THE DIVISION-OF-LABOR BETWEEN WOMEN AND MEN IN CONVERSATION WORK

Female-male conversation is examined in detail in order to observe con cretely its structure and process with respect to the gender of the co nversants. Egalitarian in principle, woman-man exchange actually invol ves many asymmetries. The concrete analysis of speaking time, conversa tional practices and choice of discussion topics leads to the conclusi on that the work required for interaction is unequally divided. We obs erve in fact that it is mainly the women who produce the conversation, while the men direct and control it. We show that female-male convers ation contributes to the exclusion of women from communication and to the building of hierarchical relations between women and men. We thus see how actively men participate in the creation of a patriarchal real ity.