I have been interested in Deborah Tannen since I heard her talking about the differences between men from New York and men from Detroit. I haven't anything close to an eidetic memory, but I was so impressed that I think I have a reliable gist of what she was expressing as the inherent differences between cultural backgrounds that lead to differences in social styles. I laughed out loud as she imitated the intense, fast-talking New Yorker overwhelming the more inward, cautious (thought-processing) businessman from Michigan. She paints a vivid portrait of the essential differences and resultant problems.
A few years later, I was watching I don't know what when there she was again, being interviewed about her latest book, You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. (See Amazon review and link to her book below.) It occurs to me that I could stand to read this book, judging that I still seem to have more than an occasional problem when trying to discuss personal issues, and their causes, with men (who don't seem to want to discuss them at all) against the women I know, who will talk endlessly, and not always but generally far less defensively, about what upsets and fascinates them, including their own shortcomings and idiocies -- which we will laugh about no end until a man comes along and tells us that we should be quiet and stop dwelling in the past or on minutiae.
In fact, so sure am I of this, that women reading this are probably laughing out loud, or at least nodding agreement, while men are clucking their tongues, yawning, and in almost every instance shutting me down.
Ironically, my innate prejudice has always been that the world would work the other way around: that men, raised in this culture of an almost visceral power, would have the (what I am likely wrongly defining as) confidence to open up on any conversational subject (Tannen's view on status and men is fascinating), and that women, relegated to the world of emotional pleasing, would cower at the first hint of dissension. And yet it does not work this way at all.
In most cases, when I want to work something through with a man, he will simply shut down, which he does not necessarily or consciously mean as punitive, but which, by its very nature, can seem nothing but -- especially to women who are used to talking through their problems and not merely looking for a one-line or especially succinct resolution. All I have to do is spend half an hour with my female friends to know how true this is.
I offer, as example, excerpts from Deborah Tannen's book:
A married couple was in a car when the wife turned to her husband and asked, "Would you like to stop for a coffee?"
"No, thanks," he answered truthfully. So they didn't stop.
The result? The wife, who had indeed wanted to stop, became annoyed because she felt her preference had not been considered. The husband, seeing his wife was angry, became frustrated. Why didn't she just say what she wanted?
Unfortunately, he failed to see that his wife was asking the question not to get an instant decision, but to begin a negotiation. And the woman didn't realize that when her husband said no, he was just expressing his preference, not making a ruling. When a man and woman interpret the same interchange in such conflicting ways, it's no wonder they can find themselves levelling angry charges of selfishness and obstinacy at each other.
As a specialist in linguistics, I have studied how the conversational styles of men and women differ. We cannot lump all men or all women into fixed categories. But the seemingly senseless misunderstandings that haunt our relationships can in part be explained by the different conversational rules by which men and women play.
Learning about the different though equally valid conversational frequencies men and women are tuned to can help banish the blame and help us truly talk to one another. Here are some of the most common areas of conflict:
Status vs. Support.
Men grow up in a world in which a conversation is often a contest, either to achieve the upper hand or to prevent other people from pushing them around. For women, however, talking is often a way to exchange confirmation and support.
I saw this when my husband and I had jobs in different cities. People frequently made comments like, "That must be rough," and "How do you stand it?" I accepted their sympathy and sometimes even reinforced it, saying, "The worst part is having to pack and unpack all the time."
But my husband often reacted with irritation. Our situation had advantages, he would explain. As academics, we had four-day weekends together, as well as long vacations throughout the year and four months in the summer.
Everything he said was true, but I didn't understand why he chose to say it. He told me that some of the comments implied: "Yours is not a real marriage. I am superior to you because my wife and I have avoided your misfortune." Until then it had not occurred to me there might be an element of one-upmanship.
I now see that my husband was simply approaching the world as many men do: as a place where people try to achieve and maintain status. I, on the other hand, was approaching the world as many women do: as a network of connections seeking support and consensus.
Information vs. Feelings.
A cartoon shows a husband opening a newspaper and asking his wife, "Is there anything you'd like to say to me before I start reading the paper?" We know there isn't - but that as soon as the man begins reading, his wife will think of something.
The cartoon is funny because people recognize their own experience in it. What's not funny is that many women are hurt when men don't talk to them at home, and many men are frustrated when they disappoint their partners without knowing why.
Rebecca, who is happily married, told me this is a source of dissatisfaction with her husband, Stuart. When she tells him what she is thinking, he listens silently. When she asks him what is on his mind, he says, "Nothing."
All Rebecca's life she has had practice in verbalizing her feelings with friends and relatives. But Stuart has had practice in keeping his innermost thoughts to himself. To him, like most men, talk is information. He doesn't feel that talk is required at home.
Yet many such men hold center stage in a social setting, telling jokes and stories. They use conversation to claim attention and to entertain. Women can wind up hurt that their husbands [fathers, sons, friends] tell relative strangers things they have not told them.
