INTERACTION: THE WORK WOMEN DO*

PAMELA M. FISHMAN
University of California, Santa Barbara

The paper examines male-female hierarchy in everyday Interaction. Beginning with a

discussion of the concepts of power and of conversation as negotiated activity, it
suggests that successful Interaction depends on work by the participants. Using tapes of
daily conversations between three male-female couples as data, I present some
observations on the ways conversation is controlled as well as the results of transcript
analysis. The analysis describes the concrete strategies used by men and women in
interaction. Women do more conversational work than men; this is the Interactional
manifestation of power relations. Finally, some suggestions are made on the
Importance of studying interactions in the areas of availability and maintenance of
one's gender identity.

The oppression of women in society is an issue of growing concern, both in academic fields and
everyday life. Despite research on the historical and economic bases of women's position, who
know little about how hierarchy is routinely established and maintained. This paper attempts to direct
attention to the reality of power in daily experience. It is an analysis of conversation between men
and women in their homes. The paper focuses on how verbal interaction helps to construct and
maintain the hierarchical relations between women and men.
Weber (1969:152) provided the classic conception of power as the chances of one actor in social
relationship to impose his or her will on another. Recently, Berger and Luckman (160) have discussed
power from a perspective which broadens the sense of "imposing one's will on others. They define
power as a question of potentially conflicting definitions of reality; those of the most powerful will
be "made to stick". That particular people have the power to construct and enforce their definition of
reality is due to socially prevalent economic and political definitions of reality.
Imposing one's will can be much more than forcing someone else to do something. Power is the ability
to impose one's definition of what is possible, what is right, what is rational, what is reason. Power is a
product of human activities, just as the activities are themselves products of the power relations in
the socio -economic world. Power usually is analyzed macrosociologically: it cannot be solely a result
of what people do within the immediate situation in which it occurs. What people do in specific
interactions expresses and reflects historical and social structural forces beyond the boundaries of their
encounter. Power relations between men and women are the outcome of the social organization of the
activities in the home and in the economy. Power can, however, be analyzed microsociologically which
is the purpose of this paper. Power and hierarchical relations are not abstract forces operating on
people. Power must be a human accomplishment, situated in everyday interaction. Both structural
forces and interactional activities are vital to the maintenance and construction of social reality.
Recent work on gender and the English language shows that the male-female hierarchy
inherent in the words we use to perceive and name our world: the use of the male generic "man" to
refer to the human species (Miller and Swift, 1976); the addition of suffixes ("authoress" "actress,"
"stewardess") when referring to female practitioners (Miller and Swift, 1976); to

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1975 ASA Meetings, San Francisco. 1 am indebt to
H a r v e y Molotch, under whose encouragement I began the research. I am grateful to Myrtha Chabr M a r k
F i s h m a n , D r e w H u m p h r i e s , L i n d a M a r k s , F l o r e n c e T a g e r , a n d S u s a n W o l f f o r t h e i r s u p p o r t discussions,
and criticisms throughout work on this and earlier drafts, and t o Malcolm Spector for his comments on the final
version.
 FISHMAN Work Women Do 399
398

