Tuesday, October 5, 2010
2/5 of my book....
The author of "You Just Don't Understand" compares women to men when it comes to communicating. In this section of the book she begins to talk about who talks more in public men or women? Men seemed to like to feel a sense of power by speaking often in a public discussion whereas women keep to themselves and just listen. Deborah Tannen also points out that women in the same group discussion would talk twice as much when the men weren't present. Do women just tend to feel more comfortable among women? Deborah Tannen also speaks about how men the majority of the time will refuse to ask for directions even if they have passed the same tree 20 times. She got insight on why guys refuse help from others and it's mostly because some guys don't want to be misled and others just don't want to appear to others as incompetent and unable to find directions on their own. She then explained how women on the other hand like to ask for directions and like to know where they are going and even if they know they are being misled they will appreciate the efforts of the people trying to help them. Tannen then begins to talk about people that are silent around certain people. She uses a married couple as an example and explains how the wife is constantly upset that her husband seems to never have anything to say when he's around her but once they are around other people he becomes the life of the party. I was having trouble understanding why. Could it be that he just doesn't feel the need to talk to her or is it because he just feels like he does speak to her enough just not as much as she would like? The end of this section speaks about gossip and how its used in many ways. Tannen at one point described gossip as forming sense of power among people. The gossiper has some sort of power over the person their gossiping about. I really like this book so far, it really explains a lot about language between both sexes in an interesting way.
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it's so true how guys will never ask for directions. They somehow think that looking ridiculous by passing the same tree 20 times is less degrading than asking someone for help. i have to really agree with the fact that most women do tend to appreciate that someone actually took their time to provide directions.
ReplyDeleteAs for the dilemma regarding the married couple, I'd really like to know why the husband behaves that way. i remember when i was in high school, i felt really intimidated by this friend i had, whenever we were alone, i just couldn't speak to her yet whenever we were with other people i had no problem talking to her. it's weird. btw, your book sounds pretty interesting, i might just pick it up.
(I think Tahshina's comment about how ridiculous it is to pass a tree 20 times because you might think you look stupid asking for directions is pretty funny! Kind of like an ostrich sticking its head in a hole, as if that will hide its whole body!!)
ReplyDeleteI like that you wonder why the husband behaves that way... I also wonder what you think of this book. It came out, I believe, late 1980s or early 1990s. Do you think it accurately portrays gender/language differences from what you've observed about men and women? Do you think times have changed? Do you think her studies apply to men and women across cultures and social class?
it is true what the book says about men and directions.. last winter we went to the pokonos for a few days and got lost on our way there, since is a whole lotta mountains and we couldnt find the house that we had rented.. my friend who was driving did not want to ask anybody for direction only because he thought that he could do it on his own. so we finally got to that house about two hour later than planned
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