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The article, “Sex, Lies and conversation”, by Deborah Tannen is about the problem between woman and men cross-cultural communication caused by “sex-separate groups have different organizational structures”. Also, she explains how the lack of communication is ending marriage, “…. divorce rate of nearly 50 percent, ……a virtual epidemic of failed conversation”. Three points from Tannen’s article that might help me to improve the quality of my conversation are: First, understand that men and women seem talking from different point of view. Second, that in a conversation the other person doesn’t have to face me directly to be listening, and Third, to not sympathize when someone is talking because it could be intrusion. The first point to help me improve the quality of my conversation is that men and women see talking from different point of view. Tannen’ says, “For women, talks creates intimacy”, it means that we women like to talk to form a relationship or friendship with another person, yet men see it as “talk maintains independence and status”. Men think that talking is validated ingroups to be the strong male, but not in relationships because there they don’t have nobody to prove anything. In addition, boys like more “doing thing together” since they don’t find talking essential in a relationship. Overall understanding both points of men …show more content…
and women would help me to improve my conversation with each because instead of judging I will be able to understand them. The second point to help me improve the quality of my conversation is that in a conversation the other person doesn’t have to face me directly to be listening.
For example, when I speak with my seventeen years old brother he doesn’t pay attention to me nor look at me. If he were using the computer he would still using the computer as if I wasn’t talking to him. On the positive side Tannen says, “the boys and men sat at angles to each other and looked elsewhere in the room” which means this behavior is normal in boys to no look directly at us while we talk. Therefore, this point helps me to improve my conversation with my
brothers. The third point to help me improve the quality of my conversation is to not sympathize when someone is talking because it could be intrusion. Tannen say that is normal for girls to “listener-noise”, while talking which I agree because I do it all the time when talking to my friends. I love to give support to my friends when they’re telling me hard thing, but Tannen says men see it as “lack of attention”. In view of men they don’t feel supported, but interrupted when we sympathize or “listener-noise” them. This point I think will not just help me to no sympathize with men, but with other because I feel that a lot of people don’t like that even I feel uncomfortable when someone does it repeatable. For example, when I was I high school there was a girl who none of my friends could tell her anything because she would have a story to everything personal or not personal, and it was uncomfortable to talk to her. Given those three points which have help me improve the quality of my conversation I feel like I understand men and boys more. And that people should be informed about the cross-culture in communication because a lot of people aren’t understanding each other because of it.
Judith Viorst is an American journalist. Her essay “The Truth about Lying”, printed in Buscemi and Smith’s 75 Readings: An Anthology. In this essay, Viorst examines social, protective, peace-keeping and trust-keeping lies but doesn’t include lies of influence.
Deborah Tannen wrote “ Talk in the Intimate Relationship” to help people learn something about how men and women's interactions differ. She is a language scholar and has past experience of failed relationships and she feels as though this was because of lack of communication. Her main focus is on metamessages, these are messages that go beyond what we say. She states that the people that are literal minded, miss out on the context of what communication is. What this essay will consist of being what Tannen calls metamessages, summarizing her article on how men and woman talk, deciding whether Tannen is favorable to both genders and last but not least if I agree to an extent with Tannen says in her article.
Are everyday rituals, such as, facades reflected as to being a lie? Simply preparing for a meeting or interview does not come off as lying, although another type of façade such as when someone asks, “Are you okay,” after a death of someone close to you, in reality it is a form of a lie, because you are not being honest. In Stephanie Erricsson’s article “The Ways We Lie,” she discusses many different types of lying, that most wouldn’t even consider. Ericsson claimed, “But façades can be destructive because they are used to seduce others into an illusion” (409). Depending how a façade is used, the outcome can be beneficial or damaging. There are facades that are used to cover up one’s true feelings, in order to protect an individual and then there is a type in which one puts on a mask to cover up how awful of a person they are. Charity, a former friend, deceived me with the qualities of everything she was not, my mom is a great example of when it comes to hiding when she is saddened. In this article “The Ways We Lie,” Stephanie Ericsson has a great point of view on the destructiveness of facades, although, it can very well be used in a good way just as much as in a bad way, in fact, like my protective mother, using facades for mine and my sisters own good and then a conniving friend using facades in
In the day and age where online dating and meeting is becoming more common, it’s easy to alter how you are perceived. You can disclose details about yourself you believe are attractive and withhold/hide information about yourself you believe other people would reject you for. The Lenient Thesis provides that it is only a minor wrong to deceive another person into sex by misleading them about certain personal features such as natural hair color, occupation, or romantic intentions. This thesis does exclude run-of-the-mill deception like someone’s sexual history, t.v show preferences, or how funny one finds the other. In “Sex, Lies, and Consent”, Tom Dougherty seeks to argue against the lenient thesis, and instead that deceiving another person
Should we stop lying and she would stop letting people lie to us? In “The Ways We Lie”, Stephanie Ericsson describes lying as “a cultural cancer that… reorders reality until moral garbage becomes as invisible to us as water is to a fish” (Ericsson 186). Ericsson believes that we have accepted lies to the point where do not recognize it anymore. Ericsson has a point, lying should not be tolerated but it should be the unnecessary lies that should not be tolerated. There are lies that are justifiable based on the intent of the person lying. All lies are harmful in their own ways from small lies, like white lies, to big lies, like out-and-out lies.
