Gender and the Residential Telephone

Abstract: Recent work on gender and technology debunks the claim that household technologies have "liberated" women from domestic work. The history of telephone use in North America suggests, however, that global conclusions about gender and consumer technologies may be misleading. Although marketed primarily as a business instrument and secondarily as an instrument to facilitate housework, the telephone was, in a sense, "appropriated" by women for social and personal ends. This paper explores the "affinity" of women for the telephone, how women in the half-century before World War II used the telephone, and why. It suggests that there is a class of technologies that women have exploited for their own, gender-linked, social and personal ends.



- Fischer, C. S. Gender and the Residential Telephone, 1890-1940: Technologies of Sociability. Sociological Forum, 3(2), 211-233.
- photograph by Helen Levitt via

One Tweet Every 20 Seconds

"These results back up what women have long been saying – that Twitter is endemic with racism, misogyny and homophobia."
Kate Allen



228.000 tweets sent to 778 women journalists and politicians in the UK and US in 2017 were studied. That year alone, 1.1 million abusive tweets were sent to women which equals an average of one tweet every 20 seconds. Black women were "disproportionally targeted" as they were 87% more likely than white women to be mentioned in problematic tweets (via).

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photograph of "Lois Lane" Margot Kidder (1948-2018) via

Men Taking Selfies vs Women Taking Selfies

In their study, Sedgewick, Flath, and Elias (2017) collected 962 (508 women, 454 men) profile photographs from Tinder in order to analyse gender differences in the way heterosexual men and women wanted to be perceived by the opposite sex. The results were consistent with the predictions: Men's selfies were angled significantly more often from below while women's selfies were angled more often from above. The authors come to the conclusion that - intuitively or consciously - the illusion of a height disparity is created which again is consistent with height ideals of the opposite sex: Men's selfies from below "facilitate the perception of tallness", women's selfies from above "convey relative shortness".



Several more studies support the prediction that men and women use different strategies with the first taking selfies from above and the latter from below. Makhanova, McNulty, and Maner (2017) discuss reasons in addition to the illusion of height disparity. By taking their photographs in a low relative physical position, women "highlight their youthful features and appear attractive" while men "highlight their size and appear dominant" when they portray themselves in a high relative physical position.

Women were perceived as more attractive when they were photographed from above and that’s particularly because they were perceived as younger and thinner from those angles.
Makhanova 

For men, perceived attractiveness wasn’t affected by camera angle. Dominance, however, was. When viewing photographs shot from below, male evaluators looking at photographs of other men found them to be more dominant. “Men were only doing this for other men, and incidentally only men were picking up on this as a cue.” (via)

Diane Cleverly surveyed 352 selfies and found that the same small number of men and women displayed Duchenne or genuine, authentic smiles while significantly more women favoured the non-genuine, polite Pan Am smile compared to men who preferred neutral expressions.

I believe that the social norm of pressuring women to smile, and women feeling as though smiling improves social interactions, might be so ingrained that they tend to smile subconsciously, even when taking selfies in a home setting with no other people around. Men may not be as aware of their facial expressions or may not care for the look of their face smiling. So they take a more neutral expression selfie. Other reasons could include the fact that women take more selfies than men and are more “practiced” at smiling for selfies, albeit not an authentic, emotional smile, or that people taking selfies tend to copy magazine advertisements, which more typically show women smiling, and men non-smiling. (via)

Döring, Reif and Poeschl (2016) investigated gender stereotyping in selfies with a quantitative content analysis of 500 selfies (50% males, 50% females) that had been uploaded on Instagram:

The degree of gender stereotyping in the selfies was measured using Goffman's (1979) and Kang's (1997) gender display categories (e.g. feminine touch, lying posture, withdrawing gaze, sparse clothing) plus three social media-related categories (kissing pout, muscle presentation, faceless portrayal). Additionally, gender stereotyping in selfies was directly compared to the degree of gender stereotyping in magazine adverts measured in the same way (Doring € & Poschl, 2006). Results reveal that male and female Instagram users' selfies not only reflect traditional gender stereotypes, but are even more stereotypical than magazine adverts.
Döring, Reif & Poeschl (2016:955)

