Men and Women in Interaction: Reconsidering the DifferencesOxford University Press, 1996 M02 29 - 304 pages For many years the dominant focus in gender relations has been the differences between men and women. Authors such as Deborah Tannen (You Just Don't Understand) and John Gray (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus) have argued that there are deep-seated and enduring differences between male and female personalities, styles, even languages. Elizabeth Aries sees the issue as more complex and dependent on several variables, among them the person's status, role, goals, conversational partners, and the characteristics of the situational context. Aries discusses why we emphasize the differences between the sexes, the ways in which these are exaggerated, and how we may be perpetuating the very stereotypes we wish to abandon. For psychologists and researchers of gender and communication, this book will illuminate recent studies in gender relations. For general readers it will offer a stimulating counterpoint to prevailing views. |
Contents
| 3 | |
2 Task and Expressive Roles in Groups | 24 |
3 Dominance and Leadership in Groups | 45 |
4 The Function and Patterning of Interruptions in Conversation | 79 |
5 Language Use and Conversation Management | 102 |
6 The Content of Conversation | 147 |
7 Gender Stereotypes and the Perception and Evaluation of Participants in Interaction | 163 |
8 Conclusions Explanations and Implications | 189 |
Notes | 215 |
References | 241 |
Author Index | 269 |
Subject Index | 279 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alice Eagly all-female all-male Aries assessed assigned assume leadership back-channel responses behave Carli characteristics colleagues communication conversation Dindia discussion dominance Eagly effect size emerge as leaders ences epistemic modals essentialist evaluated example expectations express uncertainty female speech ferences found no gender frequently friends function gender dif gender differences gender identity gender role gender stereotypes greater group members Henley high-status Holmes individuals inter interaction interruptions intimate Johnson Kramarae Lakoff leadership behavior less low-dominance magnitude males and females married couples masculinity and femininity meta-analysis minimal responses mixed-sex dyads mixed-sex groups Mulac negative occur participants partner perceptions Peter Kollock predict relationships same-sex Sandra Bem scores self-disclosure sex role single-sex groups situational context Social Psychology social roles social-emotional behavior speech features speech forms status Strodtbeck studies styles subjects suggests tag questions talk task behavior task competency theory tions topic Unger variables verbal women's language Zimmerman
Popular passages
Page 204 - We have claimed that a person's gender is not simply an aspect of what one is, but, more fundamentally, it is something that one does, and does recurrently, in interaction with others.
Page 3 - Not only do men and women communicate differently but they think, feel, perceive, react, respond, love, need, and appreciate differently.
Page 5 - To recast our findings slightly, the data suggests that men pro-act, that is, they initiate relatively long bursts of acts directed at the solution of the task problem, and women tend more to react to the contributions of others.
Page 162 - ... one index of the extent to which these male attitudes have been internalized. The linguistic precocity of female children has been well established,5 but the likelihood that this facility develops into a rich and subtle oral art in the talk of adult women is not seen as an obvious corollary. 3. Topic Women are an occupational group of a special kind, and our occupation and training as wives, girlfriends and mothers are reflected in the topics of gossip. We are expected to be knowledgeable in...
Page 4 - fitting" ways of behaving and thinking (Von Glaserfeld, 1984). Rather than passively observing reality, we actively construct the meanings that frame and organize our perceptions and experience. Thus, our understanding of reality is a representation, not an exact replica, of what is out there. Representations of reality are shared meanings that derive from shared language, history, and culture. Rorty (1979) suggests that the notion of accurate representation is a compliment we pay to those beliefs...