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Similarities of men and women communication
Similarities of men and women communication
Similarities of men and women communication
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Men and women are more different than one can imagine. Though the main difference is in physical appearance, another difference is their sense of communication. Women appear to talk more than males, but like to keep their conversations more private. Males, on the other hand, will talk less, but do not mind their conversations being more public. This is just one of many examples of men and women being completely opposite of one another in terms of communication. Each gender has their own expectations of the opposite. These expectations are not usually met due to communication differences, which leads to criticisms such as, “Men do not listen” or “Women will never understand” to form. The most common assumption for why expectations are not met …show more content…
Author Deborah Tannen became well known for composing her book, “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.” Like Gray, Tannen includes her perception on how men and women differ in communication. In addition, she includes her observations on how early does the differences occur. Tannen states that gender difference in communication styles appear at a young age. She then supports her claim by providing how young boys and girls achieve friends. They young boys created relationships with one another by doing things together. Young girls created relationships by simply talking to one another. According to Tanner, men only will approach conversations with the goal of “transmitting information” or “offering advice” (Tannen, 1990). She also includes that when women are discussing a problem within one another, the women form a bond together and seek to maintain an intimate relationship. However, when men hear women talking about problems, they offer a quick solution and then dismiss the problem. These results give the belief of why there are more woman social workers and counselors than males. Tannen’s book helped explain why women find men as insensitive. For example, if a couple is talking and the female directs a conversation to a conflict that she’s having, the male wouldn’t show as much compassion. He would only offer solutions to the problem and then try to direct …show more content…
These nine influence tactics are: inspirational appeal, rational persuasion, consultation, ingratiation, personal appeals, exchange, coalition tactics, legitimating tactics, and pressure. The nine tactics are broken up in two categories, “hard” and “soft” (Yukl and Chavez, 2002). Hard tactics include legitimating, exchange, pressure, and coalition. Soft tactics include rationality, inspirational appeals, consultation, ingratiating, and personal appeals. According to Yukl and Chavez, males will use hard tactics and the females will use soft when communicating with one another. It seems as though the genders use opposite tactics due to misunderstandings of one another. Since one gender does not understand the other, they use tactics like they are speaking to an individual of the same
“Men are from Mars, women are from Venus” as the famous saying of John Gray goes. It is believed men and women are nothing alike in almost every aspect. In Deborah Tannen’s essay “Gender in the classroom: Teacher’s Classroom Strategies Should Recognize that Men and Women Use Language Differently” she focused on how men and women differ when it comes to communicating, with emphasis on how it effects to how men and women behave in the classroom.
Battle of the Sexes In “Sex, Lies, and Conversation,” Dr. Deborah Tannen discussed good points on why opposite sexes have trouble talking and communicating. While writing the story she dug deeper than the surface of the problems, and why they happen the way they do. I relate to the points she discusses because I have been through similar situations with my own relationships.
No matter the society, the way a women verbally expresses her thoughts, whether direct or indirect, is always viewed as inferior to men who are always right. According to Tannen, the style of communication preferred by men is a more direct approach. They call women’s indirect style “‘covert,’ a term suggesting negative qualities like being ‘sneaky’ and ‘underhanded’” (Tannen 3). The way western men view women’s communication style is a reflection of how they view women in general- sneaky and underhanded. For the women this is not the case. They choose to speak indirectly simply because they feel that it is not their right to speak directly male dominated society. This ideology was a continuation from the 19th century in which it was a sin for women to speak directly. Elinor Keenan, an anthropologist found that in a village of Madagascar it is the women who are direct and men who are indirect. According to Keenan, the villagers “regard women’s direct style as clumsy and crude, debasing the beautiful subtlety of men’s language” (Tannen 9). This shows the similarities and differences of societies concerning women. While the preferred form of communication changed from culture to culture, women are still on the bottom of the social ladder when compared to men. When a
Tannen, Deborah. (1990). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men Conversation. New York: Ballantine Books.
