Eeeeeeeeeeeek!!!! Or, how many people actually scream?

[swan_tower]

A couple of hours ago I asked on Twitter how women react when they see something terrible. My proximate reason for asking was that I’ve discovered Netflix has Murder, She Wrote available streaming; in watching it, I’ve been reminded of the standard-issue scream uttered by women in TV and movies when they find a dead body. You know the one: hands to the cheeks, mouth and eyes wide in horror, a high-pitched and wordless shriek coming from her mouth.

It’s always seemed weird to me because I don’t do that. Okay, to be fair, I’ve never come across a dead body. But I have accidentally lit myself on fire — my clothing, anyway — and my reaction at the time was to bellow “FUCK!” at the top of my lungs while beating at the flames with my other sleeve until they went out. The top of my lungs . . . but not the top of my range. Same thing when my husband accidentally kicked my badly-sprained toe, causing me no small amount of pain. I don’t scream so much as yell, often with a great deal of profanity.

So I posted on Twitter because I wanted to know: how many women out there do scream at such things? Is it the majority, and I’m a weird outlier, or is that just a convention of media that doesn’t happen so much in real life? Twitter anecdata thus far suggests a moderately even split; there are definitely women who do the high-pitched wordless shriek thing, but not an overwhelming majority by any means. (Also, at least one guy has testified to uttering a scream of his own when subjected to sudden pain.) It seems the trope isn’t unfounded, then, but it’s also not universal. Which, because I’m an anthropologist at heart, means I’m now wondering whether that reaction has become less common over time (as women are no longer socialized in the same way as thirty or fifty years ago) and whether our media depictions have changed as well.

I have no idea. But it’s interesting to think about, because the standard-issue scream has always felt so very fake to me.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[sovay]

So I posted on Twitter because I wanted to know: how many women out there do scream at such things?

I yell with pain, but not with surprise or horror, and it is definitely lower-pitched than the classic horror scream. The one time my sleeve caught on fire while cooking, I was talking to derspatchel; I believe I said, ". . . and I'm on fire," and held my arm under the tap until the flames went out. When really terrible things happen, I tend to shift into crisis mode, which does not have time for shrieking.

Which, because I’m an anthropologist at heart, means I’m now wondering whether that reaction has become less common over time (as women are no longer socialized in the same way as thirty or fifty years ago) and whether our media depictions have changed as well.

I have always assumed it was socialized behavior. In tenth grade, I was one of two girls in a roughly fifty-fifty mixed-gender classroom who did not scream or flinch back or otherwise show signs of distaste and alarm when one of the crayfish we were studying suddenly flicked its tail, scattering tepid pond water across the lab bench. Even then, it seemed improbable to me that all of the other girls were really scared of the crayfish and none of the other boys weren't startled.

[swan-tower.livejournal.com]

I imagine that certain parts of the reaction are instinctual: making a noise, potentially losing the ability to articulate words, and even maybe going to a higher pitch (because of tension). But I also do think girls get socialized into using that response at lower thresholds than nature alone would indicate.