I guess the first thing this book makes me think about is neurodivergent speech patterns. Some people (I think mostly autistic people, but maybe also other groups) pause “too long” or “not enough” or “aren’t good at turn taking” in conversations, and that affects how they are perceived. This is very much a rhetoric of silence, or rather, people ought to be aware of differences in speech patterns that might mean silences (or lack of silence) should be interpreted differently than they might be used to. Lots of autistic people identified with Beth Harmon on The Queen’s Gambit, and in reading people’s tweets about it/her, I saw 1) non-autistic people arguing that Beth was cold to one of the guys she slept with, in part because she went back to reading her book after they had sex, and in part because of how she froze when he first kissed her 2) autistic people saying they felt her going back to reading showed that she felt comfortable with him, enjoyed the sex, and was now returning to her previous task and was happy to have him stay or go. I think there’s a bit of dialogue where he asks if she’d like him to stay or go, and she says it’s up to him. He feels hurt because he feels like that means she doesn’t care about him, but some people argued that she was being considerate of his needs and simply stating her non-preference in a direct way.
Glenn doesn’t really talk about this category of issues around silence, but she does discuss how positionality affects how one’s silences are interpreted, and who can be silent. If a white man is silent, he’s just a man of few words. If he’s a rich man, he’s powerful. If a Black man is silent, he’s uncooperative, or sullen, or unintelligent, or rude. Women’s silence might be interpreted as unintelligence as well, or lack of confidence, or rude, or modest and appropriate, depending on the situation and other aspects of the women’s identity.
Glenn cites Johannesen, who lists 20 different potential functions of silence. I would say about 5 are rhetorically “positive,” meaning relating to an interest in engaging with the other person or agreeing with them (silence due to thinking seriously about what to say, silence due to agreement, silence due to being emotionally moved, silence due to not wanting to hurt someone’s feelings, companionable silence), around 13 (I think this is the most arguable) are some kind of negative (meaning the person is not or is not interested in being engaged in the conversation), and the rest are “neutral.” I think the neutral and negative are the most arguable because things like “the person is silence because they feel no urgency to talk on this matter” is not inherently negative, but could easily be perceived as negative (why don’t you think this is important?).
Some examples/case studies Glenn talks about:
Bill Clinton’s sex scandals and the chosen or enforced silence of his lovers, victims (of unwanted sexual advances), and family members
The Clinton administration’s silencing of a federal appointment nominee— they told her not to speak publicly until her confirmation went through. She was not allowed to respond to many allegations and misinterpretations of her work.
The stereotype that Native Americans are silent or value silence more than other kinds of people.
Anita Hill’s original silence and then forced speaking (via court order) against Clarence Thomas, then how the committee re-silenced her