assymetrical use of first and last names (women are more often called by their first, men by their last, talk." Thus, they contend that their analysis of the activities involved in opening and closing
even when they are of equal rank) (Thorne and Henley, 1975); women's greater vocabulary for sewing conversations, as well as those involved in keeping conversation going, do not apply to intimate
and cooking, men's for mechanics and sports (Conklin, 1974) 1. These studies of grammatical forms and conversations. But this perspective disregards the many conversations which do not begin with
vocabulary document the male-dominated reality expressed through our language. greetings nor end with good-bye's. If one sees a movie with friends, conversation afterwards does
Much less attention has been directed toward how male-female power relations are expressed not begin again with greetings. In social gatherings lulls occur and conversation must begin anew. In
in conversation 2. By turning to conversation, we move to an analysis of the interactional produc- any setting in which conversation, is possible attempts at beginning, sustaining, and stopping talk still
tion of a particular reality through people's talk. must be made. And these attempts must be recognized and oriented to by both parties for them to
This activity is. significant for intimates. Berger and Kellner (1970:64) have argued that at present, move between states of "incipient" and "actual" conversation.
with the Increasing separation of public and private spheres of life, intimate relationships are among the In a sense, every remark or turn at speaking should be seen as an attempt to interact. It may be an
most important reality-maintaining settings. They apply this arrangement specifically to marriage; The attempt to open or close a conversation. It may be a bid to continue interaction: to respond to what
process of daily interaction in the marital relationship is, ideally: went before and elicit a further remark from one's interlocutor. Some attempts succeed; others
fail. For an attempt to succeed, the other party must be willing to do further interactional work. That
. . . one in which reality is crystallized, narrowed, and stabilized. Ambivalences are converted
into certainties. Typifications of self and other become settled. Most generally, possibilities become other person has the power to turn an attempt into a conversation or to stop it dead.
facticities.
METHOD
In these relationships, in these trivial, mundane interactions, much of the essential work of The data for this study consists of fifty-two hours of tape-recorded conversation between
sustaining the reality of the world goes on. Intimates often reconstruct their separate experiences, past intimates in their homes. Three couples agreed to have a Uher 400 tape recorder in their apart ments.
and present, with one another. Specifically, the couple sustain and produce the reality of their own They had the right to censor the taped material before I heard it. The apartments were small, so that
relationship, and, more generally, of the world. the recorders picked up all conversation from the kitchen and living room as well as the louder
Although Berger and Kellner have analyzed marriage as a reality-producing setting, they have portions of talk from the bedroom and bath. The tapes could run for a four-hour period without
not analyzed the interaction of marriage partners. I shall focus upon the interactional activities, interruption. Though I had timers to switch the tapes on and off automatically, all three couples
which constitute the everyday work done by intimates. It is through this work that people pro- insisted on doing the switching manually. The segments of uninterrupted recording vary from one
duce their relationship to one another, their relationship to the world, and those patterns normally; to four hours.
referred to as social structure. The three couples had been together for varying amounts of time—three months, six months,
and two years. The two couples who had been together the longest were recently married. All
WORK IN INTERACTION
3 were white and professionally -oriented, between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. One
Sometimes we think of interaction as work. At a party or meeting where silence lies heavy, woman was a social worker and the other five people were in graduate school. Two of the
we recognize the burden of interaction and respond to it as work. The many books written on' women were avowed feminists and all three men as well as the other woman described themselves
"the art of conversation" call attention to the tasks involved in interaction. It is not simply an as sympathetic to the woman's movement.
analogy to think of interaction as work. Rather, it is an intuitive recognition of what must be The tape recorders were present in the apartments from four to fourteen days. I am satisfied that the
accomplished for interaction to occur. material represents natural conversation and that there was no undue awareness of the recorder. The
tapes sounded natural to me, like conversations between my husband and myself. Others who have
Interaction requires at least two people. Conversation is produced not simply by their presence, but
read the transcripts have agreed. All six people also reported that they soon to ignore the tape
also by their display of their continuing agreement to pay attention to one another. That is, all
recorder. Further, they were apologetic about the material, calling it and interesting, just the
interactions are potentially problematic and occur only through the continual, turn-by-turn efforts of the
ordinary affairs of everyday life. Finally, one couple said they forgot the recorder sufficiently to
participants.
begin making love In the living room while the recorder was on. That segment and two others were
The work of Sacks and his followers (Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff and Sacks, 1974; Schegloff 1972)
the only ones the participants deleted before handing the tapes over to me.
attempts to specify how conversationalists work to accomplish such things as beginnings and
I listened to all of the tapes at l east once, many two or more times. During this period, l
endings. They have ignored, however, the interaction between intimates. Scheglo ff Sacks
observed general features and trends of the interactions as a whole. Three transcripts were chosen
(1974:262) characterize intimates in home situations as "in continuing states of incipient
from five hours of transcribed conversations for closer, turn-by-turn analysis of the progress
concrete, interactional activities. I chose these three because they were good examples of
1 conversation that appeared to be problematic for the man, for the woman, and for neither.
An excellent summary and analysis of this literature can be found in Thorne and Henley's
to their book, Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance (Thorne and Henley, 1975). Miller's
Swift's (1976) encyclopedic work, Words and Women, catalogues the innumerable ways our language PRELIMINARY EVIDENCE
upholds the Inferior position of women. Some evidence of the power relations between couples appeared while I was still In the process of
2
A notable exception is the work on Interruptions in conversation by West (1977), West and
Zimmerman (1977), and Zimmerman and West (1973). Hirschman (1974, 1973) has also examined interactive collecting the tapes. During casual conversations with the participants after the taping, I
production of language in male-female settings. learned that in all three couples the men usually set up the tape recorders and turned them on
3
Throughout this paper, I use the terms Interaction and conversation interchangeably, although
is not meant to suggest that conversation covers all the essential components of interaction.
400 FISHMAN Work Women Do 401

