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Subject:Re: Help Systems & Gender Differences From:Jim Venis <ujv01 -at- EAGLE -dot- UNIDATA -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 11 Apr 1994 09:02:08 MDT
> I read Dr. Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand" and enjoyed it a great
> deal. I found it as illuminating as my reading in the Myers-Briggs work on
> personality. The key points I absorbed from the Tannen book were:
> 1. Boys and girls grow up in different worlds, with different rules
> and that this explains why they communicate with different
> assumptions as adults.
> 2. Generally, men communicate to establish and maintain status.
> 3. Generally, women communicate to establish and maintain community.
> I have yet to find a way to use this understanding in my writing, however.
> I think of the information I have to transmit as gender-neutral, and as
> something that is irrelevant to questions of interpersonal status or
> community.
> Has anyone else read Tannen's book? Has anyone else codified her ideas for
> use in your technical writing? --Jim ujv01 -at- unidata -dot- com
