gossip

the researchers found that virtual gossipers not only survived but flourished: Across all the simulations, 90% of agents eventually became gossipers.

The new linguistic skills that modern Sapiens acquired about seventy millennia ago enabled them to gossip for hours on end. Reliable information about who could be trusted meant that small bands could expand into larger bands, and Sapiens could develop tighter and more sophisticated types of cooperation.1 The gossip theory might sound like a joke,

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legal and religious sanctions that could be brought to bear upon gossipers who crossed a line and gossiped about the wrong people at the wrong time. Most nations still have laws against slander on the books, and until relatively recently dueling to the death was considered an honorable way of dealing with those who had transgressed against one’s... See more

One need look no further than the Bible for examples of societal efforts to stifle destructive gossip: A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends (Proverbs 16:28) The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts. (Proverbs 18:7–8) For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea... See more

The recognition of its importance in maintaining group life makes acceptance of it a necessity, but its potential for advancing the interests of one individual at the expense of another poses a threat that must be contained if the group is to function effectively. Thus, paradoxically, gossip can serve as both a form of antisocial behavior and as a... See more

As Italian scholar Silvia Federici points out in her recent book Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women :

In many parts of the world, women have historically been seen as the weavers of memory — those who keep alive the voices of the past and the histories of the communities, who transmit them to the future generations and, in so doing, create a

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“You can go back to the history and see that it was prevalent in Mesopotamia and Greece. Anthropologists talk about it being at the center of life in hunter-gatherer societies,” Gelfand says.

The first known literary use of the word in this negative context occurred in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and the Oxford English Dictionary defines the sixteenth-century use of the word as describing a woman “of light and trifling character” who “delights in “idle talk” and was a “newsmonger” or a “tattler”

The Scold’s Bridle (sometimes referred to as the “Brank’s Bridle,” or more simply, “The Branks”) was a device used to publicly punish and humiliate women who were perceived as quarrelsome or as gossips, shrews, or scolds. It first appeared in Britain during the 1500s ( Science Museum of London, 2013 ) and it gradually spread to several other... See more