omyGAD MIDTERM

• Communication


  Process of exchanging ideas and information through words or actions
• Types of communication


  • Verbal communication - related to words
  • Non-verbal communication - related to actions and gestures
• Gender


  A socially constructed definition of women and men
• Gender communication


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


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


  Exists when 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

  
• 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

  
• 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
• Masculine rhetoric


  Being decisive, direct, rational, authoritative, logical, aggressive, and impersonal
• Feminine rhetoric


  Being cautious, receptive, indirect, emotional, conciliatory, subjective, and polite
• 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


  • 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, while women will touch for connection, and women use more eye contact than men
• John Gray's book said that men are from Mars, women are from Venus
• In relation to intelligence, women develop more white brain matter, and men develop more gray brain matter
• Male brain


  Represents more information processing centers
• Female brain


  Represents more networking between these processing centers
• Female communication style


  • Complex
  • Literate
  • Socio-intellectual
  • Aesthetic value
  • Detailed
  • More questions
  • Facilitate conversation
  • Generally adopt a collaborative communication style
  • Like to get input from others, talk about ideas out loud and ensure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to a project
• Male communication style


  • Argumentative
  • Aggressive
  • Forceful
  • Blunt
  • Intense language
  • Control
  • Individualism
  • Don't need to have everyone on board
  • Command and control
• Deborah Frances Tannen presented a theory named Genderlect about cross-gender communication
• Major differences between men and women (Tannen)

  • Connection and status - women have a deep desire to seek connection, men have deep desire to seek status
  • Emotion and rapport - men will prefer solid facts, women will talk more about feelings, relationships, and people; they will include more emotional elements
  • Private and public - women talk more in private conversations, men talk more in a public form
  • Conflict - conflict for women is a process where connections are reduced, and so they will work hard to avoid them; men will use conflict as a short-cut to gaining status as it quickly establishes the ranking that they prefer
• Goals of Genderlect


  • Main goal - mutual respect and understanding
  • Contrast - to feminist viewpoints that criticize men for inferior communication which extinguish women
  • Simply identifies the differences between us and encourages us to acknowledge and accept the communicative culture of the other
• Culture


  All socially transmitted behaviors, arts, languages, signs, symbols, ideas, beliefs, which are learnt and shared in a particular social group of the same type. Handed down from one generation to another
• Cultural norms


  Different cultures have different communicating etiquettes
• How the sexes handle the same situation differently

  • Goals: People/process vs. tasks/results - for women, thought process works like a web, the people and process are just as important as the end result; men are more task-oriented and fixated on the end result, process is less important to them as long as the result is adequate
  • Feelings vs. facts - women focus on feelings; men focus on facts
  • Questions: Asking vs. withholding - women ask questions to gather information. It's how they attack problems and come up with solutions. Men talk to give information. They do not think aloud, sharing nascent ideas, but think to themselves until they have developed a plan of action
  • Weak language vs. direct language - women often discredit themselves in speech through disclaimers; men tend to be more direct when they talk
• Non-verbal communication differences


  • Nodding - women nod to show that they understand something; men interpret nodding as concurrence
  • Smiling - women smile more than men do
  • Posture - women engage in weak body posture; men make more eye contact and stand all
  • Clothing - professionally attractive is much preferred over provocatively adorned
• Language articulates consciousness - as children, we learn to use language to express our basic needs and feelings. As we grow older, we use language to form our opinions and order our thoughts
• Language reflects culture - cultural meanings and values are verbalized and transmitted through language. As a result, language becomes a tool for perpetuating stereotypes
• Language affects socialization - we learn the norms of the society or group that we are in, and conform to these norms. Children learning a language absorb all the underlying meanings of words. Inequalities reflected in language can affect the child's beliefs and behaviors
• Gender-based discrimination


  Any distinction, exclusion or restriction made on the basis of sex, which has the purpose or effect of denying equal exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms in all fields of human endeavor
• Elements of gender-based discrimination

  • Action: that distinguishes, excludes or restricts a person
  • Basis: The sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation of the person
  • Purpose or effect: Person discriminated against is denied the equal exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms
• Sexism in language


  Use of language that devalues members of a sex or gender, and thus fosters gender inequality
• Why is sexism in language considered gender-based discrimination?

  • Renders members of one sex or gender invisible or trivializes them
  • Perpetuates notions of male supremacy
  • Promotes gender role stereotyping
• Generic "man"


  All humanity is subsumed in the terms "man", "father", "brother", "master". This reflects gender inequality because women are never seen in terms of general or representative humanity
• Communication


  Process of exchanging ideas and information through words or actions
• Types of communication


  • Verbal communication - related to words
  • Non-verbal communication - related to actions and gestures