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Comparing Debra Tannen's 'Sex, Lies And Conversation'

645 Words3 Pages

Communication of the Sexes
The tongue of a blue whale can weigh as much as an elephant, but there exists a tongue that is far more powerful than that of the blue whale’s tongue, that is the human tongue (Santoso). When utilized properly, the human tongue can accomplish great feats, but if misused can cause a plethora of problem. A certain measure of success in life depends on utilizing communication in a wise way. Debra Tannen, a well-known authority on communication, says men and women communicate in different ways. Tannen wrote in her essay Sex, Lies and Conversation about how men and women are raised differently, the problems that arise with cross gender communication, and ultimately what the solution is to fix this problem. How a person is raised will have an impact on what kind of person he or she will become. Women and men are raised in different social groups and their behavior is proof of this. “Little girls create and maintain friendships by exchanging secrets,” wrote Debra Tannen (404). As girls grow up they continue to view …show more content…

Debra Tannen wrote, “When a girl told a friend about a problem, the friend responded by asking probing question and expressing agreement and understanding” (404). Women have a support group when talking amongst themselves, but men have the exact opposite disposition. “Boys dismissed each other’s problems,” wrote Debra Tannen (404). Men downplay the severity of other people’s problems when communicating. A woman talking to an inexperienced man may get rather mad because the woman expects support from the man, who much to his chagrin, may dismiss the woman’s problems. Women don’t want a solution to their problems, often they just want someone to listen and support them and men don’t want support, they want the other person to downplay the situation. Conversation between men and women don’t have to be

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More often than not, society compels us to behave like genders we are not. For instance, when faced with challenges like finance, family issues and education, women are expected to be exceptionally strong. Likewise, when men are confronted with sensitive issues they are not expected to openly show their emotions like women. Some jobs description requires female

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Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, is a popular author in the United States of America. Mostly of her focus in her articles and books is on the expression of interpersonal relationships in contentious interaction. Tannen became well known after her book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation was published. However, this was not her only claim to fame. Along with this book, she also wrote many other essays and articles including the popular article “Marked Women, Unmarked Men.”

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And on the other hand, these boys are all taught the “Guy Code” a set of crude command s, or you might say a set of unwritten rules such as, “boys don’t cry, don’t get mad, get even, bros before hoes, size matters and so on. Chapter three goes on to examine the “Guy Code” that is drilled into a child’s head as a youth and the affects guy code has on man today. Nancy Chodorow is a feminist sociologist and psychoanalyst. She has written a number of influential books, and is widely regarded as a leading psychoanalytic feminist theorist. Nancy Chodorow indirectly refers to the “Guys Code” in her article “The Sexual Sociology of the Adult Life.”

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“But What Do You Mean” Relating to Society The question, “why do men and women so often communicate badly, if at all?” Has influenced and motivated Tannen. In “But What Do You Mean” by Deborah Tannen, she discusses many areas of difficulty in communication between men and women. Tannen’s purpose was for her readers to understand the importance of communication, she also has identified several ways in which men and women miscommunicate, and she has taught her readers a few things about our society and how it can be improved.

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Tannen illustrates a small talk that gathers men and women. During chatting, one woman is quiet, but her husband is talkative. Finally, the small talk turns out the argument on who is the talker at home. Tannen analyzes men’s and women’s opinions; then she concludes that “although American men tend to talk more than women in public situation, they often talk less at home” (263).

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1145 Words | 5 Pages

In “The Boys Are Not All Right” by Michael Ian Black, the author uses different powers of persuasion to convince the audience to succumb to his opinion that men today don’t know how to properly express their feelings because of cultural norms that expressing your feelings is associated with weakness and femininity. He starts the article by drawing on the fact that almost all mass shootings have been committed by men. He says that men tend to lash out in anger because they don’t know how to properly express their feelings. He attempts to persuade his reader to start a conversation on how to make it more acceptable in society for men to express their emotions in a way that doesn’t potentially hurt others.

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Men can do many things without being shamed or disgusted for. Women on the other hand, will do the same things a man has done and will be scrutinized for it. Stanton expands on this moral dilemma by saying, “He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.” (Stanton 80.) This type of behaviour is often seen in parenthood, sex culture, clothing, and many others.

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She expresses that a man knows what he wants and then goes for it while a boy “may have somewhat of an idea…but does not think too much about it.” This goes alongside Dave Barry’s statement that guys do not ponder their innermost feelings. It proves that women notice that men think while guys, for the most part, do not. Chan again proves Dave Barry’s theory on guys correct when she states, “A boy has not established his moral compass or values.” In his essay, Dave Barry tells, “guys have never really grasped the Basic Human Moral Code” (944).

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Rebecca Solnit uses sincerity and passion when describing her personal accomplishments. She integrates knowledge of world conflicts and conveys the message that everyone is human throughout her essay “Men Explain Things to Me”. Solnit structures her essay to begin with her own personal experiences of dealing with overbearing men. She organizes her examples into sequences first using logos, then pathos, followed by ethos. Throughout the essay, she repeats this pattern, effectively keeping her readers connected.

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The Mask You Live In, show all the pressure from the media, their friends, and the grown people’s life. All the boys and man faced with some messages provide them to hide their real emotions, built up the idea that women are only for sexual conquest instead viewing women are friends, and allow men to communicate anger with other by violence. All the controversial about gender associate with race, class, their situation, creating a confusing of problems all men and boy must to be a man.

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Communication can be either verbal or nonverbal. Nonverbal communication is more immediate, but more ambiguous than verbal communication. Men and women differ significantly in their propensity to use nonverbal communication, their skill in interpreting it and their means of signaling their meaning. Accordingly, understanding gender differences in nonverbal communication is important when dealing with the opposite sex. One of the reasons that men and women differ in their use of nonverbal communication is that their reasons for communicating are often different, according to John Gray, author of the best-seller "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

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Corinne LaLonde Professor Creighton CWP 102 8am March 8th, 2018 Critical Analysis of Men and Women in Conversation is Cross-Cultural Communication The issue of differences between men and women in conversation has been a subject of overreaching research, with various scholars in the subject of linguistics providing different views and conclusions. The current paper criticizes an excerpt of Deborah Tannen’s work, Men and Women in Conversation is Cross-Cultural Communication. In the exceprt of her work, Deborah Tannen, a professor of Linguistics, addresses linguistic differences as they relate to intimate male and female relations (Githens). While Tannen contributes significant literature to the study of linguistics, his work lacks clarity and

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The Genderlect Theory: Explaining Communication Between Men and Women Communication is an essential part of everyday life. People encounter some form of communication with others on a daily basis, whether it is face-to-face, electronically, etc. However, communication is not universal in that everyone interacts with each other through these several methods. Thus, numerous studies about communication from different viewpoints have been conducted.

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She uses proverbs to show how society believes that women talk more than man. She also uses some studies, research to make sure who really talks too much. On the other hand, Macaulay points out that in recent decades there have been many scholars who have worked to promote the idea that there are no considerable differences between the way men and women speak. He offers his own wisdom to such a theory, “It would, of course, be surprising if there were not. Both men and women will use the forms of language, registers, and styles appropriate to the activities in which they are engaged.

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