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

need to be around friends that are our same sex for “women talk” or “men talk.” She explains neither sex has the upper hand, only their interests are different. Her husband enjoys talking about sports and cars with his friends. She and her friends like to talk about more intimate subjects like their children and clothes shopping. However, she feels the mechanics of their relationship works for them, and at the end of the day, she feels her husband likes being her significant other.
The essay “Man to Man, Woman to Woman written by Mark A. Sherman and Adelaide Hass was about their study from a nationally distributed questionnaire on same sex conversations.
They observed the differences that the men and women had, on topics like: “relationship problems, family, health and reproductive concerns, weight, food and clothing.” Men didn’t feel comfortable speaking about them and would rather talk about “current events, music and sports.” Men and women agreed to talk about “work, movies, and television” as all were common interests for both genders. Moreover, they found that husbands and wives had little to talk about, plus, bickered more from misunderstandings when they did talk. The general consensus was that talking served different purposes for men and women.
According to Mr.

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

society.
In conclusion, even though both articles were about socialization between men and women. I would recommend, for all to read, the essay “Man to Man, Woman to Woman” over the article “His Talk, Her Talk” by Joyce Maynard because it is statistically motivated, and their basis for the essay is researched information and not from their own point of view. Mostly, people hang around with other people that they have common ground and interest with, such as people who attend the same school or church. No matter whom you are, you will get along with others as long as you are sincere and show courtesy and respect to other people. Moreover, honesty and mutual respect are necessary to form a bond by both men and women.