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The Way We Talk To Each Other 6/30/2020 7:45:47 AM
Linguists have provided us with innumerable studies on the differences between how men and woman talk to each other. To avoid misunderstanding - recognizing that allegations of sexual harassment sit at the top of the pile of communication mistakes - you should think about how differently men and women think. The setting is an office meeting. The room is large and men and women are sitting around the circumference of a large oval conference table. The boss leads the discussion by framing a problem with production. A male states several facts about the organization. A woman makes a suggestion about which division she thinks needs reassessment and improvement. She suggests a solution. She's ignored. For the next several minutes men exchange ideas. The women in the room listen without talking. The men boast, contradict each other, interrupt each other and swear as punctuation.
One male leader states the same solution that the woman had made a few minutes earlier. All the guys cheer for his novel idea. For several minutes, the guys exchange related ideas. The women politely agree with the onslaught of suggestions, yield to the men talking, and yield to any man who interrupts the women - which is frequently.
The men engage in 'report' talk - they float ideas bolstered with facts. The women use 'rapport' talk to smooth out wrinkles in the conversation. Men respond minimally to the women's suggestions. And through it all the men sprinkle gender-specific words around like salt, terms no longer acceptable to the women who don't object to the 'sweetheart' and other example of the men's misogynistic language.
That's a taste of how men and women don't talk to each other and why any male-female conversation is fraught with misunderstanding and annoyance. When it involves casual office flirting, an accusation of sexual harassment isn't far behind. Then, it's too late. Then, you're in the world of 'he said, she said' and the challenges of 'believe all women'.
Guys, read Deborah Tannen's, "You Just Don't Understand."
