As a journalist, it would be a lie to say I don’t love some good gossip. I crave the feeling of gathering morsels of information, sharing stories with my friends and eavesdropping on conversations to add to my notes app list titled “Overheard.”
Gossip is intertwined with my female friendships. It’s Shannon and I whispering in the dark until we fall asleep in our twin XL beds, Libby and I rehashing the same stories from high school over and over again, ranting to my Mom during our weekly Facetimes, bathroom confessions as the Uber is pulling up outside and Sundays at The Observer office recapping the newest installment of Emma’s life story.
Gossip is a critical part of our lives. It’s how we update each other on the weekend’s events, find people that share similar values and learn who can be trusted. However, gossip is less about the information being conveyed and more about the intimate connection formed with someone through gossiping. Everyone knows that the best way to make a new friend is to find a mutual source of frustration and nothing brings people closer together than a shared experience to talk about.
This foundational role of gossip in building connections is rooted in its origin. The original version of the word gossip is “god-sibbe,” which literally means to be an intimate friend of a family, which conveys this sense of connection. It wasn’t until the sixteenth century that gossip came to be associated with idle, backbiting talk, which is actually the opposite of the solidarity that female friendship implies and fosters.
In her book “Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women,” Silvia Federici writes that the earliest forms of gossip appeared during the Middle Ages when lower class women engaged in communal work, thus forming tight-knit communities. However, in 1549, a proclamation was issued “forbidding women to meet together to babble and talk,” and husbands were ordered to keep their wives in the house. Not only was the demonization of gossip a way to limit the freedoms of women, but it also served to reinforce capitalism and ensure that women weren’t wasting time socializing when they could be working.
These influences persist today, shaping attitudes that regard gossip as sinful and malicious. However, if we revisit the origins of gossip—not as a means of spreading false rumors, but as a way to share information and wisdom to nurture friendships—we can see it as an act of solidarity and love, particularly for those on the margins of society.
Gossip produces knowledge from the margins that is valuable only to those in the margins. It’s a way to build cultural networks and form communities, especially for those that feel their voices and identity are not represented, like women and queer people. In this way, gossip is a form of social currency that brings people together.
I owe my closest friendships to the bonds I’ve formed while gossiping. From freshman year watching “Euphoria” on the floor of Shannon’s common room, to sophomore year putting on purple sparkly eyeshadow with Vanshika, to junior year eating popcorn and debriefing in the 7B lounge to now senior year gathered around the kitchen island making dinner with my roommates.
Gossip is girlhood and love and friendship and I won’t accept any slander.
