Hoo S. Pai: Communication

Why is it so hard for women and men to talk to each other?

Hoo S. Pai

According to “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” written by John Gray, relationships between women and men can be improved by understanding the communication style and emotional needs of the opposite gender. Some researchers agree with Gray's ideas about inter-gender communications differences. Especially, Deborah Tannen's studies of female and male communication find that "for women, talk creates intimacy... But men live in a hierarchical world, where talk maintains independence and status." Accordingly, it is so hard for women and men to communicate each other, because women and men are intrinsically different in their manner of expression and attitude to listening.

First of all, women and men are intrinsically different in the way they express themselves. For instance, the man usually tends to think little of his slips and not to say sorry to the woman for these mistakes. To the woman, his “no apology” means he looks down on her. Because women are sensitive to being disregarded, they insist that men should apologize. In contrast, because men are sensitive to being criticized, the more she compels him to apologize, the more he feels humiliated. On the other hand, the woman is often apt not to talk about her predicament, but to complain to have reassurance that someone understands what she feels. To the man, her “trouble talks” mean she wants advice. Because the man is not familiar with the nature of women’s complaints, he takes them literally and tries to find solutions to quandaries. In fact, because she is not looking for him to fix her problem, his effort aggravates her.

Next, women and men are intrinsically different in their attitude to listening. Sometimes, a man looks like he does not listen to what a woman says. This impression of not listening results from physical misalignments in the mechanics of conversation. Women have a tendency to face each other head-on when they talk, while men sit at angles—or even parallel—to a person. Because the direct gaze means the signal of listening for women but the eye contact the gesture of challenge for men. Likewise, analogous to the physical alignment that women and men take in conversation is their topical alignment. Generally, women tend to talk at length about on topic, but men jump from topic to topic. Switching topics is another habit that gives women the impression men are not listening. In addition, there are even simpler reasons for women’s impression that men do not listen. For example, women make more listener noise to show their concern, but men more often give silent concentration. Therefore, women who expect the so-called “participatory listenership” misinterpret men’s silence as no attention. On the other hand, men are likely to perceive the participatory listenership as interruption, intrusion and lack of attention.

In short, there are so many pitfalls in communication due to differences in the approaches of conversation between both genders. Men’s no apology and women’s trouble talks are examples of the problem of expression, physical misalignments, switching topics, and no participatory listenership illustrates the problem of listening as well. To conclude, the solution is understanding the differences. Moreover, women and men have to consider these communication traps as “neutral gender differences” and both make adjustments, so then they will achieve success in the communication to each other.