In our early hunter-gatherer days, men were the hunters who stalked out into the jungle or plains to find a beast to bring down. If you have ever hunted, you know that being a good hunter is all about being stealthy. One does not want to broadcast their location by making too much noise, so it stands to reason that a good hunter was also a quiet hunter, the strong silent type, if you will. The successful hunter was the silent hunter.
Women, on the other hand, were the gatherers of the equation. They collected berries and nuts, raised children, and cared for the family cave. Oftentimes, women completed their tasks as a small tribe, working together as a team. One could reasonably conclude that communication among women was tighter than that of their male counterparts, as they would be in constant communication with each other: “Hey, Sarah! Where did you find those delicious berries?” In this time, women were rewarded for being communicative.
If we fast forward 200,000 years, do we still see this playing out? It seems society has widely led us to believe that women talk more than men. We see in the media how men are “henpecked” by their overly talkative wives. Popular movies and TV typically portray women who always talk more than men. We even use the term “Chatty Cathy” for a person who is a talker (Note that Cathy is a female name).