and off. More significantly, some of the times that the men turned the recorders on, they did so answers. The absence of an answer is noticeable and may be complained about. A question does work in
without the women's knowledge. The reverse never occurred. conversation by opening a two part sequence. It is a way to Insure a minimal Interaction—at least
To control conversation Is not merely to choose the topic. It i s a matter of having control over one utterance by each of two participants. It guarantees a response.
the definition of the situation in general, which includes not only what will be talked about, but Once I noted the phenomenon of questions on the tapes, I attended to my own speech and
whether there will be a conversation at all and under what terms it will occur. In various scenes, discovered the same pattern. I tried, and still do try, to break myself of the "habit," and found it very
control over aspects of the situation can be Important. The addition of a tape recorder in the difficult. Remarks kept coming out as questions before I could rephrase them. When I did succeed in
home is an example of a new aspect to the routine situation. The men clearly had and actively making a remark as a statement, I usually did not get a response. It became clear that I asked
maintained unilateral control over this new feature in the situation. questions not merely out of habit nor from insecurity but because it was likely that my attempt at
In this research, th ere is also the issue of a typically private interaction becoming available to a interaction would fail If I did not.
third party, the researcher. Usually the men played the tapes to censor them, and made the only two
Asking "D'yaKnow"
attempts to exert control over the presentation of the data to me. One case involved' the "clicks" that are
normally recorded when the recorder is turned off. Since more than one' time segment was often on In line with the assumption that children have restricted rights to speak in the presence of adults,
the same side of a tape, I relied on the clicks, as well as my sense of the conversations, to know when a Harvey Sacks (1972) describes a type of question used extensively by children as a conver sati onal
new time segment began. One man carefully erased nearly all; the clicks on the tapes, making it difficult opening: "D'ya know what?" As with other questions, it provides for a next utterance. The next
to separate out recordings at different time periods. utterance it engenders is itself a question, which provides for yet another utterance. The archetype
The second instance was a more explicit illustration of male censorship. Early on, I made the is, "D'ya know what?" "what?" "Blahblah (answer)." Sometimes, of course, the adult answers with
error of asking a couple to help transcribe a segment of their tape. The error was doubly instruc - an expectant look or a statement like, "Tell me what." Whatever the exact form of that first response,
tive. First, I saw that the participants could rarely hear or understand the problem areas any the idea is that the first question sets off a three -part sequence, Q-Q-A, rather than a simple Q-A
better than I even though they had been "on the spot," and were hearing their o wn voices. Second, sequence.
the man kept wanting to know why I was interested In the segment, repeatedly guessing what Sacks points out that the children's use of this device is a clever solution to their problem of
I was looking for. At the time, I only knew that it was an example of decision -making and did insuring rights to speak (at the same time, their use of this strategy acknowledges those restricted
not know specifically what I wanted. He never accept ed this explanation. He became irritated rights). In response to the "What?" the children may say wha t they wanted to say in the first
at my continued attempt at literal transcription and kept insisting that he could give me the sense place. Finding such three-part "D'ya know" sequences In Interaction informs us both about the work of
of what occurred and that the exact words were unimportant. He continued the attempt to guaranteeing interaction and the differential rights of the participants. In the five hours of transcribed
determine the meaning of th e interaction retrospectively, with constant references to his motives material, the women used this device twice as often as the men.
for saying this or that. It took hours to withdraw from the situation, as he insisted on giving
me the help that I had requested. Attention Beginnings
The preliminary data suggest that the men are more lik ely than the women to control con - The phrase, "This is interesting," or a variation thereof, occurs throughout the tapes. When
versation. The men ensured that they knew when the tape recorder was on and, thus, when their conversation is not problematic, the work of establishing that a remark is interesting idea lly is done by
interaction was available to a third party. They were unconcerned, however, if the women also knew. both interactants, not one. The first person makes a remark; the second person orients to and
Further, in at least two cases they attempted to control my interpretation of the tapes. responds to the remark, thus establishing its status as something worthy of joint Interest or
importance. All this occurs without the question of i ts interest ever becoming explicit.4 The use of
FINDINGS: INTERACTIONAL STRATEGIES "This is really interesting" as an introduction shows that the user cannot assume that the remark
Textual analysis revealed how interactants do the work of conversation. There are a variety Itself will be seen as worthy of attention. At the same time, the user tries single-handedly to
of strategies to insure, encourage, and subvert conversation. establish the interest of their remarks. The user is saying, "Pay attention to what I have to say, I
can't assume that you will." In the five hours of transcribed material, the women used this device ten
Asking Questions
times, the men seven.5
There is an overwhelming difference between male and female use of questions as a resource There are also many instances of "y'know" i nterspersed throughout the transcripts. While this
in interaction. At times I felt that all women did was ask questions. In seven hours of tapes phrase does not compel the attention one's partner as forcefully as "this is interesting" does , it is an
the three men asked fifty -nine questions, the women o ne hundred and fifty, nearly three attempt to command the other person's attention. The phrase was used thirty -four times by the women
times as many. and three times by the men in the transcribed conversations.
Other research (Lakoff, 1975), notes that women ask more questions then men. Lakoff has
interpreted this question -asking as an indication of women's insecurity, a linguistic signal of an internal 4
psychological state resulting from the oppression of women. But a psychological explanation is The notion that joint expression of Interest it a necessary feature of conversation is discussed by
Garfinkel (I967:39-42).
unnecessary to reveal why women ask more questions than men. Since Questions are produced in 5
U n l i k e t h e u s e o f q u e s t i o n s a n d " D ' y a k n o w , " w h i c h w e r e r a n d o m l y s c a t t e r e d t h r o u g h o u t t h e transcripts,
conversations, we should look first to how questions function there. six of the seven male usages occurred during one lengthy interaction. The conversation had been chosen
Questions are interactionally powerful utterances. They are among a class of utterances like because it was one of the very few cases when the man was having trouble maintaining interaction. In
contrast, fo u r o f t h e f e m a l e u s a g e s w e r e f r o m o n e t r a n s c r i p t a n d t h e o t h e r s i x w e r e s c a t t e r e d . M y
greetings, treated as standing in a paired relation; that is, they evoke further utterance; Questions are i m p r e s s i o n f r o m l i s t e n i n g t o a l l t h e t a p e s w a s t h a t a c o m p l e t e c o u n t w o u l d s h o w a m u c h l a r g e r proportion of
paired with answers (Sacks, 1972). People respond to questions as "deserving female to male usage than the ten to seven figures.
 Work Women Do
402 FISHMAN

