I'll start off with this joke i got a while back via email...
A husband was trying to prove to his wife that women talk more than men. He showed her a study which indicated that men use about 10,000 words per day, where as women use 20,000 words per day. His wife thought about this for a while. She then told her husband that women use twice as many words as men because they have to repeat everything they say.
Her husband looked stunned. He said “What?”
I had another common experience of using the word "her" to describe the country. E.g. The people in Singapore appreciate her. Something like that; according to my secondary school teacher, it is used to described the motherland, therefore her instead of it should be used. But when I studied history in NUS, my tutor found it very puzzling as to why we are using her instead of it, but realized it from the other history tutors that it was common in Singapore and apparently only we use it?~
Okay, enough deviation ...
soooo,
Do men and women talk differently?
Generally, I think so - like men talk soccer, sports and women talk fashion, shopping, etc, etc, etc. But I think there are changes to what people talk about. When you flip open the newspaper, you see ladies giving comments on soccer too and talking about other sports like netball and floorball is common among ladies too? There have been emphasis on grooming nowadays and I do think that more men are now more conscious about how and present themselves and seeing males talking about beauty products and facials is not such a rarity. I had a male friend in poly who will tell us he is going to facials with his mom and eating bird nests *haha* So I guess we do not have to gasp and hyperventilate if we see more and more males talking about grooming, facial wash and the likes =P.
I think what Dr Deng mentioned about the accommodation by men when they change the words they use. I think that familiarity and politeness (negative and positive) comes into play here. When talking to us, my friend will use all the vulgarities, in a joking manner, he will tell us to"gnd (go and die)" and all the likes or he will tell us our bag is nice (positive politeness). But for girls that he is not so close with, he will exhibit negative politeness and then will change the way he talks - more gentle.
But no matter what or who talk more in public or private space, I do think we complement each other. Like women are good listeners, they elicit listener responses and they are able to listen and provide rapport. They are able to provide back channel support to the men, listening to their grouches about their bosses or work problems after a hard day at work. They provide listener responses to show that they are listening attentively to what the men says and I think many do appreciate having a spouse to go home and talk to and the spouse can provide support in times like this. Imagine going back to a house where your spouse and you are both fighting to speak and nobody is listening, that will be madness wouldn't it? =) And I do appreciate having a response from the listener, else I would be thinking that the other party is not paying attention to what I am saying at all!
But I think it would be a good topic to study the conversations of the very patriarchy countries such as ;do the wives only listen to their husband's grouches? Or do the husbands actually ask the wives "How was your day?" like a wife ask them?
In terms of using the derogatory words, I think that using words such as manpower, chamber maid, mankind is not derogatory but sometimes baseless claims and accusations can really be insulting. For example, the claims that women are bad drivers (does men have a problem with us? - loved what anna said in class that day) and scolding each other "prostitutes" is really something I cannot stand. To use the word prostitute is really damaging, I had heard fights accounts where the ladies are at each other throats, screaming such insulting words at each other which I think is really degrading.
But sometimes lets sayyy... for chambermaids, I think it relates more to women because they are more suitable for the job and historically, only women can do such jobs because of several reasons; I like to propose some new reasons, the reasons that some jobs are suitable for women because they are more attentive to details, such as being a chamber maid, they can spot minute amount of dust and dirt and serve the people staying in the hotels better, something most men cannot do. Maybe this is changing, but I do not know. Some of my speculations.
On a positive note, one funny little issue I had a problem with - I had worked at the hospital as a Patient Service Associate and asked a colleague whether there were any sisters who were males. She said yes and I asked her "what do you call them then? Brother?" She burst out laughing when I asked her that; she told me "we just call them by their names" But then again, does it matter if we call them sister/brother, Missy (some elderly seniors call nurse missy) or Mr Nurse? Does it matter if we call them dinner lady or "dinner gentlemen" or housewife or househusband? As long as they can cook well, take care of the house well and perform their jobs as nurses well, I would not mind having a male nurse/dinner gentlemen/househusband.
Someone in my life course and ageing tutorial asked, why is in all the sociology modules we talk about gender, males and females? Because there is males and females in the society. Haha, not sure how it relates to this week's lecture but just thought i bring it up anyway since we are talking about gender. A question to ponder, will gender equality ever be achieved? Can anything actually help to bridge the inequality? education or other institutions? But on the other hand, do you want gender equality?
Alright, till next wednesday, have a great weekend ahead!! =D
soooo,
Do men and women talk differently?
Generally, I think so - like men talk soccer, sports and women talk fashion, shopping, etc, etc, etc. But I think there are changes to what people talk about. When you flip open the newspaper, you see ladies giving comments on soccer too and talking about other sports like netball and floorball is common among ladies too? There have been emphasis on grooming nowadays and I do think that more men are now more conscious about how and present themselves and seeing males talking about beauty products and facials is not such a rarity. I had a male friend in poly who will tell us he is going to facials with his mom and eating bird nests *haha* So I guess we do not have to gasp and hyperventilate if we see more and more males talking about grooming, facial wash and the likes =P.