Orders vs. Proposals.
Diana often begins statements with "Let's." She might say "Let's park over there" or "Let's clean up now, before lunch."
This makes Nathan angry. He has deciphered Diana's "Let's" as a command. Like most men, he resists being told what to do. But to Diana, she is making suggestions, not demands. Like most women, she formulates her requests as proposals rather than orders. Her style of talking is a way of getting others to do what she wants - but by winning agreement first.
With certain men, like Nathan, this tactic backfires. If they perceive someone is trying to get them to do something indirectly, they feel manipulated and respond more resentfully than they would to a straightforward request.
(The reason I highlighted bits from above is because it is the essential that is...essential. The broad examples can be as far-reaching or as diverse as the people in the situations, and to relegate everything to the more conventional example is dangerous.)
Tannen says that the most common complaint she hears from men about women "...is that women complain all the time and don't want to do anything about it...Men misunderstand the ritual nature of women's complaining." Men, says Tannen, are problem solvers, while women want to talk (and talk) through these concerns, which often serves to merely anger the man.
"Women want men to do what we want. We want them to want to do what we want, because that's what we do. If a woman perceives that something she's doing is really hurting a man, she wants to stop doing it. If she perceives that he really wants her to do something, she wants to do it. She thinks that that's love and he should feel the same way about her. But men have a gut-level resistance to doing what they're told, to doing what someone expects them to do. It's the opposite response of what women have." She reminds readers that, of course, there are men who are very helpful toward their women. "But if a man is going to be touchy, it's more likely to go in that direction. Whereas if a woman is insecure, she's more likely to go in the other direction, [and] be super- accommodating."
In my experience, if you call a man (even a reasonable man) on his responses or lack of them, he is as apt to run (fast and hard and far away) as he is to want to sit down and talk about it. The opposite is true for most reasonable women. They are far more likely to want to discuss the problem, look at the causes, and work through to a solution. Women accuse men of being unfeeling, dismissive and unforgiving. Men accuse women of being histrionic and logorrheic and wallowing.
I love this comprehensive explanation from Laura Bryannan cited here at http://www.homestar.org/bryannan/tannen.html
In sharp contrast to the communication style of men, which seeks to establish and maintain status and dominance, women's communicating is more egalitarian, or rule-by-consensus. When women get together they seek the input of the other women present and make decisions based on the wishes of all. Tannen notes that this type of communication style is becoming more important, and is in alignment with the Japanese style of management. Men doing business with Japanese companies often have to radically change their style of communicating to accommodate the more personal and intimate approach of the Japanese businessman.
One may get the impression from this discussion that women's style of communicating is superior to men's. Indeed, since the dawning of the women's movement there have been many declaring that men just don't know how to communicate (because they don't communicate like women). Sensitivity courses galore have been offered in hopes of teaching men to communicate more like women. However, Tannen states that there is nothing pathological about men's style of communication, and that women's communicating also has it's down-sides.
One fact I found particularly fascinating follows from women's communication style of consensus-building. With women, consensus means thinking alike, being in agreement, being the SAME! When one woman in a group decides to go her own way in some matter, there is often trouble: "If a girl does something the other girls don't like, she'll be criticized, or even ostracized...What do girls put other girls down for? For standing out, for seeming better than the others...I mean, really--no wonder people talk about women's fear of success!" In shock, Peggy Taylor, asked, "So you're saying the female mode prevents excellence?" And Tannen replied, "It prevents displaying it."
Of course, anything offered up in part is dangerous and can lead to a simplistic rendering and to misinformation, but I hope there is enough here, for anyone who wishes to foster a better communication style between the sexes, to take up the torch and read their way on through the darkness that so obviously exists between and among many men and women. And while we all have to account for the danger inherent in even book-length generalizations, there would be no speech, and no growth at all, if we did not begin somewhere.
Review
Ever been baffled by his behavior, perplexed by his posturing, unnerved by his missed understanding? You're not alone. As a sociolinguist, Deborah Tannen's focus is not just on language, but on how communication styles either facilitate or hinder personal interactions. According to Deborah, men and women are essentially products of different cultures, possessing different, but equally valid, communication styles. While women generally seek to "connect" with other people in intimate, parallel relationships, men approach conversation as a "one-up or one-down situation." As a result, women often feel silenced by men, although that is not necessarily men's intention. Presented as a tool for understanding and change, this book offers clear analyses of example conversational exchanges between the sexes; excerpts from the works of linguists, sociologists and others; and samples from various media, including TV and novels. By illustrating the cause and effects of these different conversational styles, Deborah takes the blame-self-recrimination out of communication snafus so that we may begin to build bridges in understanding. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by PH
[taken from http://www.amazon.com/You-Just-Dont-Understand-Conversation/dp/0345372050]
