Curious, Healing

Subtitle: Women and Men in Conversation

Recommended to me by: a friend

My friend was telling me about a gathering where one person had a knee injury. All the women who stopped to chat with the injured person asked how she was doing and how she had gotten injured. All the men talked about their own knee injuries or other injuries they had experienced. My friend said the men were trying to save the injured person’s pride and equalize status by saying they had gotten injured too. I sputtered that that was a very generous interpretation, but I didn’t necessarily agree. She recommended this book.

The book was published in 1990, and it shows. There is an updated edition from 2007, but I got the older edition from the library.

Tannen’s thesis is that women talk to support intimacy, and men talk to compete for status. The first half of the book has many examples, without ever mentioning sexism or cultural influences, not to mention non-binary people. Men protect their independence at the same time as women are trying to build connection, causing discord in heterosexual relationships.

Just about when I was going to stop reading in frustration, Tannen says that Italian preschoolers of any gender debate heatedly with each other, because that is what Italian culture teaches and expects. She also talks about New York Jewish culture, where both women and men are more direct and outspoken, and less direct people interpret that as being rude and pushy.

Then she talks about sexism, where men who are direct and authoritative are interpreted as being powerful and appropriately masculine, whereas women are seen as overstepping their bounds and being arrogant or aggressive. She talks about how the press talked about Geraldine Ferraro in disparagingly gendered terms “but they didn’t mean to.” I wonder if she wanted to retract that generous interpretation after seeing how the press treated Hillary Clinton.

At the very end, she says that she is not advocating for anyone to change their style, but to keep in mind these differences and be open to believing in people’s good intentions. Like any less-dominant group, I think women already understand the status-oriented style quite well, and men need to pick up the slack by learning to work better with a collaborative style.

The book does have a few nods toward Not All Men, and Not All Women. It mentions gay and lesbian relationships once that I noticed. It has a terribly racist description of communication styles in a Mayan community in Mexico that I can only hope is improved in the 2007 edition.

My friend did a great job of summarizing the primary takeaway of the book (women talk for connection, men talk for status). It’s a useful thing to listen for.

Available at bookshop.org.