(cache) Gendered Communication Practices

Gendered Communication Practices

Excerpted from Julia T. Wood (1994). Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture. Florence, KY: Wadsworth, Inc.

In her popular book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Communication, linguist Deborah Tannen (1990, p. 42) declares that “communication between men and women can be like cross cultural communication, prey to a clash of conversational styles,” Her study of men’s and women’s talk led her to identify distinctions between the speech communities typical of women and men. Not surprisingly, Tannen traces gendered communication patterns to differences in boys’ and girls’ communication with parents and peers. Like other scholars (Bate, 1988; Hall & Langellier, 1988; Kramarae, 1981; Treichler & Kramarae, 1983; Wood, 1993), Tannen believes that women and men typically engage in distinctive styles of communication with different purposes, rules, and understandings of how to interpret talk. We will consider features of women’s and men’s speech identified by a number of researchers. As we do, we will discover some of the complications that arise when men and women operate by different rules in conversations with each other.

Women’s speech. For most women, communication is a primary way to establish and maintain relationships with others. They engage in conversation to share themselves and to learn about others. This is an important point: For women, talk is the essence of relationships. Consistent with this primary goal, women’s speech tends to display identifiable features that foster connections, support, closeness, and understanding.

Equality between people is generally important in women’s communication (Aries, 1987). To achieve symmetry, women often match experiences to indicate “you’re not alone in how you feel.” Typical ways to communicate equality would be saying, “I’ve done the same thing many times,” “I’ve felt the same way,” or “Something like that happened to me too and I felt like you do.” Growing out of the quest for equality is a participatory mode of interaction in which communicators respond to and build on each other’s ideas in the process of conversing (Hall & Langellier, 1988). Rather than a rigid you-tell-your-ideas-then-I’ll-tell-mine sequence, women’s speech more characteristically follows an interactive pattern in which different voices weave together to create conversations.

Also important in women’s speech is showing support for others. To demonstrate support, women often express understanding and sympathy with a friend’s situation or feelings. “Oh, you must feel terrible,” “I really hear what you are saying,” or “I think you did the right thing” are communicative clues that we understand and support how another feels.

Related to these first two features is women’s typical attention to the relationship level of communication (Wood, 1993; Wood & Inman, 1993). You will recall that the relationship level of talk focuses on feelings and the relationship between communicators rather than on the content of messages. In conversations between women, it is common to hear a number of questions that probe for greater understanding of feelings and perceptions surrounding the subject of talk (Beck, 1988, p. 104; Tannen, 1990). “Tell me more about what happened,” “How did you feel when it occurred?” “Do you think it was deliberate?” “How does this fit into the overall relationship?” are probes that help a listener understand a speaker’s perspective. The content of talk is dealt with, but usually not without serious attention to the feelings involved.

A fourth feature of women’s speech style is conversational “maintenance work” (Beck, 1988; Fishman, 1978). This involves efforts to sustain conversation by inviting others to speak and by prompting them to elaborate their experiences. Women, for instance, ask a number of questions that initiate topics for others: “How was your day?” “Tell me about your meeting,” “Did anything interesting happen on your trip?” “What do you think of the candidates this year?” Communication of this sort opens the conversational door to others and maintains interaction.

Inclusivity also surfaces in a fifth quality of women’s talk, which is responsiveness (Beck, 1988; Tannen, 1990; Wood, 1993). Women usually respond in some fashion to what others say. A woman might say “Tell me more” or “That’s interesting”; perhaps she will nod and use eye contact to signal she is engaged; perhaps she will ask a question such as “Can you explain what you mean?” Responsiveness reflects learned tendencies to care about others and to make them feel valued and included (Kemper, 1984; Lakoff, 1975). It affirms another person and encourages elaboration by showing interest in what was said.

A sixth quality of women’s talk is personal, concrete style (Campbell, 1973; Hall & Langellier, 1988; Tannen, 1990). Typical of women’s conversation are details, personal disclosures, anecdotes, and concrete reasoning. These features cultivate a personal tone in women’s communication, and they facilitate feelings of closeness by connecting communicators’ lives. The detailed, concrete emphasis prevalent in women’s talk also clarifies issues and feelings so that communicators are able to understand and identify with each other. Thus, the personal character of much of women’s interaction sustains interpersonal closeness.

