Sex, Lies, and Conservation

Amy Wilson Mr. Scott English 1301-070 March 3, 2010 Complications of Relationships According to the author Deborah Tannen the article, “Sex, Lies, and conversation; Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other? ” men and women perceive conversations in their relationships to be differently. She states that lack of conversation is wreaking havoc within marriages. This is due to the fact that men and women have very different expectations of communication. “Linguistic Battle of the Sexes” describes how men and woman act different in public places. She states, “American men tend to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home. ” This pattern she describes is wreaking confusion and imbalance in their interests. When it comes to relationships men and woman have many communication problems starting from childhood. Differences in communication start in the childhood socialization. Children’s expansion is most inclined by the social arrangement of interaction with their age group. For young girls, conversation is the start of friendship. By sharing secrets, thoughts, feelings, and impressions, girls and women build intimacy in their relationships, while young boys build relationships by doing activities together. Young boys are more general with each other, creating larger groups of friends. In boys relationships there is less chatting and more competing. Within these large groups, boys compete with each other to avoid the lower position in the groups. Misalignments in conversations between men and women lead to a consciousness of not listening. When men talk they periodically glance around the room and women assume they are not listening even though they really are. Woman exchange stories at length about problems or family, while men jump from one topic to another along with competing by playing games or telling jokes periodically. Men have the tendency to switch topics while communication with others. Women in conversation talk about problems and will ask specific questions, and put across agreement and understanding. On the other hand, men are not as interesting as women. They will release each other’s problems with simple statements and switch to a topic about themselves. Women perceive these responses as thoughtless and criticism. Deborah Tannen also describes how a woman's conversational habits are just frustrating to men. In close, comfortable surroundings, women overlap each other, finish each other's sentences, and anticipate what the other is going to say. Tannen describes this lack of attention as “participatory listenership. ” Tannen describes another problem which is “communication in marriage”. Women tend to talk more intimately, where as men talk maintains self-determination and standing. Men want to be seen as a alpha male so they want to be see strong and feared toward their friends. A role of talk in human relationships can fix a troubled marriage. A “Cross-Cultured communications” allows male and female relationships to comprehend the problem which improvement comes naturally to fix. Women who feel abandoned when their husband will not discuss about daily talk then she is relieved when the male adapts to the woman’s relationship problems. Cross cultural communication should begin at home. The article by Deborah Tannen, “Sex, Lies, and conversation; Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other? ” is agreeable. This article has different interpretation on relationships. The article explains well on what men and women expect in a relationship. Such as, men appear to be not paying attention when a woman is talking but they really are. Whereas, seem to always be paying attention looking each other straight into one’s eyes. This explains why ther are many misalignments in today’s relationships. The havoc of lack of communication causes many relationships to come to an end.

Cite this page