Tannen’s (1990) book, “You Just Don’t Understand,” explains heterogeneous facts about men and women’s communication styles. Tannen says once these gender differences are sorted out, men and women can recognize and understand how to confront real conflicts, rather than fighting styles. When men and women learn to accept the opposite sex’s conversational styles, they can learn to understand a shared language—where there is symmetry and negotiation of conflicts.
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).
In her article “But What Do You Mean” Deborah Tannen, claims that there is a huge difference in the style of communicating between men and women. Tannen breaks these down into seven different categories; apologies, criticism, thank-yous, fighting, praise, complaints, and jokes. With each of these she compares men to women by explaining the common misconceptions that each of the genders do. The different style of communication can cause some problems at the workplace and even affect the environment. The different styles of communication has been around forever and almost becomes a “ritual”(299). Tannen is effective with mainly women and not men. She is primarily successful with women due to the fact that her tone targets women, also the organization
Do men and women effectively communicate in the same way, or is it just a conversation of misunderstanding? There is constantly a new interest in whether men and women converse successfully. Professor and journalist, Deborah Tannen writes, “Sex, Lies, and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?” Tannen compares and contrasts all conversational styles, and explains how the expectation of dialogue affects how men and women converse. Tannen focuses on the subject of marriage and the imbalance of interest between male and female couples. The contrasting perspective however comes from, Deborah Cameron, author of, “What Language Barrier”. Cameron conveys that the stereotypes left upon male and female communication
Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington D.C, she came with the theory of Genderlect, which basically says that men and women belong to different cultures and the communication between them is cross-cultural and miscommunication occurs because men and women don’t realize that cross-cultural communication is going on. Her famous book You Just Don’t Understand made this idea gain a lot of popularity. In this book Tannen uses anecdotes to demonstrate her ideas. These anecdotes mainly come from her own experiences or her friends experiences. Here, Tannen uses personal experiences to justify her claims. She also went out and listened to conversations and noticed differences. Her claims can be believed and trusted because these come from her and her friends experiences, she is also a professor and has given many lectures at Princeton University. These things make her a credible source as she clearly has done research in this field and has seen these differences for herself. The observations that she made were mainly qualitative and she didn’t really have a very large sample, but she had a variety of people in her book. This also makes it more believable and we can trust her research and her sources. Simma Lieberman is a consultant and works with people and organizations to create a better working environment. She specializes in gender
In the introduction of Deborah Tannen’s “Conversation Style: Talking on the Job”, she compares and contrasts the ways men and women communicate. This reminds me of what I tell people that are struggling in their relationships. Women and men express themselves differently. Women think, but men act. If you can’t wrap your head around this, being in a relationship with anyone is going to be hard. Yet, this is such a basic way of looking at this issue. Not only are the genders vastly different, but each person relates to the world around them in a certain way. He or she also needs to be related to in a specific way. Looking at personalities and personal histories can give a better look at the way we communicate with each other. Tannen examines
...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.
Deborah Tannen’s case study entitled “Can’t We Talk?” is the most relevant reading that I have ever done for any class. It relates to a problem that every person regardless of age, race or sex, will have to face many times in his or her lifetime. The problem is that men and women communicate differently and these differences can often lead to conflict. This case study is very informative because it helps to clarify the thought process of each sex. That said this reading leaves the reader somewhat unfulfilled because Tannen does not offer a solution to the problem.
Social Construction of Gender is a process, stratification system and structure. The day to day interactions emphasize gender as opposites. Take for instance, conversations, formalities of daily life, sayings, and so on. The social construction of gender is created through social interaction – through the things we do and say with other people. This means that gender it is not a fixed or inherent fact, but instead it varies across time and place.
...or a relationship”. In genderlects, there is no superior or inferior method of communication, but rather, men and women just communicate differently. By understanding these differences, one can reduce the amount of misunderstandings in future conversations.
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.