It is obvious that males and females are very different. Ever since people can remember, men and women have seemingly taken on different types of roles in society. But why is it that females and males have such difficulty with basic communication in relationships? In this world, communication is a way of exchanging ideas, messages, and information, but somehow when communication is expressed among the different sexes, it is often misinterpreted. The two main factors that shape the ways that men and women communicate differently are societal influence and biological attributes.
Society often plays a big role in the way people are raised. Since we were children, girls were always thought of as having dolls, playing dress up and being sensitive and caring; while boys were expected to play with trucks, blocks, and often depicted as rough and wild. The biggest influences of these stereotypes are parents and teachers. In the article “Dolls, Trucks, and Identity” Linda Kekelis states that researchers found that “girls are praised when they play with dolls while boys are likely to be ignored by their parents when displaying nurturing behavior.
” The fact is that when boys take the role of the “girls” part, they develop nurturing skills and improve their fine motor coordination. When girls take the role of the “boys” part, as in playing with trucks and blocks, they gain experience and confidence in their math and science skills. Unfortunately, parents and teachers often do not realize that it is important for children of either sex to explore other avenues than those that they are stereotypically supposed to have.
As a result of the “activities” that children are supposed to participate in, girls are more inclined to associate with girls while boys will tend to associate with boys. As children grow they stay within the groups that they are most familiar with, this causes them to have less experience with the groups of the opposite sex. This carries on into adulthood, which is a main factor as to why men and women have difficulties communicating: they simply don’t understand each other.
Another factor that can explain the differences between how men and women communicate comes from a biological standpoint. In the article “What’s the Difference between Boys and Girls? ” Deborah Blum believes that: “Most of all, I think there’s a reason-a reasonable biology-to the differences we see in little boys and girls, men and women, males and females”(pg. 51 America Now). The article states that testosterone may be one of the issues that supports the idea that communication comes not only from societal influence, but biological influence too.
Blum also states that human males are likely to produce seven to ten times more testosterone than most females. Testosterone causes more aggressive play and competitiveness, which is not usually found in the stereotypical girl. In addition, Blum’s article reveals that boys play in larger, more competitive groups that have winners. Boys also have difficulties in solving conflicts. Girls, on the other hand, gather in smaller groups and play games that don’t necessarily have winners. Girls generally solve their conflicts verbally and often can reach a compromise.
These hormonal variations affect the ways that the opposite sexes communicate. Since boys are more inclined to be more active than girls, they often have great difficulty focusing primarily on communication. Many of the reasons why men and women have difficulty in communicating, may be a mixture of upbringing and biology. Men and women don’t just talk differently, but they also expect something different from their conversational partners. According to “Sex, Lies and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?
By Deborah Tannen, lack in communication amounts to millions of cases of divorce in the United States every year. One of the reasons for this is because women are more likely express their feelings and men usually keep to themselves. Women many times claim, “He doesn’t listen to me,” which is not completely true. Since men have a different style of communicating, it may appear that they aren’t listening or interested, so women get frustrated. Tannen says: I found that at every age, the girls and women faced each other directly, their eyes anchored on each other’s faces.
At every age, the boys and men sat at angles to each other and looked elsewhere in the room, periodically glancing at each other (44). Women like to respond to conversation with questions and expressing agreement and understanding as to men who tend to dismiss each other’s problems. Tannen expresses “Women’s conversational habits are as frustrating to men as men’s are to women”(44), suggesting that the problem runs both ways. To help solve this problem, people need to learn to be more patient and understanding or at least need to listen carefully.
Tannen explains this by saying “In these times of resurgent ethnic conflicts, the world desperately needs cross-cultural understanding”(44). If men and women learned to understand each other better, then the communication barrier would be broken. Men and women need to switch roles so that they can know what the other one feels like when communicating. Men and women need to break free from what their parents taught them as children. The solution is easy, yet some people don’t do it.
In conclusion, there could be numerous reasons why men and women have trouble communicating with each other. From everything that was presented, it is plausible that communication is a large part of a relationship. Men and women must realize that communication is a building block in a structure of a relationship, without true understanding of the building block, the relationship (structure) will collapse. The lesson to be learned is that males and females are different, but with time and understanding, each can learn about the other sex and how to communicate properly.