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Rosie (Northcrowe) wrote: <<Have you ever read the books by Deborah
Tannen (spelling of name?) about communicating between men and women?
She says that men tend to communicate based on status and competition
and women based on cooperation and building relationships.>>
Just a note: although Tannen's work is based on some research, her
book ("You don't understand me! Men and women in conversation", or
something like that) is pop psychology. Take it with a grain of salt.
There's more recent work ("Men are from Mars, Women from Venus" if I'm
remembering correctly, author's name not remembered) that my sister
(working on her M.A. in psych) mentioned in this context that seems to
provide a less simplistic view. The conclusion in the latter book is
that while men _tend_ to be more oriented towards the
individual/competition end of the spectrum, and women towards the
group/relationship end, there is _broad_ overlap between the two
sexes. If you accept Tannen's generalisation, you could be on pretty
shaky ground.
I do concur with her main point, however, which is that most of us
don't seem to understand the other sex all that well. (Actually, I
don't understand people all that well, whatever sex. "I'm so
confused!")
-- Geoff Hart #8^{)} <---needs more perceptive glasses!