In the short story The Ways We Lie, Stephanie Ericsson describes many different categories of lies. She first starts out explain the little white lie, describing it as a lie which is told when trying to avoid hurting someone. An example she gives in the text is, “telling a friend he looks great when he looks like hell can be based on a decision that the friend needs a compliment more than a frank opinion”(Ericsson, 2004, 121). Ericsson then describes facades, facades according to the Ericsson is when a person shows you what they want you to see, but it’s not the real them. Stating “facades can be destructive because they are used to seduce others into an illusion” (Ericsson, 2004, 122). A perfect example of facades are when a person has to
In “The Truth about Lying” Judith Viorst explains the four different kinds of lying. She categorizes lies as social lies, peace-keeping lies, protective lies, and trust-keeping lies. Social lies are lies that are “acceptable and necessary”, they are the little white lies most people use all the time. Peace keeping lies are told when the liar is trying to protect themselves from getting in trouble or causing any conflict. The protective lies are far more serious, are often told because of fear that the truth would be “too damaging” for the person being lied to. Lastly, there are the trust keeping lies, which are lies in which the liar is lying for a friend in order to keep a promise. Viorst finds that most of these lies, while some are more acceptable than others, are necessary and she can understand them.
Communications generally occur in body languages: how the individuals interpret each other. Her essay is an event that is reoccurring more and more lately. The event results in a failure in marriage. In today’s society more and more people are splitting up or having divorces due to miscommunications. The essay, “Sex, Lies and Conversation,” that Deborah Tannen wrote is much use of today because it explains where miscommunications happen and she has her own studies and research to back it up. The essay goes into depth about her ideologies that cause miscommunications. Look at a miscommunication twice and do not be quick to judge because it will save plenty of
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 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).
Communication between males and females has always been somewhat complicated. Because we are arguing that males and females have different cultures we wanted to take a look at what some of these differences might be. According to our research the inherent differences between male and female culture are the different roles that society holds for them and the ways these roles lead to different communication styles. The stereotypes that men and women grow up with affect the types of ways in which they communicate. We first wanted to take a look at how they specifically differ while men and women are arguing or having normal conversations. We also looked at the different types of networks that men and women share. These networks also differ and as do the reasonings for their formation. Although we do not think that men and women need to change their cultures to effectively communicate, we do think that better communication is possible. One of the researchers we took a look at was Deborah Tannen. According to Tannen the reason that men and women do not communicate well is that men and women use language differently. Women take the attitude that conversation is to explore solutions to common problems while men concern themselves more with getting information and hard data from conversation. Tannen states that what women look for in communication is human connection, while men consider status to be most important. They are looking for independence and are constantly looking for higher accomplishments. Intimacy threatens this independence, so men have a tendency to avoid it. One of the old sayings about women is that they talk more than men. It turns out that it is not necessarily true. Women seem to talk more in private conversations than do men. Women do not generally have a fear of intimacy and therefore are much more open with one another during private conversations. It is more difficult for women to use this type of communication style in the public arena. In that case it is men that do most of the talking. Tannen ultimately argues that men use communication as a weapon. They use long explanations to command attention from who it is they are speaking to. They use it to convey information and to ultimately gain agreement. Tannen suggests that through even simple conversation men are continually protecting their status. She sugg...
According to Deborah Tannen, she argued that similar miscommunication occurs all the time between women and men. Tannen defined genderlect “as the belief that masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects rather than as inferior or superior way of speaking” (Tannen pg., 433). In other words, discussion of men and women are not accurate and immoral, and as she mentioned inferior or superior, but overall just different. To get a better understanding of this, Tannen gave examples in which she quoted “women seek human connection, whereas men are concerned mainly with status” (Tannen pg. 433). Indicating that women tend to find that interaction when talking to the opposite sex, while men just want
...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.
Tannen, D. (2007). You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York, NY: Harper.
Communication is important in relationships as it allows us to share our interest, concerns, support each other; organize our lives and make decisions; and it allows us to work together. Effective communication is based on the way we talk and listen, how we respond and our body language. We can all learn how to improve the way we communicate.