A final feature of women’s speech is tentativeness. This may be expressed in a number of forms. Sometimes women use verbal hedges such as “I kind of feel you may be overreacting.” In other situations they qualify statements by saying “I’m probably not the best judge of this, but…” Another way to keep talk provisional is to tag a question onto a statement in a way that invites another to respond: “That was a pretty good movie, wasn’t it?” “We should get out this weekend, don’t you think?” Tentative communication opens the door for others to respond and express their opinions.

There has been controversy about tentativeness in women’s speech. R. Lakoff (1975), who first noted that women use more hedges, qualifiers, and tag questions than men, claimed these represent lack of confidence and uncertainty. Calling women’s speech powerless, Lakoff argued that it reflects women’s socialization into subordinate roles and low self-esteem. Since Lakoff’s work, however, other scholars (Bate, 1988; Wood & Lenze, 1991) have suggested different explanations of women’s tentative style of speaking. Dale Spender (1984), in particular, points out that Lakoff’s judgments of the inferiority of women’s speech were based on using male speech as the standard, which does not recognize the distinctive validity of different speech communities. Rather than reflecting powerlessness, the use of hedges, qualifiers, and tag questions may express women’s desires to keep conversation open and to include others. It is much easier to jump into a conversation that has not been sealed with absolute, firm statements. A tentative style of speaking supports women’s general desire to create equality and include others. It is important to realize, however, that people outside of women’s speech community may misinterpret women’s intentions in using tentative communication.

Men’s speech. Masculine speech communities define the goals of talk as exerting control, preserving independence, and enhancing status. Conversation is an arena for proving oneself and negotiating prestige. This leads to two general tendencies in men’s communication. First, men often use talk to establish and defend their personal status and their ideas, by asserting themselves and/or by challenging others. Second, when they wish to comfort or support another, they typically do so by respecting the other’s independence and avoiding communication they regard as condescending (Tannen, 1990). These tendencies will be more clear as we review specific features of masculine talk.

To establish their own status and value, men often speak to exhibit knowledge, skill, or ability. Equally typical is the tendency to avoid disclosing personal information that might make a man appear weak or vulnerable (Derlega & Chaiken, 1976; Lewis & McCarthy, 1988; Saurer & Eisler, 1990). For instance, if someone expresses concern about something, a man might say “The way you should handle that is…,” “Don’t let them get to you,” or “You ought to just tell them …” This illustrates the tendency to give advice that Tannen reports is common in men’s speech. On the relationship level of communication, giving advice does two things. First, it focuses on instrumental activity – what another should do or be – and does not acknowledge feelings. Second, it expresses superiority and maintains control. It says “I know what you should do” or “I would know how to handle that.” The message may be perceived as implying the speaker is superior to the other person. Between men, giving advice seems understood as a give-and-take, but it may be interpreted as unfeeling and condescending by women whose rules for communicating differ.

A second prominent feature of men’s talk is instrumentality – the use of speech to accomplish instrumental objectives. As we have seen, men are socialized to do things, achieve goals (Bellinger & Gleason, 1982). In conversation, this is often expressed through problem-solving efforts that focus on getting information, discovering facts, and suggesting solutions. Again, between men this is usually a comfortable orientation, since both speakers have typically been socialized to value instrumentality. However, conversations between women and men are often derailed by the lack of agreement on what this informational, instrumental focus means. To many women it feels as if men don’t care about their feelings. When a man focuses on the content level of meaning after a woman has disclosed a problem, she may feel he is disregarding her emotions and concerns. He, on the other hand, may well be trying to support her in the way that he has learned to show support – suggesting ways to solve the problem.

