Unit 3 Synapsis

OK, now I feel like we're getting somewhere. While I thoroughly enjoyed the earlier topics (which were foundations for understanding gender), I really learned a lot of useful information in these 3 chapters. We're getting down to the nitty-gritty now :).

In chapter 5 we read about Gendered communication - how language has shaped our awareness and gendered styles of verbal communication. Speicfically, how gender specific terminolgy (like MailMAN, MANkind, etc.), subconsciously shapes our perceptions as a culture. I've never thought it was a big deal but then I read about an instructor who used femenine terms whenever there was a generic "he" and referred to everything as a "she" and the student said it was very confusing. If we can assume a male specific language, why is it so confusing when it's female.

Then the text went on to discuss specific speech behaviors of feminine and masucline people...and the text could have been written about me and my husband. It's a miracle, really, that men and women ever stay married. Our ways of communication are so different - we simply don't seem to get each other at all, yet somehow we still manage to attract each other. Men want companionship and activity-centered friendships while women want confidents and people they can trust with their inner most feelings. Men express themselves by doing stuff, women express themselves with language. Men say I love you by fixing the car. Women think they love the car more than the woman. Men want to take a women out on an activity when she feels she needs to talk. It's a cycle.

The topic was elaborated on in chapter 6 with nonverbal communication. Agian, in my own household, we are textbook cases of nonverbal communicators. What I appreciated the most about this chapter though was the message that we must appreciate the values of the other gender and not insist on imposing our own value for communicating on them. By doing so we are distorting what they are trying to communicate and I do believe, this is the crux of almost any relationship problem.

Then we explored the meaning of close relationships - same sex and opposite sex relationships that we consider personal and romantic. It was interesting to learn that lesbian couples have probably the healthiest relationship when compared to male-female, and male-male romantic relationship. If you think about it, it only makes sense. The masculine tendency to be in control and compete is rough for two men to get along smoothly. The issues I mentioned from chapter 6 that make relationships rocky between men and women. Lesbian couple get the benefit of having a partner that shares the same values, communicates the same way, without any control or competitive issues. I have to admit when my friends and I get mad at our husbands we often joke about how we "get" why women run off with other women after long relationships with men....:) I realize there's more to a relationship than that (!) but what I mean is that it really would make life easier at times.

But knowing and understanding where men are coming from really does help. I have spent years perfecting my non-invasion manner of communicationg. In fact I think I have swung so far to the other side that my reactions toward my husband are downright masculine when I'm mad at him or we have a communication break down. I don't want to talk about it or discuss it I just want it to go away after I get on with my day. I'm preatty sure my husband appreciates it, but doesn't actually know how absolutely difficult it has been for me to go against my natural tendency to talk him to death.

But I'm thinking it's why we haven't killed each other ;).

I'm really looking forward to the chapters to come because the big picture is becoming so much clearer now. It didn't seem to make sense back in the first 2 chapters but I'm beginning to understand why we bahave the way we do, and that it isn't always biology that makes a person behave masuline or feminine.