Vivian Maier's (1926-2009) brilliant self-portraits:

"The meta quality (the photographer is almost always seen with her camera in the act of taking the shot) and obliqueness (she’s reflected in car mirrors, shop windows, or hubcaps, or seen only in shadow) that characterizes nearly all of these portraits might come across as over-determined, too earnestly artful, if not for Maier’s droll approach not only to composition, but to her own facial and bodily demeanor. Maier often affects a deadpan, somewhat distracted look, her eyes blankly regarding something just outside the photo’s frame. She is her own unwilling subject, just tolerating the intrusion of the camera she’s holding, arms akimbo, below her chest. And then there are the hats: berets, fedoras, straw, that lend her profile a rakish air, sometimes undermined by a slightly doleful expression. Maier presents herself as someone aloof and contentedly so. (...)
In a few images, Maier can be seen without her camera. In a 1960 shot, she broods purposely — chin in hand, beret appropriately tilted — in a snowy park. But in most of these self-portraits, the tool of her trade is unmistakably present, often vying with her face for prominence. The camera is carefully held — offered? — to the viewer as the object deserving our attention. The formality of her poses, her studied impassivity, lend an iconic note to several of these photos, as if she were seeking not to capture herself but to delineate some Platonic notion of “the photographer.” If the potential aesthetic missteps that attend this sort of self-mythologizing are numerous, Maier appears well aware of them and equally confident of her ability to avoid stumbling."
Albert Mobilio



- Döring, N., Reif, A. & Poeschl, S. (2016). How gender-stereotypical are selfies? A content analysis and comparison with magazine adverts. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 955-962.
- Makhanova, A. McNulty, J. K., & Maner, J. K. (2017). Relative Physical Position as an Impression-Management Strategy: Sex Differences in Its Use and Implications, link
- Sedgewick, J. R., Flath, M. E. & Elias, L. J. (2017). Presenting Your Best Self(ie): The Influence of Gender on Vertical Orientation of Selfies on tinder. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, link
- self-portraits taken by Vivian Maier via and via and via and via and via 

Quoting Lee Van Cleef

In an interview, Lee Van Cleef was asked about the "intercultural communication conditions" in Italy, if everybody involved in making the film "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" was speaking English.



"No. Not then. Everybody speaks English now, for the most part. For your somewhat better films, your major actors do speak English now, mostly; unless they're in there doin' somebody a favor and won't speak anything but their own tongue, which I think they're making a mistake, there. And in some of your cheapies now, they won't. But in the old days - well, I say the old days, it was fourteen, fifteen years ago and ` before that - everybody would be speaking in their own tongue. Leone couldn't speak English to begin with. He speaks it very well now, but in the first picture he could hardly speak it at all, and we had an interpreter on both of the pictures I did for him. There was one scene in For a Few Dollars More that I was in where there were five languages spoken: Greek, Italian, German, Spanish, and a Cockney Englishman that I couldn't understand any better than I could understand the Greek! But I got along in it, because I knew what everybody was supposed to be saying in English by my script. So, when they'd stop speakin', then I would say something. Also, I began to pick up some of the Italian and Spanish which was prevalent over there."
Lee Van Cleef

"Did any of your fellow actors ever express or hint at any resentments towards you, as an American on a European set; as if to suggest you had taken the job away from a more deserving local" I asked.

