6 - Complicity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
Summary
Women are . . . bound together by their immanent complicity. And what they look for first of all among themselves is the affirmation of the universe they have in common . . . They compare experiences: pregnancies, birth, their own and their children's illnesses, and household cares become the essential events of the human story.
simone de beauvoir, The second sexDuetting is a way of relating while talking. When words are used, there is a tendency for linguists to get involved, but duetting is less about language than it is about action – human inter-action that is expressed in movement of the body, face, and voice. Timing is important. Eye movements matter. Duetting reflects women's reactions to external events, but it responds to internal forces – emotions and memories and ongoing life events. Though much of this operates beneath the surface, it is, paradoxically, only the immediate experience of something that lies deeper still. For duetting expresses evolved dispositions for one woman to coordinate, perhaps even to coalesce, with another.
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- Information
- Duels and DuetsWhy Men and Women Talk So Differently, pp. 117 - 131Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011