can see why from the transcript: she documents her problems by the use of strategies that insure
Minimal Response
some type of response.
Another interaction strategy is the use of the minimal response, when the speaker takes a turn This segment is the beginning of an interaction during which the woman is reading a book in her
by saying "yeah," "umm," "huh," and only that. Men and women both do this, but they tend to use academic specialty and the man is making a salad. The woman's opening remarks set up :
the minimal response in quite different ways. The male usages of the minimal response displayed
lack of interest. The mono-syllabic response merely filled a turn at a point when it needed to be filled.
For example, a woman would make a lengthy remark, after which (he man responded with "yeah,"
doing nothing to encourage her, nor to elaborate. Such minimal responses are attempts to discourage
interaction.
The women also made this type of minimal response at times, but their most frequent use of the
minimal response was as "support work." Throughout the tapes, when the men are talking, the women
are particularly skilled at inserting "mm's," "yeah's," "oh's," and other such comments throughout
streams of talk rather than at the end. These are signs from the inserter that she is constantly attending
to what Is said, that she is demonstrating her participation, her interest in the interaction and the
speaker. How well the women do this is also striking— seldom do they mistime their insertions
and cause even slight overlaps. These minimal responses occur between the breaths of a speaker,
and there is nothing in tone or structure to suggest they are attempting to take over the talk.

