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CHAPTER 7

Communication

“The 10 Worst Things You Can Say to a Guy” ( Glamour)

“Why Can’t He Hear What You’re Saying?” ( Redbook)

“What It Means When He Clams Up” ( Cosmopolitan)

“What Women Say and What They Really Mean” ( AskMen.com)

“Language Lessons: How to Speak Male During a Breakup” ( Marie Claire)

T

hese are a few of the headlines in recent years that suggest men and women have

difficulties communicating with each other. In 1990, Deborah Tannen wrote a

popular book entitledYou Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.

From this book, it would appear that women and men have completely different styles of

conversation, completely different styles of nonverbal communication, and completely

different styles of interacting with one another. Indeed, many of the conversational ex-

cerpts provided in her book ring true. But the book is largely based on anecdotal evidence

of men’s and women’s interactions. The stories ring true because they are consistent with

our schemas about how women and men interact and because it is easier to recall schema-

consistent information than schema-inconsistent information. The research evidence,

however, shows that women’s and men’s communication patterns are much more varied.

Many more variables than the person’s sex influence communication—for example, the

sex of the person with whom one is interacting, the situation in which people find them-

selves, the goal or purpose of the interaction, and the status of the interaction partners.

Kathryn Dindia (2006), a gender and communications scholar, concludes that men and

women are not from different planets or cultures and do not speak different languages.

Rather than men being from Mars and women being from Venus, Dindia (2006) sug-

gests that men are from North Dakota and women are from South Dakota—meaning that

there are many more similarities than differences in communication.

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