Deborah Tannen But What Do You Mean Analysis

In the article, “But What Do You Mean?”, author Deborah Tannen discusses what she has observed to be differences in ways that women and men communicate. She concludes by stating that neither communication style in incorrect, however, to alleviate miscommunication women and men should use language that is understood by both parties. While I don’t disagree with Tannen’s observations I find some flaws with her solution. Women and men are not significantly different, as recent brain studies have shown, I believe that the differing socialization of women and men as children breeds the stylistic communication differences Tannen describes. So while limiting one’s speech to common language may work in a pinch, there is a long term solution that could
In today’s world, more than ever, women are encouraged to pursue careers. Celebrity campaigns, such as one I saw recently on television, with Mckenzie Westmore encouraging young women to join S.T. E. M. fields, to Hillary Clinton being the first female democrat nominee. Yet in school, biases still roam the halls. Girls are generally assumed to be good at language arts and boys are generally assumed to be good at maths and sciences. When I was in grade school I remember teacher’s pairing up boys and girls for the specific reason of “closing the gap”, or more specifically so boys could help girls with math and girls could help the boys stay on track reading. Another instance of this divide in what women and men are capable of would be the instance a friend of mine experienced. She is studying molecular genetics, and tells some of the struggles she faces in a science field simply for being a woman, one being at her lab study job. When she first started working there, her boss would not allow her to have her own lab, he cited needing to know she was competent first. For over a year she sorted and filed papers, but when a new male was
As easy to say that both methods are fine is, life experience is contradictive. Many of the examples Tannen used primarily demonstrated the adverse effects that women experienced, that was not remedied until the woman changed her behavior and not the other way around. For example, in the last category of “Jokes”, Tannen writes the experience of a female teacher who responded jokingly to the male principal that the seminar became much better once he had left. She left her preferred method of joking, which Tannen describes as being primarily self-mocking, to initiate into teasing. Herein lies the issue. That is not indicative of equal but different, clearly, men’s ideas of communication are prioritized over women’s. However, on a substantial amount of occasions, a woman engaging in typical masculine communication is not appreciated. Connotations arise when a woman decides to man-up. However cute a woman may seem playing a man’s game occasionally, in a structured leadership role, the term “bitch” surfaces. For what is called leadership and direct with high standards when done by a man is scatter-brained, over emotional, and irrational when done by a woman. When my sister was a supervisor for her area, which happened to be electronics, she had a customer who became belligerent. She explained to him why she couldn’t do his request but he simply