A third feature of men’s communication is conversational dominance. Despite jokes about women’s talkativeness, research indicates that in most contexts, men not only hold their own but dominate the conversation. This tendency, although not present in infancy, is evident in preschoolers (Austin, Salehi, & Leffler, 1987). Compared with girls and women, boys and men talk more frequently (Eakins & Eakins, 1976; Thorne & Henley, 1975) and for longer periods of time (Aries, 1987; Eakins & Eakins, 1976; Kramarae, 1981; Thorne & Henley, 1975). Further, men engage in other verbal behaviors that sustain conversational dominance. They may reroute conversations by using what another said as a jump-off point for their own topic, or they interrupt. While both sexes engage in interruptions, most research suggests that men do it more frequently (Beck, 1988; Mulac, Wiemann, Widenmann, & Gibson, 1988; West & Zimmerman, 1983). Not only do men seem to interrupt more than women, but they do so for different reasons. L.P. Stewart and her colleagues (1990, p.51) suggests that men use interruptions to control conversation by challenging other speakers or wresting the talk stage from them, while women interrupt to indicate interest and to respond. This interpretation is shared by a number of scholars who note that women use interruptions to show support, encourage elaboration, and affirm others (Aleguire, 1978; Aries, 1987; Mulac et al., 1988).

Fourth, men tend to express themselves in fairly absolute, assertive ways. Compared with women, their language is typically more forceful, direct, and authoritative (Beck, 1988; Eakins & Eakins, 1978; Stewart et al., 1990; Tannen, 1990). Tentative speech, such as hedges and disclaimers, is used less frequently by men than by women. This is consistent with gender socialization in which men learn to use talk to assert themselves and to take and hold positions. However, when another person does not share that understanding of communication, speech that is absolute and directive may seem to close off conversation and leave no room for others to speak.

Fifth, compared with women, men communicate more abstractly. They frequently speak in general terms that are removed from concrete experiences and distanced from personal feelings (Schaef, 1981; Treichler & Kramarae, 1983). The abstract style typical of men’s speech reflects the public and impersonal contexts in which they often operate and the less personal emphasis in their speech communities. Within public environments, norms for speaking call for theoretical, conceptual, and general thought and communication. Yet, within more personal relationships, abstract talk sometimes creates barriers to knowing another intimately.

Finally, men’s speech tends not to be highly responsive, especially not on the relationship level of communication (Beck, 1988; Wood, 1993). Men, more than women, give what are called “minimal response cues” (Parlee, 1979), which are verbalizations such as “yeah” or “umhmm.” In interaction with women, who have learned to demonstrate interest more vigorously, minimal response cues generally inhibit conversation because they are perceived as indicating lack of involvement (Fishman, 1978; Stewart et al., 1990). Another way in which men’s conversation is generally less relationally responsive than women’s is lack of expressed sympathy and understanding and lack of self-disclosures (Saurer & Eisler, 1990). Within the rules of men’s speech communities, sympathy is a sign of condescension, and revealing personal problems is seen as making one vulnerable. Yet women’s speech rules count sympathy and disclosure as demonstrations of equality and support. This creates potential for misunderstanding between women and men.

Misinterpretations Between Women and Men

In this final section, we explore what happens when men and women talk, each operating out of a distinctive speech community. In describing features typical of each gender’s talk, we already have noted differences that provide fertile ground for misunderstandings. We now consider several examples of recurrent misreadings between women and men.

Showing support. The scene is a private conversation between Martha and George. She tells him she is worried about her friend. George gives a minimum response cue, saying only “oh.” To Martha this suggests he isn’t interested, since women make and expect more of what D. Tannen (1986) calls “listening noises” to signal interest. Yet, as Tannen (1986, 19890) and A. Beck (1988) note, George is probably thinking if she wants to tell him something she will, since his rules of speech emphasize using talk to assert oneself (Bellinger & Gleason, 1982). Even without much encouragement, Martha continues by describing the tension in her friend’s marriage and her own concern about how she can help. She says, “I feel so bad for Barbara, and I want to help her, but I don’t know what to do.” George then says, “It’s their problem, not yours. Just butt out and let them settle their own relationship.” At this, Martha explodes: “Who asked for your advice?” George is now completely frustrated and confused. He thought Martha wanted advice, so he gave it. She is hurt that George didn’t tune into her feelings and comfort her about her worries. Each is annoyed and unhappy.

