Concept 3: Misunderstandings between gender speech communities

I learned more about the way men and women are socialized into some different understandings of how communication functions, and the way our communication differs a lot in practice. The third concept I'm going to talk about is the misunderstandings between gender speech communities, which is on page 111 in the book. Because women’s talk tend to be more expressive and focused on feelings, and men’s talk is more instrumental and competitive, misunderstandings often occur between the two genders.

I understood that, because they have been socialized in a different way, men and women don’t have the same view of communication, neither of creating relationships and build closeness. We had learned how we have to communicate and interpret communication when we were kids, mostly by playing totally different children’s games. Therefore, we have kind of opposite points of view when we discuss problems or listen to each other.

Me and my boyfriend often have misunderstandings when we have discussions. As a woman, I want him to show me that he is attentive and interested about what I’m talking about. However, he almost never shows me that he is listening carefully such as making listening noise. He just looks around or plays with something. That often makes me angry because I feel that he doesn’t pay attention to what I’m saying or doesn’t consider it important. This concept shows me that it probably doesn’t mean that he is not listening well. I can recall myself some moments when I wanted to have a conversation about our relationship and I said things like ``What happens?`` or ``Is there something wrong?``.  He doesn’t understand that it’s just a way for me to increase our intimacy and closeness. At that time, I though he was shy, but now I see that maybe he prefers to do some activities with me instead of talking about us.

When I think about that interesting concept, the movie called ``What women want`` comes to my mind. It tells the story of a male who gains the ability to hear what women are really thinking after he had an accident. The majority of the film follows the main character as he learns from his mind-reading skills, and grows from being an insensitive person to becoming one of the girls. For me, this romantic comedy represents in a funny way the gap between men and women’s communication and listening styles. As written on the cover: ``Finally...a man is listening``.

Therefore, the following article that I have found on a blog gives some ways men and women can improve on how they communicate with each other. For example, it says that girls should be more direct in their conversations and avoid taking a wordy route, and boys should mirror back to girls what they are saying to clarify their meanings. The comments made by girls and boys bellow the article are also very interesting.

http://hubpages.com/hub/Communicaton

Have a look at it!