I think what Dr Deng mentioned about the accommodation by men when they change the words they use. I think that familiarity and politeness (negative and positive) comes into play here. When talking to us, my friend will use all the vulgarities, in a joking manner, he will tell us to"gnd (go and die)" and all the likes or he will tell us our bag is nice (positive politeness). But for girls that he is not so close with, he will exhibit negative politeness and then will change the way he talks - more gentle.
But no matter what or who talk more in public or private space, I do think we complement each other. Like women are good listeners, they elicit listener responses and they are able to listen and provide rapport. They are able to provide back channel support to the men, listening to their grouches about their bosses or work problems after a hard day at work. They provide listener responses to show that they are listening attentively to what the men says and I think many do appreciate having a spouse to go home and talk to and the spouse can provide support in times like this. Imagine going back to a house where your spouse and you are both fighting to speak and nobody is listening, that will be madness wouldn't it? =) And I do appreciate having a response from the listener, else I would be thinking that the other party is not paying attention to what I am saying at all!
But I think it would be a good topic to study the conversations of the very patriarchy countries such as ;do the wives only listen to their husband's grouches? Or do the husbands actually ask the wives "How was your day?" like a wife ask them?
In terms of using the derogatory words, I think that using words such as manpower, chamber maid, mankind is not derogatory but sometimes baseless claims and accusations can really be insulting. For example, the claims that women are bad drivers (does men have a problem with us? - loved what anna said in class that day) and scolding each other "prostitutes" is really something I cannot stand. To use the word prostitute is really damaging, I had heard fights accounts where the ladies are at each other throats, screaming such insulting words at each other which I think is really degrading.
But sometimes lets sayyy... for chambermaids, I think it relates more to women because they are more suitable for the job and historically, only women can do such jobs because of several reasons; I like to propose some new reasons, the reasons that some jobs are suitable for women because they are more attentive to details, such as being a chamber maid, they can spot minute amount of dust and dirt and serve the people staying in the hotels better, something most men cannot do. Maybe this is changing, but I do not know. Some of my speculations.
On a positive note, one funny little issue I had a problem with - I had worked at the hospital as a Patient Service Associate and asked a colleague whether there were any sisters who were males. She said yes and I asked her "what do you call them then? Brother?" She burst out laughing when I asked her that; she told me "we just call them by their names" But then again, does it matter if we call them sister/brother, Missy (some elderly seniors call nurse missy) or Mr Nurse? Does it matter if we call them dinner lady or "dinner gentlemen" or housewife or househusband? As long as they can cook well, take care of the house well and perform their jobs as nurses well, I would not mind having a male nurse/dinner gentlemen/househusband.
Someone in my life course and ageing tutorial asked, why is in all the sociology modules we talk about gender, males and females? Because there is males and females in the society. Haha, not sure how it relates to this week's lecture but just thought i bring it up anyway since we are talking about gender. A question to ponder, will gender equality ever be achieved? Can anything actually help to bridge the inequality? education or other institutions? But on the other hand, do you want gender equality?
Alright, till next wednesday, have a great weekend ahead!! =D
on the listening part, from my own experience studying in nus, my female project mates tend to just listen. most of the time the guys do the talking. even when there are heated arguments over different viewpoints, the girls just keep quiet.
ReplyDeleteonly when the "bad guy" leaves, then the girls speak up and show their disagreement or agreement.
i mean, it's vrvrvr good to be a good listener, but for goodness sake, please speak up when it's necessary to do so.
Personally I speak differently when I speak to guys and girls. I do realise that. Sometimes when a guy friend speaks, we somehow expect him to say much more things, especially when it comes to backing up his claims.
ReplyDeleteLadies are better listeners in general, I do agree. However, I think it's different when they are quiet because they are afraid to offend the guy. Perhaps they feel they are more polite this way? At times, I see it as not being bold enough to air your views.
Hello,
ReplyDeletethank you for the comments
Andy, u sound fustrated hahaha ... but I think for some girls, they do partake in discussions earnestly and they do join in the arguments. I had to do groupwork for the whole of 3 years and I do see female teammates who can be very quiet and not speak up and those who sometimes literally gets into fights with the guys haha ...
sean: do you feel ladies give u good listener responses as comapared to guys? =)
Achieving complete equality between different genders may be a tall order, but the first step is probably awareness-raising of various practices which embody inequality, including that of language use.
ReplyDeleteInteresting discussion here. As to the use of conversational phenomena, I find that after doing research on the area, I myself am more aware of how I behave in a conversation, including the use of listener response and overlap. That's probably the positive effect of awareness-raising.
Hi Dr Deng,
ReplyDeleteyeah ... I think it really raises awareness, I have never given much thought about the words such as dinner lady and manpower before the lesson but that lesson really opened my eyes! =)