Making Statements
Finally, I would like to consider statements, which do nothing to insure their own success, or the
success of the interaction. Of course, a statement does some interactional work: it fills a space and
may also provide for a response. However, such statements display an assumption on the part of
the speaker that the attempt will be successful as is: it will be understood, the statement is of
interest, there will be a response. It is as if speakers can assume that everything is working well;
success is naturally theirs.
In the transcribed material, the men produced over twice as many statements as the women,
and they almost always got a response, which was not true for the women. For example: many
times one or both people were reading, then read a passage aloud or commented on it. The man's
comments often engendered a lengthy exchange, the woman's comments seldom did. In a discussion
of their respective vitas, the man literally ignored both long and short comments from the woman on
her vita, returning the conversation after each remark of hers back to his own. Each time, she
respectfully turned her attention back to his vita, "as directed." Listening to these conversations, one
cannot conclude from the substance of the remarks that the men talk about more interesting things
than the women. They take on that character by virtue of generating interaction.

INTERACTIONAL PROGRESS
The simple narration of the use of strategies obscures one important quality of interaction, its
progression. The finding and frequency of strategies are of interest, but seeing the use of
strategies in the developing character of interaction reveals more about the differential work done by
the sexes.
In the transcript, a short segment of conversation is reproduced 6. It is from the transcript originally
chosen for analysis because the conversation appeared problematic for the woman. We

