What's So Bad About Gossip? 

In her essay “How Patriarchy Redefined ‘Gossip’ to Be a Women’s Thing,” Winifred J. Akpobi explains that during the early middle ages, “gossiping was seen as something that close friends, siblings, or people had to do. It was a way of bonding and showing affection towards each other. It was also found to be therapeutic to women who were asked to stay home all day. In other words, it was a way of communication.” Some women gossiped around the water well, while others attended “friendship meetings” to discuss the happenings within the community. 

Modern media often portrays gossip as frivolous – take the iconic four-way call in Mean Girls, for example – but for medieval women, gossip was more than idle talk: it kept them safe. By warning other women about which men were violent or disloyal, women protected each other from abuse. Women became allies, no longer trapped within the walls of their own kitchens but free to form friendships and find community.

Men realized that given the opportunity to share ideas, women could unite against the patriarchy and climb the social hierarchy. With women silent, however, men could continue to wield power without backlash. Men began to vilify gossip in an attempt to silence women and destroy their solidarity. “It was in this context that ‘gossip’ turned from a word of friendship and affection into a word of denigration and ridicule,” said renowned activist Silvia Federici. 

Men deemed friendship groups “witch cults” and accused any woman who interacted with other women of being a witch. They punished women for speaking out of turn by forcing them to wear an iron muzzle called a “scold’s bridle” which ripped out pieces of their tongues if they attempted to move their mouths. Some husbands paraded their muzzled wives through town and encouraged community members to spit on them. 

Although the Scold’s Bridle was phased out of use throughout the 17th century, gossip maintained its reputation as immoral and deceitful. 

Moreover, people tend to view gossip as synonymous with fabricated stories and false information. One explanation is that medieval men deliberately discredited the information shared between women to protect their own reputations. They recognized that if women were given a voice in society, they could share damaging information about their husbands. By claiming that women’s conversations were based entirely on lies, men could avoid scandals and keep their reputations intact. Alternatively, gossip may have been perceived as untrustworthy because it was deemed “women’s talk” and men considered women intellectually inferior. Men did not believe that women, as the lesser gender, could have important and insightful things to say, so they dismissed women’s conversations as untruthful.  

Gossip is still largely associated with women. Nearly every teen drama – including Mean Girls, Riverdale, Pretty Little Liars, and, of course, Gossip Girl – features at least one female character whose personality revolves entirely around seeking, spreading, and producing gossip, most of which is malicious and untrue. This is a gross misrepresentation of women and the way they interact with other women, and it contributes to the ongoing demonization of gossip.

Despite the stereotypes, most gossip is not malicious. A study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science in 2019 found that negative gossip accounted for only 15% of all gossip analyzed. More strikingly, the study found that all people gossip equally (52 minutes per day on average), regardless of gender. 

The idea that gossip is a “women’s thing” is a myth founded in misogyny that seeks to dismiss women’s contributions to society and preserve the power of men.