farmer who performed wage-theft seemed to set a very strict code of behavior among the others. Everyone determined to hold to a higher standard without even the appearance of culpability.
Pingback: Those Gossipy Godparents! | Tim's Blog – Just One Train Wreck After Another
Anastasia

I live by these rules when tempted:
OU! Yes you! Think twice before spreading a rumor. Here is a short story that explains the three filters of Socrates – The Ultimate Gossip Test. Here it goes:

In ancient Greece (469 – 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom.

One day an acquaintance ran up to him excitedly and said, “Socrates, do you know what I just heard about Diogenes?”

“Wait a moment,” Socrates replied, “Before you tell me I’d like you to pass a little test. It’s called the Triple Filter Test.”

‘Triple filter?” asked the acquaintance.

“That’s right,” Socrates continued, “Before you talk to me about Diogenes let’s take a moment to filter what you’re going to say.
The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?”

“No,” the man said, “Actually I just heard about it.”

“All right,” said Socrates, “So you don’t really know if it’s true or not. Now let’s try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about Diogenes something good?”

“No, on the contrary…”

“So,” Socrates continued, “You want to tell me something about Diogenes that may be bad, even though you’re not certain it’s true?”

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed. Socrates continued, “You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter, the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about Diogenes going to be useful to me?”

“No, not really.”

“Well,” concluded Socrates, “If what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even useful, why tell it to me or anyone at all?”
- Jonalyn
  
  I like all of these.
  
  But I have a question. Is it good?
  
  Makes me wonder about when we need to share something that is not good (for instance, I may need to share with another other that the babysitter she is using is not careful with children). But I still believe it is information important to share, though the info is not good news, so to speak.
  
  Thoughts?

Why Women Gossip: Definitions and Explanations

Announcement

Subscribe

Need More Answers?

My Work

Recent Tweets

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Count per Day

Why Women Gossip: Definitions and Explanations

Announcement

Subscribe

Need More Answers?

My Work

Recent Tweets

Recent Comments

Read by Category

Popular Posts

Recent Posts

Count per Day