We all have a certain way of communicating that seems evident and natural to us, so we can be shocked, frustrated, or even sadden when someone misinterprets us. Interacting with other people is part of our daily lives, yet men and women have different styles of communication and behavior. Some of the major differences between men and women are how they express emotion, affection or intimacy, and communication. Women tend to be more emotional and express more affection, whereas men are far less emotional and express less affection. Women regard intimacy as talking face-to-face; however, men regard intimacy as working or playing side-by-side. Women tend to ask more questions when communicating while men ask fewer or no questions at all. These …show more content…
A woman may use “listener noises” such as “Uh huh” to let you know that she is listening. Men tend to prefer to sit quietly and focus on what is being said. Men tend to interpret the woman’s conversation noises as interruptions and may become annoyed, according to Deborah Tannen. Deborah Tannen also states that most women often prefer talking while sitting or standing in a group of people where everyone is face-to-face. Most men prefer talking shoulder-to-shoulder. A woman might use gestures, facial expressions, and incline her head and shrug her shoulders during the conversation. A man usually prefers a relaxed pose; they prefer to keep the body language and facial expressions more contained. These are the reasons why miscommunication can occur between men and women. Here is an example by Deborah Tannen: A college student was frustrated because whenever she told her boyfriend she wanted to talk he would lie down on the floor, close his eyes and put his arm over his face. To her, this not-so-subtle sign meant he wasn't listening. But he insisted he was listening, even harder than he would if he was looking directly at her. Lying down simply kept him from looking around the room so he could concentrate (Tannen,1990). Now, in order to solve these types of miscommunications, we need to learn to understand each other and our
In non-verbal behaviour females will nod their head to show that they are listening. Men leave the conversation thinking that a head nod means agreement and will be surprised to find out that the female didn't agree at all. When a female is speaking to a male and he does not say anything and stays in a neutral body language to show that he is listening, a female will interpret that as the male being bored or not understanding what she is saying.
Women communicate to establish or maintain relationships. They talk longer than men and spend more time on one subject to fully understand where each person is coming from. This is evident in the use of nonverbal cues to further build a connection, like touching one’s arm or engaging their audience by nodding. Women also use more emotional language than men, apparent in the compassionate, warm, and concerned word choice that women use. Clearly there are great differences in gender communication. One could argue it is the greatest difference between men and
As the Classical World began to emerge, the relation between men and women start to change. During the Greek and Roman Empire, men continuing to be powerful in the society, and were the ones who trained for oncoming battles. As well woman rights were emerging slowly during the period. Women started as a possession of the men, and ended with own rights and choices of profession. The civilization of Greece had two main cities, Sparta and Athens. Men and women in Sparta were strong, they started training together, and at the age of twelve were separate. Then boys were sent to the barracks, were the military training continued, and girls keep with their trained to became worthy of a good male. Spartan women were free, they could ran businesses
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).
According to Borker and Maltz (1982) women and men of America are from varied sociolinguistic cultures and have learnt conversation rules differently. Language rules are taught to children at an early age. Little girls work and interact within small homogeneous boys-girls groups and make supportive comments whereas boys go for bigger groups and make challenging comments. When they group up, these patterns continue and sometimes misunderstandings occur due to such differences. Women nod head to encourage speaker whereas men consider it to be a gesture for agreement. Men do not nod and women consider they are not listening. Women tend to use questions to continue or start off a conversation and men think it is because of less knowledge of women. Even though females give more affective response, still where nonverbal communication is concerned...
One of the most common and frequent complaints spouses have against each other is the inability to listen, especially when expressing difficult feelings (Papadopoulos 15). As it happens, women tend to be much more indirect than men in the area of communication, which causes much frustration and lack of understanding (Tannen, Talking 12). According to authors Alyn and Phillips, to be an effective listener, it is imperative that one must not only listen to the words that are spoken, but also to the way in which the words are spoken. Additionally, one should notice whether or not the nonverbal actions match the spoken words of the speaker (163). Nevertheless, Dr. John Gray explains how it is imperative to realize that these major mistakes
It is proven that gender equality is very vital and fundamental since it is considered an effective way of addressing democracy and also promoting lasting economic growth. It is one of the founding principles of European Unions and even its future building block. This has therefore led to various causes in respect to equality between men and women since women are seen to be achieving more in education and also actively participating in the labor force than ever before. One of the causes of growing gender equality between men and women is that men and women are still seen to remain as an elusive goal. This has therefore changed the mindset of the society over a significant period to view them as equal parties.
Sex are differences between men and women in terms of communication may be differences in how to interpret and everything starts from an early age.
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
...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.
A lot of attention has been dedicated to the thought that women and men communicate very differently from one another. In this paper I am going to discuss the gender differences in communications between the opposite sexes. Many believe that gender plays a major role in communication but in all reality, that isn’t the case. Several factors play a part in how someone communicates with another person regardless of their sex. The main question is what role does gender play in communication or is it the roles our cultures put on genders’. In my opinion, it is the way we were raised that affects the way we communicate.
A common stereotype that is rehearsed in society is that women are more sensitive than men are. This “sensitivity” can mean a numerous amount of things, such as emotions, attitude, perception, observation, and much more. The notion can be viewed as a biased stereotype when it pertains to certain components, but not necessarily all of them. Take for example, in tests relating to people’s body language and non-verbal communication, it has been confirmed that women have done better than men in the majority of the tests administered. This observation is important to how truthful the stereotype that women are more sensitive than men is. Women's execution in perceiving and displaying of body language to achieve non-verbal communication is better executed than that of men’s.
Author, Professor Deborah Tannen uses different examples from studies based on the article American Psychologist by Eleanor Macoby which she proves many problems genders face when communicating. Men have a hard time staying on one subject for too long they tend to switch conversations like flashcards due to wanting to get to the point while women tend to like talking about details. Women commonly hold men to a standard when they request being listened to but take in matter how their being listened to as if they are or not. Every man has his own way of coping when listening some look around the room, make beats with their fingers and close their eyes women would see this as not listening. The case is not that men aren't listening but that women like havin...
Men tend to be honest, direct, and factual. This leads to a communication environment where the main goal is to exchange information in order to solve a problem. This is where women will fi...
Gender communication focused on the method of expressing a thought or idea through the use of a gender in the relationship and the role of people. Some will argue that gender communication is qualified as a form of intercultural communication on the development of effective communication skills when we interact with an opposite sex. The communication between men and women have a huge difference because people from different culture speak different dialects. In the current society, it is common for us to hear phrases such as “ you men (women) are from a different planet,”these phrases are developed due to the miscommunication between men and women over the course of evolution. Men and women had developed different methods of