There are a few things at work there:
- Many people use meetings as an excuse to not do work
This might be controversial, but it's my experience that if there's a meeting scheduled for Thursday at 1pm, most people say to themselves: great, I don't have to think about that subject until then. So a lot of what passes for 'talking' at meetings is just these people trying to do their work on-the-fly. It takes a strong personality to call a meeting that has an agenda and completes it in the time alotted, and this skill is as rare as snow in LA.
- American men seem particularly worse with this
European (especially German, in my experience) men tend to be more prepared than their American counterparts for meetings; Japanese men even more so.
- Talking in a meeting is like scoring points
If they go to a meeting and don't say anything, they feel like they haven't contributed (sat on the bench). I've had conversations with Europeans who have been through the training classes at US investment banks, and they say that the US men speak just to be heard, even if they don't have anything to say or -- worse -- what they have to say is wrong or off-topic.
They are rewarded for this! It's a bad feedback loop.
Women at meetings, in my experience, have no patience for this. When this kind of thing starts to happen, many women zone out and stop contributing. I often get feedback later from women who follow up after a meeting with something they could have said aloud but didn't have the stomach for.
Give me a meeting with women any day!
/jordan