I do believe that men and women use language differently. First of all, the way a man talks to a woman if he is interested in her is different then when a woman talks to a man. Ever see those James Bond movies where he uses a clever one liner to gain her interest. Its not that different in real life for a man to use some sort of witty line or humorous analogy to gain interest from a female and possibly a conversation. When a woman does it, it is usually very subtle but noticable. For example, everytime a girl has flirted with me, it usually consists of a compliment on my physical appearance. Why is that? Granted it was very flattering, I also noticed that it worked. I was at work one day and I walked out of the stockroom with a flatbed pushcart loaded with heavy boxes of detergent and things like that, and this girl, out of nowhere, comes up to me and compliments me on my physique and asked if I was in the army. It made me nervous when she copped a feel of my arms and asked me if I worked out. Ridiculous. Funny but ridiculous.
Later I found out that the girl had been watching me for some time and got the courage to make a first move.
Anyway, back to topic, there also situations when language between men and women isn't so different. Has anyone ever had a friend, who was a girl, that fit perfectly in a group of guy friends? Not only did she carry a conversation like a guy but she didn't seem uncomfortable with the topics a guy would bring up? There are women out there that prefer to communicate with men then with women. For some reason they can't talk to women because they don't get along, so they claim.
It is true though, as stated in chapter 4, that men's conversations consist of achievements or complaints for that matter. Women's conversations usually consist of h deep thought and expression of feelings. I don't know why that is because there isn't a law of nature that says we all can't talk the same way. Maybe it is a plan of a higher power that men and women are different. Some of us may already know that.
1 comment:
I do agree with your statement that men and women approach each other very differently when they are interested in one another. This too, though, is changing as you demonstrated by being approached and groped by an interested female...something that would have been considered VERY strange 50+ years ago. Since you also stated that some women surround themselves and communicate with men due to feeling a disconnection with members of their own sex, and I completely agree, I must ask then is our difference in communication biologically based (we wired differently?) or is it a cultural construction perpetrated by norms set by society? While I can not deny that there is a biological basis to gender communication based on motivations, however as an anthropologist, I believe that the majority of these differences in communication lie within the intricate web of culture.
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