Gender Norms in Language and Communication Style
Males:
1. Take the lead in the conversation
2. Change the subject rather than dwelling too long on one thing
3. Challenge what others say (as opposed to reinforcing it)
4. Keep a straight face
5. Interrupt to keep the conversation moving at a brisk pace
6. Talk about the facts and reasons as opposed to feelings
7. Assume a body posture that suggests confidence
Females
1. Let others take the lead
2. Don’t change the subject—focus on going into depth on the current subject
3. Reinforce what others say (rather than challenging what others say)
4. Smile and laugh, especially when saying something that might be perceived as threatening
5. Step on the end of someone else’s line to support what they’re saying
6. Talk about your feelings as opposed to facts and reasons
7. Assume a body posture that suggests deference to others
1. Take the lead in the conversation
2. Change the subject rather than dwelling too long on one thing
3. Challenge what others say (as opposed to reinforcing it)
4. Keep a straight face
5. Interrupt to keep the conversation moving at a brisk pace
6. Talk about the facts and reasons as opposed to feelings
7. Assume a body posture that suggests confidence
Females
1. Let others take the lead
2. Don’t change the subject—focus on going into depth on the current subject
3. Reinforce what others say (rather than challenging what others say)
4. Smile and laugh, especially when saying something that might be perceived as threatening
5. Step on the end of someone else’s line to support what they’re saying
6. Talk about your feelings as opposed to facts and reasons
7. Assume a body posture that suggests deference to others
The results of the gender analysis are in and the women totally stole the show. Out of 11 speakers, 10 of them were women. On average, the women spoke at least three times in a single class period. The male spoke only one time.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it must be said that my observation took place in an English classroom—a place dominated by women—and is therefore is not an accurate representation of the general classroom environment. Had I conducted this observation in a Communications classroom, the results would almost certainly be reversed.
Questions abound: How many students in the class were women?
ReplyDeleteI hope you will conduct an observation in a Communications classroom and report back to us!
I tried taking the lead in a conversation for once. I'm usually pretty reserved in conversations. I actually found it pretty hard to not get talked over. My friend that I had the conversation with is used to steering me in whatever direction she wants the conversation to go so it turned into more of who gets to lead. It was exhausting. I was glad when ten minutes was over and I could go back to normal conversation. I really don't think she noticed and I didn't bother to explain what I was doing to her.
ReplyDeleteI conducted an experiment at my job and the results were really interesting. For some background, I work in the Mortgage Department of a bank in a sector that is made up of nothing but women. I decided I would start a conversation and stay true to the male gender norms. I drove the conversation switching the topic several times and I found that some of the women were almost shutting down. I think it was mostly because they would try to stay on the topic and go deeper just as the female gender norms include, and instead of me staying on that topic, like I normally would, I would bring up a new topic. One woman actually took the lead and went back to an older topic cutting me off. I am not going to lie, when doing this experiment I kind of felt like a jerk and I also seemed to feel some tension when talking to my coworkers.
ReplyDeleteOn my second experiment I took on the female role with my coworkers and lets just say the conversations went a lot smoother and a lot more in depth than that of the other experiment. What was weird to me is I felt more comfortable when taking the female role on. Our reading said that men tend to take on the female role when conversing with females so this experiment really supports what we have read.
Thanks for reading,
Mark
I mostly just observed the speaking dynamics within my own family. I noticed that within my family it is normally the women that speak first, and although we do speak more about our feelings we do tend to lead the conversation. My family happens to be very matriarchal, and because my brother is extremely laid back we tend to be a lot more outspoken. I didn't consciously conduct an experiment, but I noticed that I do follow most of the female gender rules for conversation. However if I defer to someone else within a conversation, my family normally thinks that something is wrong. I realize that this is caused by the fact that there is a heavy saturation of women in my family, but I think it is interesting that our speech tends to be more masculine. Although, we tend to switch back to our own gender language rules when we are conversing with someone outside of the family.
ReplyDelete-Cayla O.
Okay, so this may sound odd, but I found myself using the female script in conversation more often than not. In order to change for this experiment, I took on a fully male script of conversation. I was short and to the point in my responses, confident in my questions and interactions, and honestly, a little bit aggressive (It's hard for me to do this, I prefer to be a listener). My girlfriend, God bless her, got angry with me after thirty minutes of our conversation. She thought I was being gruff and a little rude, and honestly, I might have been. We are still together (luckily), but I plan on trying to balance my conversation scripts in our next conversations...this was quite an experiment!
ReplyDeleteI kept track of men and women speaking in my classes Friday. In three of my four classes, I didn't include ours, there were 5 men total. Three of which spoke. Only one spoke more than three times in the class. Out of 14 to 22 students per class, almost every single woman spoke at least once. The English department is mostly women. This isn't a fair representation. In my education classes, it's mainly women as well. The men almost never speak. This could be a numbers issue. Perhaps, the women simply lead the conversations and don't give the men a chance to speak up. Something interesting I learned with my tracking, men talk more in classes led by men. I don't know exactly what that means, but it could be a comfort factor? I have a copy of the exact results I took down if needed for more review.
ReplyDeleteMy goal for the experiment was to let go of the dominant role in a conversation. I wanted to wait until the right moment to do this and quickly found myself in a conversation with my wife about a problem she was having at work. Normally, I would almost take the role of interrogator, trying to gather all of the information I could, so that I could find a solution for her problem. This would normally include interruptions, steering the conversation into a direction so that I could find the information I needed, and focusing on logic and facts instead of how emotions. This time, instead of just simply trying to be the fixer, I just allowed her to talk as long as she needed about the problem. I'm not going to lie, it was very difficult to cut off my interruptions. I actually started feeling a sense of anxiety throughout the process, though it did get easier as the conversation progressed. I almost felt like I wasn't being productive in the conversation by holding back my comments. What was interesting about this, was that the conversations didn't last as long as it normally would if I had been interrupting with questions. She even thanked me for listening. I believe that I am so focused on facts and fixing the problem, I don't normally allow her to vent her frustrations enough to resolve them. This concept of topic control has been a real eye opener. I think that having this brought to my attention, I will be able to communicate more efficiently in both my personal and professional life.
ReplyDelete