Communicative Situations 2: Cross-Gender Interaction

Selamat Malam~

I was not able to attend last week seminar as I need to attend an internship interview at the company, Pfizer. However, I can really imagine the exciting debates between the ladies and the gentlemen in the class. As such, I took some time off to read up the lecture notes and try to understand why languages can be sexists and what makes men and women to speak differently.
I have noted that no matter whether is it the kinds of topics discussed, the ways ideas are expressed or the choice of words, both gender groups do it differently and the fundamentals of the interaction styles of men and women are quite distinctive.

Take for example of a social gathering between friends. I have always notice that in the beginning, people will always engage in more general topics e.g. updates about life etc as a group. But thereafter, the kinds of topics discussed will move into more specific ones. On one hand, the guys will talk about army (trust me, we guys can talk about the same old army stories, forever), career, cars, soccer, investments etc. On the other hand, the ladies will start to chat about fashion, gossips, boyfriends, travel plans and the like. When this happens, the big group will usually be divided into 2 smaller groups with the guys in one group and the ladies in another. However, this always work quite well because it is quite difficult to establish a common topic that will interest everyone who is present especially when it is fairly evident that the guys and ladies place different emphasis and interests in different topics.

Next, I also find that men and women express their ideas and emotions differently. On one hand, when it comes to the situation about bringing ideas and opinions across, the men often adopt a more open and aggressive approach. Sometimes, they may also take on a defensive stand when their ideas are being challenged. For the ladies, they are more likely to adopt a softer and peaceful approach in their expressions and try to avoid unnecessary conflicts and misunderstandings. However, when it comes to expressing their emotions, the men often try to hide how he actually feels. Yet for the ladies, they are more open in expressing their emotions sometimes even in public. At the same time, unlike for the men, the women will often relate their problems to their friends.

Of course, there are still many aspects of interaction styles between genders. However, to get a deeper understanding, we will probably have to write out a long research paper on the topic. However, as we exposed ourselves to what have been covered in the lecture and take note of how we interact with members of the opposite sex, it is fairly easy to come up with more examples of similarities or differences on interaction styles between genders.