Lisa Hsu's Paper

Sex, Lies, and Conversation

Man expects to have a silent wife while woman wish to have a conversational husband. This is a paradox but it will not be a paradox once the different habitual ways of woman and man align themselves in conversation are being understood and accepted.

In Deborah Tannen’s research, she points out how man and woman are very different in having conversations. The attitude toward having a conversation in public is simply different. For women, talk creates intimacy and they are afraid of being pushed away, however, for men, they talk because they want to show off their ability and intelligence and most important to assure their independence and status in their hierarchical world; they don’t feel like being put down and pushed around. When conversation takes place at home, women think they are free to talk because they won’t offend anyone. By switching secrets, thoughts, feelings and impressions they hope to create the sense of closeness between their husband and themselves. Men, on the other hand, think they are free to be silent at home because they have no one to be defending against and they don’t have to be on guard to protect their position. Basically, women see conversation as a means of establishing rapport and men view it as debate and competitive event.

Few interesting factors in conversational patterns of men and women are also mentioned in Tannen’s research such as eye contact, women faced each other when they talk but men look elsewhere, women talk in length and one topic while men talk shortly and jump from one topic to another, women ask probing questions and often provide self experience to show support, agreement and understanding but men usually ease and dismiss problems, and women give listener-noise and often give participatory listenership — anticipating what the other is about to say — while men give silent attention.

To vanish misunderstanding in conversation between male and female, being aware of the conversational problems and different conversational patterns of each sex is the key. There is no right and wrong in putting a conversation, men and women are born to be different hence the way they talk and act is different. Logically speaking, their attitudes toward having a conversation and social positions have made them behave differently in communicating each other. But whether understanding the psychological and social conversational format and attitude within both sex or not could actually alter a conversation to an agreement or disagreement at the end.

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