37. Analyze the following situations and work out your reactions and responses.

Reading 3

Different wavelengths

People are emotionally involved with each other and conversation is the major way to establish, maintain, monitor and adjust our relationships. Men and women are on different wavelengths when it comes to communicating. The differences between the communication styles of men and women go far beyond mere socialization, and appear to be inherent in the basic make up of each sex. Each sex will be bristling at the other's peculiar ways, until we wake up to the simple truth - men and women don't speak the same language. It's not so much that the vocabulary and grammar we use are different. The differences lie in the way men and women talk. That’s why in order to avoid breakages in such a vulnerable matter as communication it is advisable that men and women should be aware of gender differences.

TEXT A

Men seek to establish status and dominance, to preserve their independence. For males, conversation is the way they negotiate their status in a hierarchical order in which they are either one-up or one-down, a question of gaining and keeping the upper hand. They apply speaking skills to prevent other people from pushing them around. Men even boast as a matter of course, battling to gain or maintain that all-important status.

For men, activities, doing things together, are central to creating friendly bonds. Just sitting and talking is not an essential part of friendship. Men don't talk to each other about their troubles unless they really do want a solution; talking about their problems means wallowing in them.

Not only men hear a complaint as a request for advice, not intimacy, but regard it as a challenge, and come up with a solution or dismiss the issue. Men talk of their own problems whereas dismiss others’ as insignificant. Their provision of help or information is testimony to their power, reinforcement of their status.

Men are more comfortable with public speaking or report talk. Consequently, they approach conversation as a contest and are likely to expend effort not to get engaged in the other’s talk but to lead the conversation in another direction, perhaps one in which they can take centre stage by telling a story or joke or by displaying knowledge.

Men cringe at the prospect of discussing anything personal. Fact-oriented men tend to listen to the message - bare facts, straightforward ideas, distinct information, they are concerned principally with the fact-exchanging aspect of conversation. Men prefer discussion of facts to dissection of feelings. Since feelings suggest vulnerability and thus inferiority, men see conversation as another way of scoring points.

Men seem to have the resistance when asked for assistance. For men, doing what they're asked to do means they have lost status in that relationship. Men have a gut-level resistance to doing what someone expects them to do. Men grumble they're being nagged when asked to take out the rubbish.

Men are comfortable with giving help and information, but not with receiving it. Men consider it subservient. If they lose their way while driving, they rage at the suggestion they ask for directions. In men's hierarchical world, driving round until he finds the way himself is a reasonable thing to do. So asking for directions would make the men feel he was dropping in status by revealing his lack of knowledge.

Men favour a direct approach when it comes to requests or suggestions. If they perceive someone is trying to get them to do something indirectly, they feel manipulated and respond more resentfully than they would to a straightforward request. Frequently the question “Would you like to have our holidays in the Himalayas” will be met by a blunt answer like “No, I’m tired” as the man assumes that it is only his straightforward opinion that is required, with no discussion to be held.

Men find it humiliating to reveal their mistakes, fears and weaknesses which railroad men into acting like the strong, silent type. Many hold the truth about themselves like a guilty secret, scared that if ever the truth slipped out they would be despised as much as if they suddenly started wearing high heels and dresses. Strength and silence travel together because silence is needed to maintain the illusion of strength.

TEXT B

For most women, the conversation is a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships, to enhance intimacy and process things. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences. Therefore, they aim at seeking and giving confirmation and support, and reaching consensus.

Women, concerned primarily with making connections with people, regard conversation as a way to share feelings, create bonds and explore possible solutions to common problems. Women read things into the most innocuous comment, get upset when their man says “I” rather than 'we' and demand impossibly detailed reports of every conversation they miss — who said what and how they looked when they said it. Feeling-oriented women tend to listen for the subtler metamessage - the unspoken attitudes, thoughts and intentions behind what is actually said.

Woman, craving closeness and intimacy, pools her problems with friends. “We’re in each other’s pockets almost twenty-four hours a day. She is the one who always has an ear for my innermost secrets. We share absolutely everything.” The same pattern is applied to a man, especially to a man, when the woman invites him to reciprocate and share himself with her. You relieve the burden of your troubles, I confide mine to you, and, bingo, we're close. She seeks to have her man respond as her girlfriends have always done, and talk with her about her concerns. Women's complaining has nothing but ritual nature.

At the same time the man’s speedy and ready-made solution to her tortuous and tailor-made problem without long and elaborate talking about it plunges the woman into unshakable belief that her problem is purposefully diminished or what makes things worse she is cut off.

Woman is used to asking for help, to her, asking for and receiving directions reinforces the bond between people. Typically women use a high frequency of softening devices – such as “I would think…”, “sort of” or “a bit/rather”. This gives the impression of being unassertive, but is in fact intended as a politeness strategy. They also tend to frame requests and suggestions, which on the face of it may lack an efficiently direct approach. Thus, when a woman suggests “Would you like to go out to eat tonight?” she is attempting to open up a discussion of the pros and cons of the idea rather than receive either an immediate consent or an explicit refusal.

Women's communicating is more egalitarian, consensus-building. With women, consensus means thinking alike, being in agreement, being the same. When women get together they seek the input of the other women present and make decisions based on the wishes of all. Women, who tend to gain acceptance with each other by appearing the same as, not better than, everyone else, take care never to boast as they consider it sensitive. When one woman in a group decides to go her own way in some matter, she'll be criticized, or even ostracized for standing out.

The female mode doesn’t prevent excellence, it prevents displaying it.