Chapter 15

This chapter contained a lot of information about the different ways men and women communicate. One interesting fact was that males talk more when they go to a coeducational school. When surrounded by males, females tend to speak less in class. I always thought that women like to dominate the conversations and volunteer to read more. However, now that I think about it, women are more likely to be embarrassed if they say the wrong answer or do not read correctly. This is why women who go to single-sex schools do better later in life. The author, Deborah Tannen states that boys and girls learn to communicate differently based on their "sex-separate peer groups". For example, girls tell secrets, gossip, and chat with their best friends and guys do activities with their friends. Boys have a hierarchy principle, similar to the display of classes that they have in fashion. Boys use language to put other boys down and establish how much power they have in school. By doing this, boys learn language skills by fighting off challenges and challenging others. This makes them "adversative" which makes them more assertive than girls. While boys are displaying their knowledge by competing with one another for attention, girls are just telling secrets to their friends and keeping to their personal social zones. Sociologist Charles Winick shared his ideas of desexualization by saying that females are becoming more masculine and males are becoming more feminine. This is shown in the way we dress, the people we idolize, the kinds of pets we have, the names we give our children, etc. I can see how Tannen's ideas make sense, but I do not necessarily agree with everything. First of all, girls who go to a same-sex school have a disadvantage as well as an advantage by not interacting with boys. Yes, they may have better language skills, but that does not necessarily cause them to do better in life. When they grow up, they have to get a job where they will most likely be surrounded by boys. School did not prepare them for this because they did not have any experience in that area. Also, guys may try to "seize the spotlight" and try to answer questions, but there are plenty of guys that are lazy and prefer not to answer even if they know they are correct. This plays in the the "being cool" factor that guys often try to uphold. There are also plenty of girls who are not shy and volunteer to answer questions a little too much. It really depends on the comfort zone of the person as well as the environment the person grew up in. For example, a girl who was raised in a family with three brothers may be more open to answering questions than boys would be.