Comunicacion entre hombres y mujeres

Men and Women in Communication Essay
Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that even though men and women have a need for each other, they do not always think about the way they communicate and socially arrange themselves. In Deborah Tannen’s book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, published in 1991, the author talks abut the differences in communication between men andwomen. Her main task is to teach the reader what makes men and women so different when they communicate with each other. Among the topics, Tannen argues, we can emphasize the following: the ways male and female see social structures, the different ways both genders influence each other’s behavior, and the way both sexes use conflict to build intimacy. Male and female communication is not the same as itwas 19 years ago, when the book was published. Now we are watching in some ways differences in Tannen’s arguments. Although Tannen’s ideas about men’s hierarchical social structure and women’s egalitarian structure were once true, society is suffering constant changes and it is not longer true that women are not being confrontational in order to avoid conflict anymore.

I agree with Tannen’sargument about the way women and men perceive social structure, with men’s structure being based on hierarchical principles and women’s on egalitarian. In Tannen’s section, “Different Social Structures,” she talks about males giving orders to get other people to follow them; as a result, she says, males are more competitive and arrange themselves in a hierarchical structure in which a leader is atthe top and “less powerful” men are at the bottom. Nowadays, in the United States is common for men to use the words “I” and “You” during their conversations as a symbol of giving orders. For example on an altercation involving two military officers, one captain and the other one a major, the major accused the captain of being incapable of putting together an unsuccessful invasion to the city ofKunduz in Afghanistan. Demanding an answer for the failure, the major used the “I” and “You” language. In the Army is where we commonly see a hierarchical social structure, in which the people at the top are the ones with more power and control. In contrast to male communication, Tannnen says, women use group language and proposals such as “let’s” and “we” with the purpose of avoiding conflict.However, by using the word “let’s” word men can sometimes feel underestimated by women and can cause conflict. A good example presented by Tannen is in section “Don’t Tell Me What To Do,” where a woman called Diana often begins statements with "Let's." This makes Nathan, her husband, angry. He takes Diana's "Let's" as a command; in brief, he feels she is ordering him around. Like most men, he resistsbeing told what to do. In contrast to Nathan, to Diana, she is making suggestions, not demands. Like most women, according to Tannen, she makes her requests as proposals rather than orders. Adding to Tannen’s argument, she talks about the social structure that males maintain. She says that it can be easily observed in the sorts of activities they practice and prefer. Males like to playcompetitive games such as soccer, handball, hockey and other sports involving competition because they know that these types of activities will allow them to rank themselves according to their skills. In contrast to male preferences, young girls prefer whole-group activities such as jump rope or hopscotch. This is because women arrange themselves in an egalitarian structure, where everyone is equal and hasthe same sense of power. In other words, women are likely to organize in a community social structure, where the power is of the community and not of the individual, and all they do is for the communal good. In their egalitarian structure, women try to include every member of their gender, unless one of them does not want to go with the established rules.

In contrast to what Tannen claimed...