Troubles talk. Tannen (1990) identifies talk about troubles, or personal problems, as a kind of interaction in which hurt feelings may result from the contrast between most men’s and women’s rules of communication. A woman might tell her partner that she is feeling down because she did not get a job she wanted. In an effort to be supportive, he might respond by saying, “You shouldn’t feel bad. Lots of people don’t get jobs they want.” To her this seems to dismiss her feelings – to belittle them by saying lots of people experience her situation. Yet within masculine speech communities, this is a way of showing respect for another by not assuming that she or he needs sympathy. Now let’s turn the tables and see what happens when a man feels troubled. When he sees Nancy, Craig is unusually quiet because he feels down about not getting a job offer. Sensing that something is wrong, Nancy tries to show interest by asking, “Are you okay? What’s bothering you?” Craig feels she is imposing and trying to get him to show a vulnerability he prefers to keep to himself. Nancy probes further to show she cares. As a result, he feels intruded on and withdraws further. Then Nancy feels shut out. But perhaps Craig does decide to tell Nancy why he feels down. After hearing about his rejection letter, Nancy says, “I know how you feel. I felt so low when I didn’t get that position at Datanet.” She is matching experiences to show Craig that she understands his feelings and that he’s not alone. Within his communication rules, however, this is demeaning his situation by focusing on her, not him. When Nancy mentions her own experience, Craig thinks she is trying to steal center stage for herself. Within his speech community, that is one way men vie for dominance and attention. Yet Nancy has learned to share similar experiences as a way to build connections with others.

The Point of the Story. Another instance in which feminine and masculine communication rules often clash and cause problems is in relating experiences. Typically, men have learned to speak in a linear manner in which they move sequentially through major points in a story to get to the climax. Their talk tends to be straightforward without a great many details. The rules of feminine speech, however, call for more detailed and less linear storytelling. Whereas a man is likely to provide rather bare information about what happened, a woman is more likely to embed the information within a larger context of the people involved and other things going on. Women include details not because all of the specifics are important in themselves but because recounting them shows involvement and allows a conversational partner to be more fully part of the situation being described. Because feminine and masculine rules about details differ, men often find women’s way of telling stories wandering and unfocused. Conversely, men’s style of storytelling may strike women as leaving out all of the interesting details. Many a discussion between women and men has ended either with his exasperated demand, ‘Can’t you get to the point?” or with her frustrated question, “Why don’t you tell me how you were feeling and what else was going on?” She wants more details than his rules call for; he is interested in fewer details than she has learned to supply.

Relationship talk. “Can we talk about us?” is the opening of innumerable conversations that end in misunderstanding and hurt. As Tannen (1986) noted in an earlier book, That’s Not What I Meant, men and women tend to have very different ideas about what it means to talk about relationships. In general, men are inclined to think a relationship is going fine as long as there is no need to talk about it. They are interested in discussing the relationship only if there are particular problems to be addressed. IN contrast, women generally think a relationship is working well as long as they can talk about it with partners. The difference here grows out of the fact that men tend to use communication to do things and solve problems, while women generally regard the process of communication as a primary way to create and sustain relationships with others. For many women, conversation is a way to be with another person – to affirm and enhance closeness. Men’s different rules stipulate that communication is to achieve some goal or fix some problem. No wonder men often duck when their partners want to “discuss the relationship,” and women often feel a relationship is in trouble when their partners are unwilling to talk about it.

These are only four of the many situations in which feminine and masculine rules of communication may collide and cause problems. Women learn to use talk to build and sustain connections with others. Men learn that talk is to convey information and establish status. Given these distinct starting points, it’s not surprising that women and men often find themselves locked into misunderstandings.

Interestingly, research (Sollie & Fischer, 1985) suggests that women and men who are androgynous (having behavioral characteristics of both genders) are more flexible communicators who are able to engage comfortably in both masculine and feminine styles of speech. The breadth of their communication competence enhances the range of situations in which they can be effective in achieving various goals. On learning about different speech rules, many couples find they can improve their communication. Each partner has become bilingual and so communication between them is smoother and more satisfying. When partners understand how to interpret each other’s rules, they are less likely to misread motives. In addition, they learn how to speak the other’s language, which means women and men become more gratifying conversational partners for each other, and they can enhance the quality of their relationships.

Self-Test: How Androgynous are You?

(after Bem: Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 42, 155-162)

Instructions: Decide on a scale of 1-7 how accurately each of the following descriptions can be applied to you. Note: This test obviously relies on traditional stereotypes within its formula.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Never Almost Never Not Usually Occasionally Usually Almost Always Always

True True True True True True True