Differences between Men and Women - Essay Example

College: Differences between Men and Women Even though men and women were created in God’s image in the equality of value and worth, there are notably different characteristics in design and function. These gender differences encompass the behavioral and physical aspects in most cases (Bauer et al. 49). Women and men differ in the way they act, feel, think and most importantly talk. Scholars in fact argue that one of the most outstanding differences between women and men is the unique ways that they communicate. Linguists have studied scientifically the communication styles of women and men and documented the superficialdifferences. These studies help in identifying the purpose of adaptation and understanding and the factors affecting communication. There are various general differences that are associated with gender communication. Firstly, it is important to note that men and women have multiple conversational styles. Every style adopted is equally valid. Gender communication aims at adapting to the differences and not changing the communication style. Biological factors, therefore, do not dictate the differences in gender communication. Tannen (7) suggests that men and women tend to express themselves in various ways due to different reasons. Women adopt communication styles to promote intimacy while men use communication to promote independence. In both conscious and unconscious states, men communicate often to establish their social status from others. Women often use words to rapport, as well as to connect emotionally and express feelings among themselves. Because most men talk to establish status, they will often talk more in public in contrast to women whotalk in private places. Women conversations take place in private places because they wish to establish their intimacy and emotional facet. Holmes (14) takes a stand in suggesting gender communication is not influenced by biological factors. She even suggests that men talk more than women in order to instill dominance over certain situations. Holmes bases this thought on the situation that men and women find themselves. Holmes goes ahead to suggest that men generally control the talking time. She uses statistics from the media especially talk shows, meetings and seminars to prove her point. Men talk more than women in contexts that require verbal participation and contribution. Holmes, therefore, seems to be supplementing the desire for men to talk for social status and asserts that men are more concerned about power and status. Even though men prove to be dominant when talking, certain situations account for women talking more than men. Women tend to talk more in an effort to develop individual relationships among each other. Even though it may not be necessarily true, women keep up connections and attachments more often than they need to prove a point to a public setting. In topics and debates that women have profound knowledge about, they tend to speak up more than men. Holmes also suggests, “It is likely that as long as influence is matched up with holding the floor, the complexities of men or women talking more is a matter for debate.” The communication style tends to bring out differences in how the two sexes communicate. The environment has significant impacts on the body language. Men and women utilize body language in various ways. Women often use nonverbal communication in a direct way while men communicate indirectly. While women are talking, they often keep eye contact, stand in a close proximate way among each other, and use gestures a lot. Men, on the other hand, keep their distance and rarely maintain eye contact. Their gestures even tend to be les dramatic. The handling of conflict arising in conversations is also perceived different by these two gender groups. While women avoid conflict to ensure peace, men allow conflict to gain a social status. Conflicts tend to mainly arise from miscommunications and misunderstandings. Men and women often express their gender communication differences in the contexts of structure, style, as well as content. Men often attach social status as they often talk about business, sport and money. Women often discuss feelings, relationships and people. When men and women talk, men in most cases express themselves with the intention of resolving problems or conversing for competition. Women will often indulge in conversations with men to connect, understand, and converse to support men. In an effort to talk, men use precise words but women may use vague, apologetic, and more detailed words. Communication styles, however, do not bring out much of a difference. When these styles are used in nonverbal work such as written items, difficulty arises in establishing the communication differences. This standpoint is also based on the fact that individuals that have less knowledge for English will find it hard maintaining decent conversations irrespective of their ages and social classes. If such differences are found in speeches, they should as well be incorporated as major differences in the writing style. Biological factors cannot be completely ignored as to not bring out the differences in gender conversation. Biological factors also play an important role in how the two gender sexes conduct their normal conversations. In some cases, communication and the associated differences is directly related to biological factors. Men and women may have radical distinct ways of talking not dictated by their upbringing but due