Joyce Maynard's Essay 'His Talk, Her Talk'

The essay “His Talk, Her Talk” written by Joyce Maynard on her views about the interaction of men and women. She describes her observations about the differences that men and woman have in regards to communicating. She verbalizes women need conversation for emotional stabilization as well as for social interests. Men hang out with other men socially, and for talking about topics of intellectual, worldly matters. Mrs. Maynard simulates the conversations between men, pertaining to: life, love and happiness, are indeed, about the same things as women, but spoken in different ways. She and her friends have a tendency of splitting into groups of all men and all women, which she feels, is because, “it’s a natural instinct to seek out the company of one’s own sex, exclude members of the opposite sex, and not feel guilty about it.” She compares the way her husband tells a story to “the way he eats a banana: in three efficient chews.” On the other hand, he has a hard time staying focused when she shares a story with him, because she has a tendency to exaggerate the details, making her stories too long. As a society, we have fought to have equal opportunity for both men and women, but as people, Mrs. Maynard points out, that we still

Sherman and Ms. Haas, men feel it is easier to talk to other men because the flow of conversation is more on practical subjects and they have humor, and they don’t feel they had to watch what they say. Women, on the other hand, need same sex conversations for sisterly bonding, as women are more “sensitive to emotions that men feel are unimportant.” To bridge the gap, men should take courses on how to be better listeners, and women should take courses on how to be more assertive. They feel that some of the underlying problem of communication between men and women is on the use of language discriminates against woman. There have been changes put into practice to replace “he” to “he or she” to fix this flaw in our