Roles of men and women
Of the many changes which have taken place in American society since World War II, one of the greatest has been in the roles of men and women. Members of both genders have lived multiple roles in the past, but these were generally established ones, such as men being the wage earners and women the caregivers.
Communication followed largely defined cultural and societal norms. Usually, nuances in speech and in body language could readily be interpreted. As Archie Bunker nostalgically sang in television’s "All in the Family," "... and you knew who you were then; girls were girls and men were men."
Many of the roles have remained the same, but now they frequently are carried out by members of either gender. Women have careers in engineering or sports; a growing number of men have full-time care of home, children, and the disabled. Both men and women have a variety of jobs in the workplace and positions in the hierarchy of management.
Communication between the genders has become more prevalent and pervasive in society, as norms have changed. When one adds the mobility of the American population and the differences among the cultures they represent, both the importance and difficulty of effective communication increases. Now medical and sociological researchers are offering aid, even across cultural lines, in gender communication.
Communication differences
Few Americans communicate with as many different types of individuals of both genders as U.S. Army chaplains and chaplain assistants as they interact with each other, and provide religious support to soldiers, family members, and other civilians — worldwide. Their roles and orientation to people often give them special insights in communication. The following observations, however, may also be helpful to both men and women.
Men are widely observed to come quickly to the point they wish to make, while women tend to use more detail in leading up to the point. In communicating with women, men may become impatient as they search for the point, or lose interest. If they interrupt, women can be frustrated or offended.
In talking with men, therefore, women can use two techniques to communicate more effectively. First, begin with the point, or "bottom line," if possible. Second, omit unnecessary detail.
On the other hand, men can refrai...
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...relate nonsense words, men used only the left sides of their brains; but after the majority of women processed the information on the left sides of their brains. They used the right side to relate additional examples. Might this difference have any bearing on the fact that women as a group usually include more detail in their speech?
Conclusion
Knowledge may continue to expand; many enigmas of speech and behavior may be solved. But good communication between individuals can continue to be based on the precept underlying all the examples described above.
This precept, shared by the great religions of the world, is kindness: caring for each other.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Glass, Lillian, "How to Communicate Better with the Opposite Sex," Bottom Line/Personal, August 15, 1996.
_____, "Perspectives on Literacy, Gender, and Change," British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 16, Issue 4, December 1995.
Richardson, Susan, "S/HE Brains," Discover Magazine, June 1995.
Margaret Robertson served as a program analyst in the Directorate of Combat Developments at the Chaplain School until her retirement in March 1997.
Army Chaplaincy
The characteristics and behaviors associated with men and women are called gender roles. Gender can also be interpreted as the social, psychological, and cultural interpretation of biological sex. Gender as a social construct has been a term throughout history that explains the social distinction between men and women and is reinforced in social interactions. The crisis of the global economy brings about gender dimensions and different meanings for men and women in society. Men and women have been hierarchy organized and valued. Throughout the 19th century, women’s contributions to society were regarded as less significant than those of men. Stereotypes were put on genders, which included assertive, strong, and competitive for masculinity and submissive, weak, and emotional for femininity. Gender inequality arose as economic crisis took place throughout the 19th century. The changing conditions of work in the global state impacted the roles for men and women and many feminists started to challenge the idea that “biology is destiny”. With post-Fordism, a new gender order emerged, and Women occupied a broader place in the work force. However, sexism is still prevalent in society to some extent whether it’s unconscious or conscious and affects the lives of many women.
Sex differentiation often characterizes males and females behaviour according to sex hormones, mainly estrogen and testosterone that takes place within the womb. This explains why boys play with cars, and girls play with dolls. Feminists tend to argue that this a result of social stereotypes, but alarming scientific results have shown that this is perhaps due to hormones(York, n.d., para.18). In fact, studies have revealed that problem-solving tasks are different in women and men. Females use problem-solving tasks in both of their hemispheres, whereas, males use only one hemisphere. There is also frequent evidence illustrating that males are better in spatial and math skills. On the other hand, females are considered to be better in vocabular...
Before the movement in the seventies, women were treated unfairly throughout history. This means that women have been seen as the ones who need to rely on people and the men are the ones who are the head of houses. In 19th century America, men and women were put into different categories known as the separate spheres. The spheres were known as the public and private spheres; and it was easy for people to figure out which gender went to which sphere. The men were seen as the ones more mature to handle the public while the women were the ones who were in charge of the house, children, and different chores;
Deborah Tannen is the author of the book You Just Don't Understand where she analyzes the different meanings of communication between men and women. Her research shows that women and men use the same words and phrases and yet can interpret and react to those same words and phrases differently. Tannen compares the two sexes to find men use their conversation as a type of competition or to preserve their independence. For example, men talk about their knowledge regarding sports, cars, women, exc. Meanwhile, women try to foster intimacy through communication. For instance, women often talk and relate on a personal level. Throughout Tannen's book she uses "cross-cultural communication" to describe the differences between the language of men and women. Tannen observed that, "For males, conversation is the way you negotiate your status in the group and keep people from pushing you around; you use talk to preserve your independence. Females, on the other hand, use conversation to negotiate closeness and intimacy; talk is the essence of intimacy, so being best friends means sitting and talking. For boys, activities, doing things together, are central. Just sitting and talking is not an essential part of friendship. They're friends with the boys they do things with" (Tannen 95).