to the fact that they possess different evolutionary needs. Macaulay (35) states that “Men tend to use antagonistic speeches as a way of showing off their might and proving themselves to women. Women use more silent speech patterns to relate with each other and protect their vulnerable nature against aggressive men.” This pattern has been observed for a thousand years. Conversations also depend on the verbal fluency and the memory capacity of an individual. The verbal fluency is directly dictated by the brain. The brain acts as the memory capacity of a person. A person that forgets information often will have poor conversation skills and orientation than a person who possesses a good memory. Women have a lively and animated way of conversing with each other. They communicate in extreme pronounced disparities in their vocal pitch and tend to interact with their emotions. The exposing of intimate and private information forms the connective tissue among women and acts as a trademark in which female friends talk to each other. Studies have also revealed that the speaking voice of particular men carries a rich source of information. Women are naturally equipped at picking up these voices. Women adore and tend to associate with men that have low voices as it directly affects their testosterone levels. The men with low voices incline to be more assertive. Women love associating with low voices especially during their menstrual cycle as their estrogen levels are very high. As women duet and participate in intimate revealing of themselves, they are building a relationship and disclosing these secrets could result to rivalry. Since pairing has a reciprocal nature, when one woman talks to another about the negativity in her intimate life, the other understands that she needs to be kind and accommodative. A man also compromised by infant care duties or pregnancy is not in a better position to portray his strength in conversations or fighting off people that propose problems. In a female-male disparity, a female will not confront a male individually but with more females, confrontation may take place. The biological factors are, however, too inferior to constitute as major factors that bring out differences in conversations among men and women. Natural dispositions are too remote to dictate the way people interact and converse. Trying to harmonize different interests among people is often difficult. Moods and attitudes constitute as major factors that affect conversation especially between women. In most cases, women tend to scream and shout at one another especially when invariably irritated. If a man or a woman does something that causes hurt or anger to another woman, they will stridently yell or shout back at them. The raising of the tone during these situations is often displayed as a targeted form of opposition and may signal backing off. Anthropologists regard this talk among women as conflict talk. Men in bad moods will often remain silent and will not talk to one another. They tend to maintain their silence and control their anger in order to protect their social status and ego. Men may also use humor to insult their friends in a ritualistic and joking way. Some philosophers argue that humor evolves to help men control their anger and stop them from becoming violent (Holmes 14). Verbal differences amount as a factor that brings out variance in conversations between men and women. Verbal differences incorporate conversation interruption and dominance, motives of attacking the speaker, aggressiveness, as well as the use of vulgar words. Women on the other hand are less aggressive and polite. Even though there are major differences in speech patterns, both men and women exhibit varying degrees of feminine and masculine speech characteristics. This exhibit of various speech characteristics lead to issues of bias and stereotypes and affects other factors that influence the speech patterns. Even though verbal differences may at some point become ambiguous in establishing gender differences, nonverbal differences tends to supplement it. Nonverbal communication incorporates actions that are relatively different from speeches such as posture, facial expression, and position. Culture refers to the lifestyle of a particular group and dictates their artifacts, beliefs, values and behavior. Culture is always passed down from one generation into another one. Culture often provides the guide to proper moral and ethical behavior. Gender communication is a sub-genre of culture since it is also passed down through interactions by people. Culture is very critical in an effort to understand the communication pattern between people. Interruptive moods, attitudinal tones and aggressive speeches are dictated by the cultural background. Some cultures in Asia do not consider male and female aggression as an appropriate behavior. In other cultures, the tone is directly matched to the status of a person. It, therefore, implies that tone may be used to illustrate displeasure or discontent in an individual. Works Cited Bauer, Laurie and Peter Trudgill.  Language Myths. London & New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Holmes,Janet. Women, Men, and Politeness. London: Longman, 1995. Holmes, Janet. Women Talk Too Much. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Macaulay, Ronald K. S. Sex Differences. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Tannen, Deborah. Ill Explain It to You: Lecturing and Listening. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Read More