Thursday, March 29, 2012
Words and Gender
On Tuesday we discussed in class about word usage in our essays. I think that words are very powerful. You could change one word from a sentence and the whole meaning is different. I came across an essay written by Deborah Tannen ,called "Can't We Talk?",caught my attention. She explains about the difference in how men and woman communicate with each other and how it could cause conflict. She gives an example of how men communicate for information and women for feelings. This essay made me ponder if the breech in communication between genders could cross into the academic area. If so, the best way to prevent a misunderstanding of words is to use formal and professional language and to use third person. This will prevent it the author from creating a conflict by blame, guilt, or accusation of the reader.
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I would like to know more about this essay. I know that women tend to be better at communicating (no offense guys that's just what I've heard) but I don't think talking in 3rd person would make day-to-day encounters with members of the opposite sex any better. Most papers should be written in third person anyways shouldn't they? Maybe the reader should take into consideration the gender of the writer if this is truly a big issue. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteThis essay seems very interesting to me also. I feel that the majority of society struggles with this topic. In personal relationships, at work and in day-to-day encounters. I would agree with Becca though that I don't think talking in 3rd person would help with the encounters...But, I am not a pro at communication with men.... so it would definitely be interesting.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of reminded me of a survey woody and riz did on 105.7 the point. They asked if a woman would prefer if their man slept with a pretty or "hot" woman over an ugly woman.
ReplyDeleteSurprisingly, the women responded mostly favoring their man sleeping with a hot woman. The big reason for choosing the hot woman was because of the basic male attraction to hot woman. If they slept with an ugly woman, they wouldn't be attracted to them for their looks, but their intellectual or emotional aspects. In other words, they would get to know the ugly person and have an emotional connection with them that they do not have with their previous partner.
This relates to the emotional/intellectual sides of females versus the physical connection of men.
I think it all comes down to socialization. Men have been socialized as get to the point kind of people. Women care more about feelings and are more emotionally attached to the communication. You can always tell this when guys go I don't want to talk about my feelings.
ReplyDeleteThis essay seems interesting and makes sense. The reason that it seems men have a hard time communicating is because they don't like to show emotion and it seems women want the opposite and they show emotion, while men would feel more comfortable without emotion. Emotions are a very tricky thing to solve.
ReplyDeleteI think this is very true in the fact that genders communicate differently and that both genders should be more aware of how each other interacts through words. It would be a very beneficial class. Yeah we have speech class that goes over basic information about that. But genders are different. They talk different and react different. Each gender in a sense has their own slang.
ReplyDeleteThis is a proven fact, i agree that women and men do communicate differently. Men try not to express their emotions as much and this helps us out because women do not know how to really respond. Men like to change their tone and this is what helps women know what kind of mood we are really in. I believe that women, on the other hand, use their expressive emotions to their advantage. They are very sleazy when they cry because guys usually can't tell the difference between a real cry and a fake cry. I also agree with in Joe in that men like to get to the point very quickly.
ReplyDeleteThis seems interesting. Commutation is a huge factor in our lives and if we do not have good communication skills unfortunately you will not have very many relationships with people. Talking in third person could be a set back in your choice of Communication skills. It is also important to think about others listening skills as well.
ReplyDelete