Debrah Tannen: The Communication Gap Between Men And Women

The widespread imbalance in the intrests and expectations between the sexes, poses as a communication gap between the two genders. It causes us to have different impressions of social interaction between men and woman. One must understand the other sex in order to come up with a solution. In Debrah Tannen’s essay on “Why Is It So Hard For Men and Women to Talk to Each Other,” she tries to inform us of this lack of communication between men and women and the problems that it can cause. The author starts off by giving the reader an example of a situation involving a man and his wife where the husband would comment on how much his wife is the talker in the family and how she is always talking when she is at home. This demonstrates that men generally talk more in public situations, while women tend to talk more at home. She follows up by talking about how most of the women that divorced gave lack of
This is because men dont usually like to look the other person in the eye much when they are being spoken to. They are more easily distracted by their surroundings, and so their eyes tend to wander around. An example is given between a guy and his girlfriend where the man would lie down on the floor and cover his eyes with his arms when his girlfriend was talking to him. This gave the girlfriend the impression that her boyfriend was taking a nap and completely ignoring her. In actuallity, he is trying to concentrate by blocking his vision from surrounding distractions. When women talk, they tend to stay on one topic, whereas men like to jump from one topic to the next. This leads to the next point that the author makes, which says that men often switch topics. This gives the woman the impression that they are not really listening. Men’s coversation dont normally last very long, but women tend elaborate much in a within a