Gender Differences in Communication

Communication between males and females has always been somewhat complicated. Communication is defined as "when two people interact, and intentionally or unintentionally, negotiate the meaning of any phenomenon (Eckstein 5)." Men and women typically use different strategies in communication. There are many stereotypes observed in society, which influence our perceptions and may lead to actual gender differences. Despite these assumptions, it has been proven through research that men and women differ in their communicative competency in terms of language and conversational styles.

Language

Language itself cannot be deemed good or bad, but it does reflect individual or societal values. Moreover, language is a very powerful element and the most common method of communication. In order to explore language differences between males and females childhood experiences of different language usage needs to be studied.

Childhood Experiences in Language

The definition of gender is "the learned behaviors a culture associates with being male or female (Eckstein 5)." Much of the bias that people learn comes from early childhood experiences. Parents and peers speak differently to children regarding social rewards and goals. Therefore, boys are taught to be solid and impassive. They tend to play outside in large structured groups with aggressiveness

and competitiveness with a winner and a loser. Also, they want to be the center of attention and achieve higher status by telling stories and jokes or challenging other stories or jokes. On the other hand, females are trained to demonstrate greater feelings and cooperation. Girls play in small groups or pairs and tend to have a more intimate relationship with other girls. They play fair and take turns with no winners or losers. Another important aspect in communication for women is they sit and talk about concerns of seeking approval and popularity (Eckstein 7).

Different Language Usage

Breakdown in communication occurs because men and women are playing by different rules. Social rules are reflected through language and demonstrating unequal power relations based on gender. There is a gender hierarchy in society with male domination and female subordination reflected in language structure and use, which explains the dominance perspective. There is a woman's language, which is discriminatory towards women because it indicates subordinate status; it is expressed as submissive and hesitant speech. Men's speech is believed to be forceful and authoritative to restrict women's language (Goldsmidt and Weller 3).

Also, there are words in the English language that have been sexually bias toward women. The uses of masculine words are made to reference or conceal women language. The definition of women language "relates to the observation that women are more often discussed in terms of relationship, whereas men are more often discussed in terms of what they do (Weatherall 275-276)." Job references were used for females in a study referred them as actress, barmaid, cleaning lady, landlady, papergirl and woman solicitor. Other neutral forms used for women were actor and cleaner. But, masculine terms were used for male characters; they were referred to as salesman or businessman. These common differences imply that men are stronger than women, which is related to masculinity (Weatherall 285). However, conversational differences are another important aspect of communication.

Conversational Styles

Conversational Differences

Evidence has shown that women do a greater amount of conversational work than men. Women facilitate conversation as a way to explore solutions to common problems while men concern themselves more with receiving information. Women look for a human connection, while men consider status to be most important. They are looking for independence and are constantly looking for higher accomplishment (Eckstein 6). There are several observed functional differences that may contribute to the stereotype of women as emotional speakers and men as rational speakers. Women converse to learn about others and the essence of relationships for women (Eckstein 7).

Women's speech is viewed as being more proper and polite, regardless of the topic at hand. Men use more assertive, deliberate patterns of speech to claim authority (Goldsmith and Weller 3). There has a lot of research on turn taking and interruptions. Studies indicate that men have more talking time than women. Interruptions are one of the methods that are used to gain the floor and determine the topic of the conversation. Interruptions are violations of turn taking rules of conversation. They occur when the listener begins to speak before the speaker has uttered his or her last word. An interruption may not even be intended but men are responsible 96% of the time. This shows that they often infringe on a woman's right to finish her talking (Myers 47-48). Therefore, men and women differ in having conversations in public and private.

Public and Private Conversations

Self disclosure is defined as "sharing of private feelings, thoughts, beliefs and attitude (Anderson 2). Women are generally more likely to disclose information that is intimate when at home to find connections by interpreting the message as support or concern. But, men on the other hand want to dominate instead of finding connections. Although women and men have been found to differ in self-disclosure, women are more likely to talk about personal feelings and men talk about their interest (Eckstein 8-9).

Women seem to talk more in private conversations than men. Women fear less 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 in the public arena. In that case, it is men that do most of the talking because communication is used as weapon. They want to command attention to which they are speaking to and gain agreement. The reason that women dominate private conversations is that once men get home, they do not feel the need to continue to protect their status (Franza and Lockhart 4). Men tell more stories and jokes about contests or nature, fishing and hunting, while women use story telling to gain support from her personal networks. The women are not concerned about status as with relating and gaining support from other women (Eckstein 8).

Summary

It has been demonstrated that in our society, despite stereotypes there are absolute differences between women and men's communication styles. To reduce miscommunication males and females must learn to interpret the messages being sent to them. In effective communication they must realize the expererinces of childhood affects the understanding of language and conversational styles. If the two cultures can learn to combine their styles of communication, the male and female communication gap can be bridged.

Works Cited

Anderson, Kristin J. and Campbell Leaper. "Emotion Talk Between Same and Mixed Gender Friends." Journal of Language and Social Psychology 17.4(1998): 1-27.

Eckstein, Daniel. "The Couple's Gender Based Communication Questionnaire." Family Journal 9.2 (2001): 1-24.

Franzwa, Gregg and Charles Lockhart. "The Social Origins and Maintenance of Gender: Communication Styles, Personality Types and Grid Group Theory." Sociological Perspectives 41.1 (1998): 1-20.

Goldshmidt, Turgeman Orly and Leonard Weller. "Talking Emotions: Gender Differences in a Variety of Conversational Context." Symbolic Interaction 23.2 (2000): 1-14.

Myers, Caryn. "Mars and Venus: In the Meeting Room." Successful Meetings (1999): 46-50.

Weatherall, Ann. "Women and Men Language: An Analysis of Seminaturalistic Person Description." Human Connection Research 25.2 (1998): 275-292.