Let’s Understand Each Other Better The article "Sex, lies, and Conversation," written by the professor of linguistics Deborah Tannen, explains us about the many dissimilarities amongst men and women that occur in the way they communicate with each other. It explains to the reader why there is a lack of communication and understanding between a man and a woman who aim to pursue different objectives through conversations. The article is a very effective passage that provides logical reasoning to support its claim of developing cross cultural understanding in order to avoid the clash of genders that is caused by failed conversations. Most of the women complain that men are not good conversational partners at home. According to the females, men do not listen or talk to them and do not contribute in day to day discussions.
In Deborah Tannen’s essay, “Can’t We Talk,” she was able to persuade me men and women misunderstand each other due to the simple fact that opposite genders perceive language differently. Tannen states in her essay, “Learning the other’s way of talking is a leap across the communication gap between men and women, and a giant step towards genuine understanding.” Throughout the essay, she uses great structure and examples to inform her readers of this gap between the genders and how it interferes with communication and understanding. Deborah Tannen structures her essay in a way that makes it easy for the reader to follow, and in turn, helps make her point. When first looking at the page, it is very appealing to the eye. She has six different points proving the differences between men and women through examples.
According to the author Deborah Tannen the article, Sex, Lies, and conversation" is about how differently men and women percieve conversation in their relationship. She states that lack of conversation is wreaking havoc within marriages. this is due to the fact that men and women have very different expectations of communication. Tannen describes how differences in communication start in the childhood socialization. For young girls, conversation is the cornerstone of friendship.
Since we don’t realize that others’ styles are different, we miscommunicate with each other causing problems and conflicts in conversation. Conflicts are influenced by our gender and experienced everyday in the workplace, public, and private settings. Men and women both have many different conversational ways. The common ways among us men often involve “using things such as joking, teasing, and playful put-downs.” We can sometimes come across as hostile and arrogant when we aren’t trying to be. The conversational rituals common among women are often ways of “maintaining an appearance of equality, taking into account the effort of the exchange on the other person, using up effort to downplay the speaker’s authority so they can get the job done without flexing their muscles in an obvious way.” Women use conversational strategies to avoid appearing conceited and take another person’s feelings into account.
Such as women can not perform manual work as well as men, on the other hand, a man’s entire chemistry is different allowing him to be less emotional than a woman. Jane Addams and her colleague Ellen Gates Starr founded Hull House a place for down and out women. Jane treated these women as friends and ignoring their faults, became very close to these women. Being close to these women allowed Jane to understand their struggle but much of the information she gathered remained unpublished. She saw social differentiation as a block that society needed to get over, infuriately she herself was a victim.
But people have not stop to think about the hardships women go through, such as giving birth, C-sections, menstrual cycle, menopause, and all the symptoms that go along with it. Many guys that I know think what women go through is not that serious and that we women exaggerate about the pain. What they fail to realize is that, women are stronger than they seem and does not have the time to be complaining on something that cannot be changed. Men should bless women for keeping the human race going without complaint. Once they understand why women have it rougher than men they should start to appreciate all the hardships women goes through.
Sean Hopper Welch ENGL1301-086 15Sept2009 Rhetorical Analysis of Sex, Lies, and Conversation The author’s goal in this essay seems to be to point out differences in the way men and women communicate in an attempt to eliminate a major contributing factor to divorce. She likens men and women’s difficulties in communicating with difficulties in communicating between cultures. She identifies several factors that contribute to why men and women have these difficulties. I feel she identified situations that are seen and experienced in everyday life of men and women and by doing so has helped relationships worldwide. She begins with a real life situation to set the scene for the essay.
Recommendation Different genders clash with obscure communication styles while misunderstandings are built up more and more as pressure suppresses the imminent chaos between spouses. Males and females have a linguistic style that they speak to their same kind but creating clashes when speaking to the other sex. When taking marriage classes and improving relationships there are articles such as “His Talk, Her Talk” by Joyce Maynard and “Man to Man, Woman to Woman” by Mark A. Sherman and Adelaide Haas both discuss about the difference of language males and females talk rather than when the same gender communicates. Although Maynard focuses using pathos in her article to connect to the readers with emotion, however Sherman and Haas use a more
Men and women need these things equally. That one sex needs protection more than the other is a male supremacist myth as ridiculous and unworthy of respect as the white supremacist myths that society is trying to cure itself of at this time” (http://gos.sbc.edu). Chisholm repeats the word “need” in the last few sentences of her speech to emphasize what needs to be done. Repeating words makes your speech much more powerful. Looking at this from Chisholm’s viewpoint, she
It can have dangerous repercussions when believed “true”. Atwood’s novel criticizes corruption of the system and failure of the society through different social statuses that have different purposes and jobs to do and which does not do so will be severely punished by the law. These different statuses relate to the supremacy/inferiority gender bias present in the Saudi Arabia. Some of the Saudi laws that will be examined throughout this article in a satirical manner include: the obligation of women to be fully covered except for the eyes and hands in order to go out, their need of having permission of a male guardian for almost everything that they want to do, their prohibition on driving and going out with men that are not directly related to them in public (“Five Things”), (“Gender Discrimination”). However, similarly to Handmaid’s Tale’s Jezebel club, compounds are Saudi Arabia’s “closed door oasis” where almost every law is