Men and women communicate differently. Unless you have spent your life in a cave, you already know that. But recently various experts have started writing about and discussing and trying to explain this amazing phenomenon. And it turns out to be quite universal. Women talk more than men!
This summer on one of Sally Jessy Raphael's morning TV shows, one of the female guests was holding a large sign, which said, "No sex until he talks." Shades of Lysistrata. This seems to be going a little far, but she was desperate. Sally's guests tend to get pretty emotional and irrational, to say nothing of theatrical, but in this case, the complete lack of understanding between the husbands and wives on the show was quite apparent. And they all seemed so surprised. Interestingly enough, the guest expert was a woman who is hearing impaired and if anybody knows about communication problems it's a person who can't hear well. Her name is Deborah Tannen and she has written a book called, "You just don't understand: women and men in conversation."
Dr. Tannen's theory is that the difference in communication style between men and women starts in the cradle, or shortly thereafter. It is the result of the different social structures of girls' and boys' groups. As a feminist I have trouble with this, but boys and girls learn to use language in gender-separate groups. Little girls have best friends and spend lots of time talking and sharing secrets. Talk is a way to create intimacy and closeness, a way to make friends. Little boys' groups are larger and are hierarchical. Older and stronger boys give orders to younger and weaker boys and push them around a lot; so little boys learn to use language chiefly to negotiate status, in order to avoid being pushed around.
So we grow up. According to Dr. Tannen, the patterns continue. Men and women talking to each other is like cross-cultural communication. In plain English, we are speaking different languages. No wonder we have so many problems. She says, "to women, conversation is the glue that holds relationships together, but to men it is another form of competition."
I have spent most of my life talking a lot, and I have assumed that when I did not get a response, it was my fault for not speaking clearly. Now I find that it may be a language problem. Women talk and men don't. This is a gross simplification, but is all too often true.
As I remember my own childhood, my mother talked a lot, and my dad was fairly silent. I assumed this was a personal thing and it probably was. But maybe not. I had a boss once who didn't talk much. He was a wonderful man and I liked him very much, but I would upon occasion come forth with what I thought was a brilliant idea and would present it with great enthusiasm. He would sit and say, "Hmmmmm." I thought we weren't communicating, but actually we were probably both speaking quite clearly in our own languages.
I wonder whether the highly publicized troubles of the most widely reported marriage in the world are caused by the fact that Diana wants to talk to Charles, and Charles likes to talk to his vegetables. This latter fact is reported by a Police Constable who is a guard at the royal country house and swears it's true.
I don't know how far Dr. Tannen's theory goes. Apparently it does not apply to parrots, who talk to each other and to humans. Sparkie, a British budgerigar got into the Guinness Book of World Records by reciting eight four-line nursery rhymes without drawing a breath. And he was a talking male. One wonders what his mate had to say about it.
In an interview Tannen was asked, "Knowing what you do about communication differences between the sexes, would you want to see a female president and a male vice-president?" "Sure," she replied, "why not? But I suggest they read my book first."