6
The numbers in parentheses Indicate number of seconds of a pause "(=)" means the pause was less
than one second. My own comments on the tape are in double parentheses. M and F stand for male and
female speaker, respectively. The conversation is presented in paired exchanges, sections 1-15. The
sections ideally would be joined up in ticker tape fashion and would read like a musical score. Brackets
between lines indicate overlapping talk.
 Work Women Do 405
404 FISHMAN
The people who do the routine maintenance work, the women, are not the same people who
two "d'ya know" sequences, demonstrating her lack of certainty, before anything has been said,
either control or benefit from the process. Women are the "shitworkers" of routine interaction, and the
that the man will pay attention. A safe assumption, since the conversation never gets off the ground.
"goods" being made are not only interactions, but, through them, realities.
The "d'ya know" only solves the minimal problem of getting a response. She can not get a Through this analysis of the detailed activity in everyday conversation, other dimensions of power
continuing conversation going. and work in interaction are suggested. Two interrelated aspects concern women's availability and
Her second attempt at a conversation, in set 5, is a two-fold one, using both the "d'ya know" the maintenance of gender. Besides the problems women have generating interactions, they are
strategy and an attention beginning of "That's very interesting." This double attempt to gain his almost always available to do the conversational work required by men and necessary for interactions.
participation manages to evoke one statement of continuation out of him in set 8, but her Appearances may differ by case: sometimes women are required to sit and "be a good listener"
follow-up calls forth only silence. because they are not otherwise needed. At other times, women are required to fill silences and
Her third attempt, in set 10 uses the attention beginning which had some small success the last time. keep conversation moving, to talk a lot. Sometimes they are expected to develop others' topics and
She adds a few "y'know's" throughout her utterance, asking for attention. She finally achieves a at other times they are required to present and develop topics of their own.
minimal response, when she repeats something. Though she makes further attempts in the remainder of Women are required to do their work in a very strong sense. Sometimes they are required in ways
the interaction (not reproduced here), a conversation on the topic never does develop. After three or that can be seen in interaction, as when men use interactional strategies such as attention beginnings
four more minutes, she finally gives up. and questions, to which the women fully respond. There are also times when there Is no direct,
One might argue that because the man was making a salad he could not pay attention to the situational evidence of "requirement" from the man, and the woman does so "naturally."
conversation. However, while still at work on the salad, the man introduces his own topic for "Naturally" means that it is a morally required and highly sanctionable matter not to do so. If one
conversation, remarking that then-President Nixon was a former lawyer for Pepsi-Cola. This topic does not act "naturally," then one can be seen as crazy and depr ived of adult status. We can
introduction engenders a conversation when the woman responds to his remark. They go through a speculate on the quality of doing it "naturally" by considering what happens to women who are
series of exchanges which end when he decides not to continue. This conversational exchange unwilling to be available for the various jobs that the situation requires. Women who successfully
demonstrates that the man was willing to engage In discussion, but only on his own terms. control interactions are derided and doubt is cast on their status of female. They are often considered
The transcript demonstrates how some strategies are used in actual conversation. It also "abnormal" —terms like "castrating bitch," "domineering," "aggressive," and "witch" may be used to
documents the woman working at interaction and the man exercising his power by refusing to identify them. When they attempt to control situations temporarily, women often "start" arguments.
become a full-fledged participant. As the interaction develops and she becomes more sure of her Etiquette books are filled' with Instructions to women on how to be available. Women who do not
difficulties, she brings more pressure to bear by an increased use of strategies. Even so, she is only able behave are punished by deprivation of full female status. One's identity as either male or
to insure immediate, localized responses, not a full conversational exchange. female is the most crucial identity one has. It is the most "natural" differentiating characteristic there is.
Whereas sociologists generally treat sex as an "ascribed" rather than as an "achieved"
characteristic, Garfinkel's (1967, ch. 5) study of a transsexual describes one's gender as a continual,
CONCLUSIONS
routine accomplishment. He discusses what the transsexual Agnes has shown him, that one must
There is an unequal distribution of work in conversation. We can see from the differential use of
continually give off the appearance of being male or female in order for your gender to be
strategies that the women are more actively engaged in insuring interaction than the men. They ask
unproblematic in a given interaction. Agnes had to learn these appearances and her awareness of
more questions and use attention beginnings. Women do support work while the men are talking and
them was explicit. For "normally -sexed" people, it is routine.
generally do active maintenance and continuation work in conversations. The men, on the other hand
The active maintenance of a female gender requires women to be available to do what needs to be
do much less active work when they begin or participate in interactions. They rely on statements,
done in interaction, to do the shitwork and not complain. Since interactional work is related to
which they assume will get responses, when they want interaction. Men much more often
what constitutes being a woman, with what a woman is, the idea that it Is work is obscured. The work
discourage interactions initiated by women than vice-versa.
is not seen as what women do, but as part of what they are. Because this work is obscured, because
Several general patterns of male-female interactional work suggest themselves. The women
it is too often seen as an aspect of gender identity rather than of gender activity, the maintenance
seemed to try more often, and succeeded less often than the men. The men tried less often and
and expression of male-female power relations in our everyday conversations are hidden as well.
seldom failed in their attempts. Both men and women regarded topics introduced by women as
When we orient instead to the activities involved in maintaining gender, we are able to discern the reality
tentative; many of these were quickly dr opped. In contrast, topics introduced by the men were
of hierarchy in our daily lives.
treated as topics to be pursued; they were seldom rejected. The women worked harder than the men
The purpose of this study has been to begin an exploration of the details of concrete
in interaction because they had less certainty of success. They did much of the necessary work of
conversational activity of couples in their homes from the perspective of the socially structured power
interaction, starting conversations and then working to maintain them.
relationship between males and females. From such detailed analysis we see that women do the work
The failure of the women's attempts at interaction is not due to anything inherent in their
talk, but to the failure of the men to respond to do interactional work. The success of the men's necessary for interaction to occur smoothly. But men control what will be produced as reality by
remarks is due to the women doing interactional work in response to attempts by the men. the interaction. They already have, and they continually establish and enforce, their rights to define
Thus, the definition of what is appropriate or inappropriate conversation becomes the man's what the interaction, and reality, will be about.
choice. What part of the world the interactants orient to, construct and maintain the reality
of, is his choice, not hers. Yet the women labor hardest in making interactions go.
It seems that, as with work in its usual sense, there is a division of labor in conversation.