Female Communications

It has often been remarked that women talk more than men do. Little girls tend to get verbal younger than boys. And women seem to use language, much more than men do, to build relationships.

Though academics, possibly driven by feminist concerns, insist this is not true.

But whether it is true or not, I have always found there is an irony: much of the important information that women share with each other is not spoken! For women, there is an entire world of what is understood, but is not said.

The Torah has this example. The text tells it better than I could summarize:

And the woman conceived, and bore a son: and when she saw that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him a box made of papyrus, and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child in it; and she laid it in the rushes by the River’s brink. And his sister stood afar off, to know what would be done to him. And the daughter of Par῾o came down to wash herself at the River; and her maidens walked along by the River’s side; and when she saw the box among the rushes, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child: and, behold, a weeping boy. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrews’ children. Then said his sister to Par῾o’s daughter, Shall I go and call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child for thee? And Par῾o’s daughter said to her, Go. And the maid went and called the child’s mother. And Par῾o’s daughter said to her, Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages. And the woman took the child, and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him to Par῾o’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moshe: and she said, Because I drew him out of the water.

There is an entire subtext here. There is no doubt that every single person in this story (except Moses himself) knew the score. There was a wink-and-nod understanding between all the characters in this story. But none of them say it. There is safety in plausible deniability.

But it also seems to me that this story only works with women in the story. Women are capable of have this kind of non-verbal understanding between the actors, without the reality ever actually surfacing to be openly acknowledged. I cannot imagine a similar situation playing out with men.

Am I alone in this?