Sex Lies And Conversation Deborah Tannen Summary

Nature or Nurture? Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. This is a popular belief among many people in society today and to many, it is an unquestionable fact of life. In Deborah Tannen’s “Sex, Lies, and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other,” Tannen argues that the problems which men and women have in marriage often stem from misunderstandings, mainly due to the crucial differences in the way men and women communicate. She terms this major difference as “cross-cultural”, yet much of her research is unscientific (Tannen 244). However, in Deborah Cameron’s “What Language Barrier?” she expresses a differing belief. According to Cameron, “the idea that men and women differ fundamentally in the way they

She points out that because women are often seen as the talkers and the compassionate ones in a relationship, they are more then often automatically given the jobs that require these skills such as nurses, nannies, and etc. while male applicants have to prove that they possess these skills. What Cameron is showing is that men and women are already assumed to have certain skills without question. Due to this, society has unknowingly become sexist. Throughout her essay, Cameron turns to prove her point through various scientific research, that in which Tannen failed to do, as many of her own doings or entirely unscientific all together. She also does not believe that men and women are born with gender specific brains. Throughout her essay, she refutes the work of Simon Baron-Cohen, author of “The Essential Difference.” According to Baron- Cohen people are born with either a male or female brain. He then goes classify certain jobs as either a female-brain, empathy based job, or a male-brain, system-analyzing job. Cameron refutes this by pointing out how nurses without the capability to measure dosages accurately and make systematic clinical observations, are deemed useless, while lawyers without the ability to communicate and read people would not make for very good lawyers. Cameron also works to prove her point by highlighting fallacies in previous published

Many people today believe that women talk more than men. However, numerous studies have been done by observing both sexes in a single interaction and then measuring their responses. According to the findings, 60% of the research proved that men talk more than women. It is all too known that talk is often related to status. The trend is for those of a higher-status to talk more than the lower-statuses. If men are expected to obtain high-status positions wouldn’t it make sense that they would need to talk more to be regarded as having the higher status? As in many gender differences, miscommunications can be explained by both the biological aspect as well as the cultural/environmental aspect. Tannen suggests the biological explanation, while Cameron sides with culture and environment. One thing that stands out and makes Cameron and Tannen so different is their usage of facts and research. Throughout reading Tannen’s essay, I realized that many of her ideas and thoughts about gender difference was never actually proved through any scientific process. She basically just throws together a bunch of ideas and calls it the truth. Cameron, on the other hand, uses a variety of scientific data to prove that men and women are not these extraterrestrial beings from two completely different planets. Cameron states that “like the scientists I have mentioned, I believe in