Miscommunication By Deborah Tannen Summary

According to Deborah Tannen, the main differences in conversation occur without thinking. This often leaves men and woman extremely confused. During our early childhood, we are taught behavior and attitudes that are considered socially appropriate for a given sex during gender socialization. In return separating males and female into two totally different worlds. During gender socialization, males are taught to be masculine and dominating, while a woman is taught to be feminine and attractive.

Deborah Tannen points out the biggest areas of miscommunications between men and woman, first being women more often than men will apologize as a way of saying they understand. Whenever I am at work I find myself apologizing subconsciously, for things

While my husband on the other hand tends to be a bit more loving and softer with his words in order to teach our girls a lesson or show any type of criticism. Nevertheless, please make note that my husband is like this with our girls. You will notice why towards the end of my discussion. Third miscommunication is the words, thank you. I find myself saying thank you as a polite way of ending a conversation, even when someone didn’t do anything to warrant a thank you. During a ritual fight, men tend to become impressed with the fact that someone else is brave enough to speak their mind. As a woman I tend to suppress my emotions, in order to avoid a personal attack, and even be criticized. Now praise happens to be my favorite. While we all want to be praised, men and woman tend to do it differently. I remember one day asking my daughter to read a paper that I had written and asking for her honest opinion. She went on to point out all the good things in my paper, leaving out the bad, for fear of hurting my feelings. However, wanting a second opinion I asked my husband to read it, asking for his honest opinion, while he did say my paper was well written, he also went on to criticize the portions in the paper that he