When I was little, the culture within China around me was such that the most natural question following “what do you (or your parents) do?” is “how much do you (they) earn?” Sometimes the second question is phrased as “oh so that’s like $5k a month, right?” which leads to the same effect. Nobody thought it was weird. The most someone would say was something like “oh you earn that much? Damn, I wish I were good at math/writing/etc.”
Over time, the culture of money changed, primarily (I think) because “that’s how they do it in the West”. Income disparity has also increased. I’m not claiming that there’s a causal relationship, but it’s certainly true that not talking about money makes it easier for employers to pay as little as they can get away with.
Dr. Tara Brabazon, a professor, dean, and vlogger at Flinder’s University in Australia, once shared a story (and I can’t find the video where she did this) of a previous job she held in the UK. She and a man were promoted to the same position in the same year, which is not very common. Sometime after her promotion, a friend of hers who worked in the HR office told her that the man’s salary was $30,000 (I forgot the exact number but it’s somewhere around here) higher than hers. She then downloaded the man’s CV, which contained strictly less content than hers in all categories, and confronted HR. I don’t remember if she explained what happened later.
Not talking about salary disproportionally hurts people who are not familiar with the “industrial norm” and/or who are prone to undervalue their labour. They are such because they are traditionally not considered as a part of the “standard labour market” — women, people of colour, people with disabilities, etc. (Think about the stereotype of the white male working class.)
Salary is not the only place implicit norms can put some group of people at a disadvantage, of course. The same holds of other aspects of work: how vacation time is allocated; how long and hard people work; how much recognition they get for their work; how many concessions they make in social situations, etc. Take mentorship as an example. How is a first-generation graduate student supposed to know how little mentorship is valued professionally or which kind of mentorship is “the right kind”? How is a WoC supposed to know that her mentors don’t treat their white male students with the same dismissive tone in their private meetings?
Not discussing norms does not make norms go away; it just punishes those who start out without such knowledge. But norms are “norms” for a reason: trying to formalize them or get rid of them doesn’t always lead to an improvement. For example, you wouldn’t want your employer to give an hour-to-hour prescription of how you are expected to spend your day, would you?
What should we do instead? Introducing — gossip! Gossip is a quick, easy, painless, potentially entertaining & relaxing way to get the information you need when you need it!
In all seriousness, though, I do believe that gossip is a highly efficient and effective way to communicate norms to the people who need them. The benefit of gossip is that it’s “fuzzy”. Nobody takes them super seriously, and yet valuable information is communicated. We know that we shouldn’t trust what “a friend’s friend” says and that gossip is susceptible to misinformation and prejudice. However, we also have an internal gauge that tells us something is up when we receive several independent rumours. These features make gossip the ideal communication channel for norms since norms are also fuzzy in the same way.
In addition to communicating norms, gossip also tracks reputation. In evolutionary game theory, a major (“the” major?) explanation for why people cooperate despite personal loss (in, e.g., Prisoner’s Dilemmas) is that we are evolutionarily selected to care about our reputation. If we cooperate and are known to cooperate, others are more likely to want to interact with us in the future, resulting in greater long-term gain. This sort of picture could not work without a reasonably reliable way to track reputation.
How do people track reputation? — by talking about each other behind their back (so that the talks are honest). This is the exact definition of gossip. If I don’t tell people “I can’t believe so-and-so did that” because it’s “improper”, nobody would know that so-and-so is not a cooperator. If we think reputation tracking plays a fundamental role in creating and maintaining a healthy community, we must value gossip, the act of reputation tracking, in the same way.
This is not to say, of course, that there aren’t bad gossips and bad gossipers. There are bad versions of everything, but I think, as we normalize gossip, we can also improve gossip as a technique.
Another important feature of gossip is that it creates a friendly environment for people to talk about — and therefore work through — feelings. I have had conversations with friends that started as “I can’t believe they did that” but turned into “okay I guess if they’re coming from this other angle then it makes more sense”. All of this is peppered with “of course this doesn’t justify what they did to you but I just want to share another perspective”. And it’s easier to process because it’s a friendly exchange where we start by validating the shit out of each other’s feelings.
Speaking of feelings, gossip is also about feelings. (That’s right: gossip combines the transmission of facts and the validation of feelings into a seamless unity.) Since we only gossip with people we care and trust (or we’re supposed to anyway), fostering a sense of community is at the core of it. To give you an example, I was brushed aside by a certain male philosopher whom many people around me liked. I felt isolated because everyone around me was like “he’s the nicest person ever” and “you should really talk to him more”. It also felt wrong to talk about my experience because it really wasn’t a big deal and I didn’t want to “badmouth others behind their back”. Eventually, I did share my story, and my friends were all like “wow yeah that is pretty bad. He’s always nice to me but yeah totally I see what you’re saying.” Some of them thought up other reasons why it was bad and not as small of a thing as I tried to convince myself of, which is super validating. Others shared similar stories not about this one person but about other people who are deemed likeable in similar ways. Some of these stories have been about people who have treated me nicely and whom I usually endorse without reservation. As a result of the shared information, I will be more reserved next time and will be sure to include a caveat “I have enjoyed working with this person immensely but not everyone enjoys working with them so don’t feel like it’s your fault if you don’t”.
In conclusion, gossip transmits important information about norms to those who are frequently put at a disadvantage because they have no access to this knowledge otherwise. Gossip tracks reputation, which serves a fundamental role to the health of a community. Gossip balances communication with validation in a manner that allows people to work out thoughts and feelings in a friendly and supportive environment. Finally, gossip helps build trust and a sense of belonging.
So, why do people dislike it so much? My theory is that 1) it works against the powerful by calling out problematic behaviours and making it harder to shut others out, and 2) it’s a feminized behaviour. But that’s the topic of another post.
- It might happen after all - May 14, 2023
- Another job market data point - December 17, 2022
- Our place in the fediverse - November 30, 2022