Conversation equality & the dinner party
Plus my three favorite dinner table moments in film 🎥
Disclaimer: I refer to some traditional gender roles using male/female generalizations. This is might feel clunky to those who have a wider vocabulary (and experience!) on various identities.
I’ve been thinking about dinner party talk lately.
You might know what I mean… those conversations by candlelight and rigid backed wooden chairs. I always feel like I’m on an airplane, queuing on the runway.
Start-stop. Start-stop. Lurching to find the right rhythm. Mm, this is good. Pass the bread. The conversation has a little clipboard which must go through the safety precautions checklist. How was work? Did you see that storm yesterday? Soon, with enough wriggling, a more interesting way forward clears. What do you think about that new renters law? What’s going on with Elon Musk’s underground freeway? When a mediocre conversation morphs into an interesting one, I get giddy. (Although because I have stock in my father’s stoicism, I express joy by lifting my eyebrows and waiting my turn.) The new subject matter doesn’t really need to be that great, just better. You’ve stopped comparing your kids’ milestones and the phones are finally away.
Maybe this great conversation is about ancient money practices, or policing social media, or idk, erotic foods. High brow, or low, it’s whooshing around you filling your head with new ideas and opportunities to refine your oratory skills. If you squint, you can see small talk pitifully trying to point to the weather forecast from the ground.
And then your aunt turns to you and asks…
"What face cream have you been using lately?”
And then your friend’s girlfriend puts her hand on your knee:
“But honestly, what it’s really like to be married?”
And then a cousin states they’ve been redecorating and,
“What do you think about this brass trend lately? Will it last?”
It’s like my seat self-ejects me and I’m floating back to the ground. I look up and see (usually) all the men at the table continue to glide skyward in a flurry of small business start-up ideas. I see another female relative pull their chair to join the designer reality TV show conversation. I hear the word “Pinterest",” come out of my mouth. Traitor!
Above me I hear raucous laughter and chatter about gear, apps, articles read, or sports - and I want back in. Ok, that last topic I am famously not interested in, but regardless, the wedge remains. I have noted that many conversations that congregate around some sort of common and popular denominator have men steering the ship. Talking points are scarfed down with a ravenous embrace that constantly has me edging the circle to get a word in.
Whoa, whoa, whoa Coco. That’s not true! My sister’s a lawyer and she can command any dinner table. Maybe you’re just not a great speaker?
Hey, ask your sister why she’s so great at commanding a table? I bet you she identifies with this more than I do.
I don’t recall this segregation of small-talk during my all of the fabulous (and possibly incriminating) dinner parties we had at University. We are still naive to how the roles of mother v. provider really play out. Hierarchies of business are just thesis. Damn, man, we’re just here to live in the smoky moment and chat Kafka.
We like to imagine ourselves modern and free, but I know, and I know that you know, that the ripples of sexism still clings to our ankles no matter how much we try to shake our feet dry. Also for the record is anyone else tired of hearing, “but it’s so much better now than it was!” Nothing feeds the halt of progress more than indifference and acceptance. Tell my daughter she can coast in a world where her body is still more regulated than guns.
Small-talk stereotypes at dinner parties aren’t gender specific. We lump in the assumptions (or don’t care at all), when we’re faced with someone who has a career minority of the group too. This pack mentality at the table/weddings/events/bars grows stronger after sniffing out and snuffing the oddball. This makes sense, we do love to talk about ourselves, and what’s more interesting?:
Talking to someone in a related career field so you can soon turn the topic back on an experience you’ve had lately?
Or
Sit in silence (gasp) for a slightly longer period of time, only stopping to ask thoughtful questions about this other person?
I can barely count on two hands how many people in my life act the latter. This world is filled with far too many of the former.
I have also seen this in regards to financial assumptions. Somehow my generation has accepted that money talk belongs in the small talk league. I see positives to this, I just don’t think I can take anymore salary-dropping and not-so-subtle revelations of how much ____ costed. Just before COVID, I was at a dinner party. It was in the new beautiful home of my friend (who is a woman). A guest of hers looked around in awe, and he told (not asked) her how hard her husband must have worked to afford their home. She graciously changed the subject. She didn’t need to tell this dud she bought the thing outright, even though I was jumping out of my skin to slap that detail in his face.
So back to my dinner party.
Without having to move from our seats, the equivalent of: “men retiring to the lounge to have cigars,” is still happening. Back when I smoked cigarettes, this is when I would just leave the table and go outside. Smoking for me was really mostly about being able to leave a room without being rude. My desire to live a long and healthy life has overridden that, but I still don’t have the confidence to walk away from someone who’s trapped me in a boring conversation.
One of my favorite dinner party scenes is from Frances Ha. Enjoy 7 minutes of Greta Gerwig being an awkward genius and I’ll meet you on the other side:
Small talk is getting increasingly infamous for its uselessness (hooray), but like many other societal norms which grow rapidly, minorities seem to get left behind. With this Frances Ha clip, even though I’ve been referring to a male/female dichotomy, women are equally guilty at buying in.
So what am I saying? 80% of us are boring and loud. 20% of us are interesting and quiet.
One of my favorite movies in school was The Dreamers. There’s a dinner scene where Michael Pitt isn’t paying attention while the patriarch is monologuing about his opinions on art. See it play out, (if for anything, the mise en scène et Louis Garrel):
I can really only images a couple of dinner tables where if I said this they wouldn’t ask how many grams mushrooms I just ate. Or more outrageous, disregard me as “that girl who’s into crystals now,” (I might be too late on that one).
Still, film moments like these set new aspirations to find people who are into shit Neil deGrasse Tyson says.
I don’t need to remind you of our current world events, the subject of what we share at the dinner table with friends or family, is something we’re all struggling with, myself included.
If I were to sum this up as best as I could: There are two piles of paperwork on the table I’d like to put into the shredder. Erase the scripts that have been bred into us on what is acceptable dinner party talk, and some goddamn parity when it comes to sharing the bulk of the engaging stuff.
I always think of this dinner scene from one of my favorite films of the decade, Captain Fantastic. (Spoiler ahead!) A father and his children are living off grid but have to come back to society to bury their mother. They try to interact with their cousins and the disconnect is both hilarious and deeply moving. If we could all be so bold to communicate this truly with other people we care about.
I’ve thought about the risks in writing about this topic. The number one being, every time I sit down with family, they may ask for my opinion on astrophysics, perhaps exhausting my point until I can’t wait to go back to Pinterest boards. Also, if you think I hate Pinterest and brass finishes, you might have missed the point.
When I was pregnant I worked up until the day before my daughter was born. I went back to work less than three months later. I don’t think that’s a better or worse choice than anyone else, but I was frustrated that no one was asking me about it. It was all sleep training and baby-proofing, all day. So, I spoke up.
Now, my family and friends almost always make sure to ask how work is going. I think that at the end of the day, it’s a good thing because I know the trickle effect will impact my daughter’s vision of conversation equality. If those asking me about work are just checking the box to make sure they look astute, I don’t even care, at least I made them a new box I can somewhat fit into.
Thanks for sticking around. Until next week.
Coco
PS - have you checked this box yet?
Yikes, a lot of pressure for the next Royal family Dinner get-together.