"No, I never felt it. I think that the people in the know, they understand that as well as an art, it's an international business and a money game. Because it's international, you have people with different nationalities in damn near every film today. Even American ' producers will go over to Europe to get money to pre-sell a picture. As a consequence, to get this money, they may sometimes have to take actors and technicians from the countries they're negotiating with - or I'm sure : in a lot of cases, they want to take them, because there's a lot of fine people abroad. So, if you're going to make a film anywhere, and you're going to want money from Italy, money from Spain, from Mexico, from Canada, then they will own a film for their particular areas, or however you negotiate it - there's no two alike - and you've got people from all over the world in one fllm.
But we got along fine. No problem at all. You'd be surprised how many over there do speak English now, cause the actors have had to learn. It wasn't that way before. I'd usually pal around with somebody who commanded both English as well as the tongues of anybody there around me. The stunt man I had over there for quite some time spoke English very well, and both Spanish and Italian. My wife speaks a little bit of Spanish, too, and I speak enough Italian now to make myself understood."
Lee Van Cleef

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image of Lee Van Cleef (1925-1989) via

Divided by a common language

“The difference between Austrians and Germans is like the difference between a battleship and a waltz.”
Christoph Waltz 



Hofstede's research findings from 1984 revealed differences between Germans and Austrians concerning some cultural dimensions, such as Power Distance, Masculinity, and Individualism. In other words, gender roles were more traditional in Austria and Individualism was higher in Germany. The latter findings are associated with "the Austrians' tendency to preserve harmony, and to Germans' willingness to fight for their rights." In the GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Research) study carried out in 2004, Austria, again, scored higher than Germany on practices related to Collectivism and "Human Orientation" which indicates interpersonal considerations and a stronger concern for others. Muhr's (2008) linguistic comparison supports these findings, too (results indicate tendencies): Germans argue, Austrians avoid conflict, Germans demand, Austrians ask.



Germans and Austrians also (or most of all?) differ in their stereotypical perceptions of each other. While Austrians consider Germans as "competent but cold", efficient, bossy, industrious and well-informed, Germans tend to see Austrians as rather "incompetent but nice", charming, hospitable, not very dependable nor industrious or educated. Germans describe Austrians as more likeable than vice versa (Renner et al., 2014). And Christoph Waltz is no exception.




::: Christoph Waltz explains differences between Austrians and Germans in three hilarious minutes: watch



This reply might be better understood knowing about some journalists' tendencies to turn him (and by the way Mozart, Romy Schneider, Maximilan Schell, Senta Berger etc., too) into a German:

“I was born in Vienna, I grew up in Vienna, I went to school in Vienna, I took my university entrance exams in Vienna, I studied in Vienna, I began my professional career in Vienna, I had my first theater role in Vienna, I filmed for the first time in Vienna, and there are a few more Vienna specifics. How much more Austrian could you be?” Christoph Waltz

- Renner, W., Gula, B., Wertz, M. & Fritzsche, S. (2014) Asymmetric Mutual Perception of Austrians and Germans: A Social Identity Approach Assessing Implicit and Explicit Attitudes. online
- photographs via and via  and via and via and via and via and via and via, animated gifs via and via and via

East meets West: Context and Communication Patterns

The anthropologist Edward T. Hall describes two contrasting communication cultures: high-context cultures (messages are covert and implicit with use of metaphor and reading between lines, much nonverbal communication, reactions are expressed in a reserved manner) and low-context cultures (overt and explicit messages that are simple and clear, verbal communication, and visible, outward reactions).

Research on Korean (high-context) and US-American (low-context) communications practices show that Koreans' reserved manner is often mistaken for lack of assertiveness. Besides, Koreans generally create more ambiguous messages and prefer indirect communication as they tend to value Confucianism which emphasises harmony. Not taking a stand and being rather indirect helps others save face and therefore fosters harmony (Merkin, 2009).

Yang Liu designed pictogrammes that illustrate stereotypes and differences (some of them described by Hall) between Eastern and Western cultures. The blue images refer to Westerners, the red ones to Asians (images via).

Confronting a Problem
 

 Sense of Self
 

 Relationships


 How to Express Anger
  

Queue when Waiting
 

Punctuality
 

Transportation
 

Weekend Activities
 

Merkin, R. S. (2009) Cross-cultural communiation patterns - Korean and American Communication. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 20