GAD101

• Communication


  The process of exchanging ideas and information through words or actions
• Verbal communication


  Related to words
• Non-verbal communication


  Related to actions and gestures
• Gender


  A socially constructed definition of women and men. The differences among women and men, based on some factors.
• Gender communication


  A specialization of the communication field that focuses on the ways we, as gendered beings, communicate

  
• Language is one of the most powerful means through which sexism and gender discrimination are perpetrated and reproduced
• Sexism in language


  Language devalues members of a certain gender. Sexist language, in many instances, promotes male superiority. It affects consciousness, perceptions of reality, encoding and transmitting cultural meanings and socialization.
• The content of gender stereotypes, according to which women should display communal/warmth traits and men should display agentic/competence traits, is reflected in the lexical choices of everyday communication

  
• As a consequence, language subtly reproduces the societal asymmetries of status and power in favor of men, which are attached to the corresponding social roles
• The hidden yet consensual norm according to which the prototypical human being is male is embedded in the structure of many languages
• Grammatical and syntactical rules are built in a way that feminine terms usually derive from the corresponding masculine form. Similarly, masculine nouns and pronouns are often used with a generic function to refer to both men and women
• Such linguistic forms have the negative effects of making women disappear in mental representations
• Gender-fair linguistic expressions


  Can effectively prevent these negative consequences and promote gender equality, there are even more implicit forms of gender bias in language that are difficult to suppress
• Linguistic abstraction


  A very subtle resource used to represent women in a less favorable way and thus to enact gender discrimination without meaning to discriminate or even be aware that this linguistic behavior has discriminatory results
• In order to reduce gender bias, it is necessary to change people's linguistic habits by making them aware of the beneficial effects of gender-fair expressions
• Gender-fair language


  Minimizes unnecessary concern about gender in your subject matter, allowing both you and your reader to focus on what people do rather than on which sex they happen to be
• The practice of using he and man as generic terms poses a common problem. Research by Wendy Martyna has shown that the average reader's tendency is to imagine a male when reading he or man, even if the rest of the passage is gender-neutral
• Much has been written about gender differences-particularly between men and women-in regard to communication
• Wendy Martyna has shown that the average reader's tendency is to imagine a male when reading he or man, even if the rest of the passage is gender-neutral
• Pearson (1981) presented the terms masculine rhetoric versus feminine rhetoric, with the first one being decisive, direct, rational, authoritative, logical, aggressive, and impersonal, and the second being cautious, receptive, indirect, emotional, conciliatory, subjective, and polite
• Frequently mentioned differences in gender communication

  • Women are more vocal than men
  • Women are more verbally skilled than men
  • Men are more action oriented in their use of language, while women are more relationship oriented
  • Men are more competitive in their language use, while women are more cooperative
  • The above differences lead to regular communication frictions between men and women
• Other communication differences often highlighted

  • Men mainly communicate to support their prominence, while women do so to build relationships
  • Men smile less than women, women use more paralanguage (nonverbal indicators of listening and understanding) than men do
  • Men will use communicative touching more to confirm their dominance (pat on the back or shoulder), while women will touch for connection (arm-touching or offering a hug), and women use more eye contact than men
• It's been said that men and women are so different, they must be from different planets
• John Gray's famous book (over 15 million sold worldwide), men are from mars, women are from Venus, popularized this theory through the title alone
• In reality, we all come from Earth, but men and women do have different ways of speaking, thinking and communicating overall
• Rationality


  All humans are highly emotional, men and women simply tend to show it in different ways. While a woman may cry when she's flooded with emotion, a man is more likely to get angry and become violent and stupid.
• Biologically-speaking, considering men are the physically stronger of the two, this makes sense. Men are more likely to want to fight if they are angry or emotional. Women are the emotional ones because men can't express their emotion in the way they want to.
• In relation to intelligence, women develop more white brain matter, and men develop more gray brain matter. In other words, a male brain represents more information processing centers, and a female brain represents more networking between these processing centers. This doesn't mean that men are smarter than women or vice versa. It simply represents that men and women tend to do things differently.
• Verbal communication differences based on gender

  • Men: Avoid personal stories, attempt to control the conversation, less likely to listen, more aggressive
  • Women: Share personal stories, form groups, listen carefully, less aggressive
• Non-verbal communication differences based on gender


  • Body language: Men - less, Women - more
  • Facial expressions: Men - less, Women - more
  • Eye contact: Men - avoid, Women - prefer
  • Attitude: Men - more relaxed, Women - more tense
  • Use of gestures: Men - average, Women - too much
• Female communication style


  • Complex literate, socio intellectual, aesthetic value, detailed, more questions, facilitate conversation
• Male communication style


  • Argumentative, aggressive, forceful, blunt, intense language, control, individualism
• Men and women can learn so much from each other if only the gender communication barriers can be broken. These barriers disappear with time, understanding, and effort. An investment of time is necessary to evaluate personal communicative style.
• Though life is busy and personal styles are comfortable but adaptation to gender communication promotes individual growth.
• Genderlect


  A theory introduced by Deborah Frances Tannen about cross-gender communication, where she describes the way that the conversation of men and women are not right and wrong they are just different, as different cultures.
• Connection and status


  The fundamental difference is that women have a deep desire to seek connection, while men have a deep desire to seek status.
• Emotion and rapport


  In seeking connection, women will talk more about feelings, relationships and people. They will include more emotional elements in their talk and will encourage others to do the same. In seeking status, men will prefer solid facts.
• Private and public


  Women talk more in private conversations. In public, there is less opportunity for creating individual relationships and so they may talk less. Men talk more in a public forum, where their audience has the power to recognize them and give them the status they seek.
• Conflict


  Conflict, for a woman, is a process where connections are reduced, and so they will work hard to avoid them. Men, on the other hand, will use conflict as a short-cut to gaining status. A short, fight quickly establishes the ranking that they prefer, establishing who has more status and position.
• Goals of genderlect


  The main goal of this theory is mutual respect and understanding. It was in contrast to feminist viewpoints that criticize men for inferior communication which extinguish women. Genderlect theory simply identifies the differences between us and encourages us to acknowledge and accept the communicative culture of the other.