Communication and Gender

There is some accuracy when people say “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.” Men and women do communicate differently in that “men communicate primarily by using verbal language and physicality, while women communicate using oral language” (Inong, 2009). Women use a lot more non-verbal signals than men do; for instance, they talk with their hands and use gestures more prominently. These gestures can tell a lot about what a women is saying. They can show enthusiasm, frustration or anger. On the other hand, men’s oral language is quite easy to understand as well. Many of them “do not bother to tinge their meanings with sarcasm or opposites; instead, most men will say what they mean to say” (Inong, 2009). This does not mean that women cannot be blunt or assertive; it just means that “the two sexes choose different modes of communication” (Inong, 2009). Along with this, women and men tend to read each other’s language differently.

Based on the article Reworking gender: a feminist communicology of organization, communication “centers human communication as the basic, constitutive activity of organizing” and examine how, as people communicate, “identity, action, and structure become possible and meaningful” (Kirby, 2007). This correlates with the conceptions of discourse, power, identity, and organization (Kirby, 2007). Kirby views gender as “organizing discourse by shaping or engraining communication habits” (2007). Along with Kirby’s thinking, other researchers reveal that “sexual inherent in ‘man-made’ language can propose alternatives to the current linguistic structure” (Prividera, 2006). This being said, most research is done on the basis that men and women organize their words differently, which leads to different views, different ways of understanding, and, in general, different ways of speaking. Men and women will use different ways to say the same thing (Inong, 2009). Communication differences between men and women does make a difference in the...