Communication is the foundation of any society. Humans are interactive beings that must communicate in order to survive. Humans develop communication skills as infants; learning to yell when something is needed, cry when something is painful, and smile when feeling happy. As babies age they learn words; eventually learning to compose sentences allowing them to express their feelings or desires. Humans finally learn to communicate within different parts of their life with different forms of communication such as letters, spoken, visual, and more. As one ages, they become aware of the different rules of communication used with certain people and situations; such as learning to speak to a teacher in a different manner than how one talks to their friends. While doing this, people are unconsciously starting to learn how to conform in the different discourse communities. Discourse communities are an essential part of life, and learning to communicate in those communities is just as vital.
Steven Pinker distinguishes the difference between talking to man and women. Pinker showed a lady that was comfortable talking to another lady and the lady became angry when her talking to a man, not women (Pinker 2007 .p112, 113). People used intricacies method to achieve their needs and emotion instead of saying what they need to say directly. (Pinker 2007 .p113) Furthermore, even in a sexual situation, people twist and turn around and turn around their words. For example, “would you like to come up and see my etching?” (Pinker 2007.p113) Moreover, people use a kind word to order something from someone else without making a demand to the receiver or using indirect speeches to avoid a problem that may happen by mistake. (Pinker, 2007
...a meaningful communication to take place. In conclusion, there are differences between men and women that go beyond social nurture. These differences have their origin in their genes. The differences evident in men and women are translated in their behavior and communication. There are possibilities of these differences in their turn raising the problem of failing to understand one another because in a communication men and women have a different set of expectations from each other. It is essential to understand and appreciate these differences for a meaningful communication to take place.
Further evidence of communicative differences exist between men and women in various other social settings as well. Consider, for example, those individuals employed in customer service-related Jobs. While in JC Penny, I noticed that female customer service representatives were more apt to offer immediate friendly assistance than the male reps. Men are not as cocky nor as confident in this sort of situation; their eyes tend to dart around the area of the store while the eyes of a women remain focused upon the eyes of the customer. The men seem to communicate with a lot less smiles. Apparently they have to get past a certain “ice-breaking'; point before they will feel comfortable with a genuine look of happiness.
Women and men are nestled into predetermined cultural molds when it comes to gender in American society. Women play the roles of mothers, housekeepers, and servants to their husbands and children, and men act as providers, protectors, and heads of the household. These gender roles stem from the many culture myths that exist pertaining to America, including those of the model family, education, liberty, and of gender. The majority of these myths are misconceptions, but linger because we, as Americans, do not analyze or question them. The misconception of gender suggests that biological truths no longer dictate our gender roles as men and women; they derive from cultural myths. We, as a nation, need to do severe critical thinking about this delusion of gender, how has limited us in the home, media, and education, how it currently limits us, and what the results of the current and future changes in gender roles will be.
Men have dominated the workforce for most of civilization up until their patriotic duties called away to war. All of a sudden, the women were responsible for providing for their family while the men were away. Women went to work all over America to earn an income to insure their family’s survival. Women took all sorts of jobs including assembly line positions, office jobs, and even playing professional baseball. When the men returned home from war, the women were expected to resume their place as housewives. The women who had gotten a taste of the professional life decided that they wanted to continue working. Thus, the introduction to women in a man’s working environment began. Women were not taken seriously at first, because they were stepping into a “man’s world”.
Men are traditionally seen as being in the "supervisor" position in the home. They are the heads of the household, the breadwinners, and the women are behind the scenes, like the threads that hold everything together. The same can be said about the workplace. Men tend to hold administrative positions, while women usually have the positions that support the administrator. They are the secretaries and assistants that do the work for their male bosses and prepare things for them that later on only the administrator may receive credit for. " ‘Where,' asks the Englishman who is prominent in social welfare, 'are you're men? We see their names on the letter-heads of organizations, but when we go to international conferences, we meet almost entirely women.' 'Our men-oh, they are the chairmen of boards, they determine the financial policy of our agencies, but they leave the practice to women. They are too busy to go to conferences.'" (Mead 304).
In the present United States, a mixture of males and females make up a university classroom. In life, males and females have different conversational styles. The ways that they communicate to each other in a conversation, as well as how they communicate with their instructors and peers in the classroom. Although there is a combination of both genders in the classrooms, schools gravitate more towards using learning techniques that are more applicable towards men than women (Tannen 369). When teaching with a mixture of people that learn differently, it is difficult to have a certain technique to use that would help everybody in the same way. Yet it is important that equal opportunities are given to both genders that allows them to do their best and succeed in their academic careers. Educational professionals need to understand the conversational differences in gender and have better teaching strategies that fit both male and female conversational styles.
Littlejohn, S.W., & Foss, K. A. (2009). Genderlect Theory. Encyclopedia of Communication Theory (1st ed., Vol.25, pp. 205-207). Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
In conclusion, although the roles of men and women have radically changed over the turn of the century, it is still inevitable to have various gender related occupational differences because the social and biological roles of women and men do not really change. The society still perceives women as the home makers and men as the earners, and this perception alone defines the differing roles of men and women in the labor market.
Essentially, we are all different. We use language differently and interpret language differently. This is what we base our perceptions of others on, thus it is ultimately what dictates our interaction with others. The fact that men’s and women’s interaction differs because the two sexes generally interpret things differently is not a strange phenomenon, because we are all different.