Gender Differences

I found the section on gender differences in communication fascinating. I have taken communications classes in the past, and am aware of some of the differences in how men and women talk, women want to discuss problems, and men want to immediately fix them. This often leads to friction because women feel they are being told what to do when they know how to solve the problem, they just want to talk about it. Chapter 7 gave me new insights on this and other differences in male and female communication. I was especially interested in report talk vs. rapport talk. I thought that although I'm a female, I might be more inclined toward report talk because I have a leadership position in an on campus club, and this and other responsibilities would lead me to be most interested in efficient communication rather than being tentative or demonstrating equality. Once I read the description for each, however, I found I had a small bias toward rapport talk.

The four frames for gender communication were also very insightful to me. I saw how women's ways of doing things are undervalued, when research has shown that societies with female leaders are more democratic and more representative than male only represented societies. I also found that I preform a lot of emotion labor in my everyday life, and although it is very satisfying, it contributes to an underlying feeling of exhaustion in my life as well. I also notice that men are less likely to engage in emotion labor because they deal with problems and move on more quickly than their female counterparts, and so don't have as many emotional tasks to accomplish with other men. However, while I have noticed that between men and men there is less emotional labor, between men and women or between women and women there is much more.

Another part of chapter 7 I found interesting was the example of the payscale for the sexes. A man and a woman might be offered the same job, but the man will be more likely to negotiate a larger salary and earn more over his life. What I disagreed with here was that women are less likely to negotiate larger salaries or other needs because of gendered communication. I think this type of negotiation comes down to assertiveness, self confidence, or the options available to a person, of either gender. While assertiveness is socialized in men more than women, I don't think this is a gendered communication issue, I think it is a socialization or gender issue. Self confidence also seems to be fostered in men more than women, and because a man may not have as many family obligations as a woman, (children) he would be more likely to pass on a job offer for something better. This really seems to me to be an issue of gender socialization and not one of communication syles.