Image for representation,
Credit: Pixabay Photo
Indu Balachandran
“I never repeat gossip. So, listen carefully the first time.” Admit it. Gossip is our greatest guilty pleasure. Nothing makes people get their ears up alert, ready to listen, than this whispered phrase: now keep this to yourself. Psychologists
have a scientific explanation: it’s a release of oxytocin, the ‘reward hormone’, a dose of dopamine for our brain cells. We feel privileged to be told juicy information; and that may give us an unspoken power — even in the mere telling to just one other person.
Gossip Girl vs Gossip Guy
So why did women get tagged as the more gossipy sex? While men pass off this universal human trait as, ahem, networking? The answer is in the etymology: Gossip has its origin in god-sibb; where sibb means ‘relative’. Godsibb came to mean ‘godparent’, someone so close one could share secrets with. The term evolved to include midwives, sibling sisters, and close female friends. But being suppressed into silence, women in ancient times gathered in baths or around village wells, finally able to talk freely against their patriarchal bondage. Gossip became the word for a venting of feelings among their own kind — an exchange of confidence and empathy.
Epic gossiper
But if it’s Old English terminology that implies gossip to be a woman’s preserve, our own Indian mythology tells us quite the opposite. Look who we have from our epics, as a spreader of mischievous rumours! A saint, male, called Narada. Reportedly he delighted in telling stories of one to the other, raking up turmoil in all three worlds… Aha, welcome to the club, Mr Male!
Closer to our times, I had a good friend Vicky at my workplace, who quickly acquired the moniker ‘Vickypedia’ because he always knew everything about everyone. Vicky never held sexist views on gossip; and a typical chat with Vicky would go like this: “A gender study finds that men are just as likely as women to spread gossip. At least that’s what I overheard Maddy tell Sanjay who by the way is secretly seeing Rita which is weird because I heard he was gay.”
Gossip by any other name…would sound just as sweet, whether women call it: let’s-catch-up, guess-what, or you-won’t-believe-this; or men simply say, hey it’s just guy-talk. There are also terms like coffee breaks, podcasts, talk shows, viral videos, WhatsApp, and Google Search which are disguised words for basically, gossip.
The fact is, man or woman, we’re inclined to tune in to what President Trump said to a call girl in 2016, rather than what President Murmu said about upholding the dignity of women yesterday. Gossip is a welcome distraction in our humdrum lives, and celebrity gossip feels especially satisfying when the rich and the powerful fall and become accountable. It’s good cardio exercise too. I recall Carrie Bradshaw saying in Sex and The City: “Let’s gossip and get our heart rates up”. This leads to the question: can gossip even be healthy?
Well, much like good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, there’s good gossip and bad gossip. Bad gossip implies something that lands a third party in trouble. But funnily, gossip that lands someone in trouble can be very good too. Take the #MeToo movement. If women hadn’t started talking to one another, if ‘secrets’ hadn’t spread, several rogues like Harvey Weinstein would be roaming around free. Meanwhile, I have my own set of girlpals that I trust, who meet regularly and ‘share gos’ just for time pass. Because I feel reassured when I get a response like this: “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me. Everyone I told swore they wouldn’t tell anyone, ever.”
(He Said/She Said is a monthly column on gender issues — funny side up. Reach the author at indubee8@yahoo.co.in)