COMMUNICATION! COMMUNICATION! COMMUNICATION!

COMMUNICATION! COMMUNICATION! COMMUNICATION!


*Please note that we do not say ALL men or ALL women.
We are discussing the majority, not the exceptions.*

So much has been written lately about women and men
speaking a "different" language. We are told that it
accounts for the lack of communication between the
genders, and that it is because the brains of women and
men process information differently. It would seem
from all of the information we are given by our culture
on this subject, that male brains have logical and
factual speech centers and females speak a gibberish
which is not understood or readily processed by the
male brain cells. This is really strange since there
is so much research reporting that women generally
excel in speech and language. Puzzling, isn't it?

Anyway, it is supposed to explain why a male many times
cannot `hear', or `understand', or tunes out what a
woman standing next to him is saying, yet can nearly
always get the score and game standing from a TV with
the sound turned low in the next room.

Funny thing is, if you think about it, both girls and
boys learn their *mother's* language. With few excep-
tions, it is women that talk to, and read to babies and
children of both genders. Input from dad is variable,
but generally, his contribution is usually small early
on in the child's learning of a language. We also note
that early schooling generally exposes children to
women teachers. Puzzling, isn't it?

So who or what is really to blame here since it cer-
tainly isn't the result of men and women speaking a
different language? It's easy to reply: "a culture
which allows males to be dominant and thereby gives
them leave to be unresponsive." (another topic)

Fact is, it's *our* problem and we need to deal with it.
We can start by observing our interaction with chil-
dren. We must do that if we ever hope to change the
status quo. It is a scary thing to monitor oneself and
find one's unconscious prejudices and cultural condi-
tioning being passed on to our young by (gasp!!!) US.
Even teachers who prided themselves on treating both
genders the same were shocked to learn that they really
didn't! (Sadker, Myra & David, 1994, _Failing at
Fairness_, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY)

That being said, we also have to note that there is still
more we can discover and correct, if necessary, in
ourselves. Some women do jabber on incessantly; some
women pander to men to avoid unpleasantness and activi-
ties associated with their jobs, for example, and this
we can do something about. If we want to be treated
like a responsible adult human being we have to start
acting like one. Even then, one must expect to face
some harrowing experiences.

Nearly every woman who has worked outside of the home can
relate an experience similar to this one. You attend a
meeting and are the only woman (many times the first
woman ever to be) present. Feeling small hardly de-
scribes the situation, but hold on -- it gets worse. A
problem is stated and the group is requested to present
solutions. You respond and ... horrors! No one even
acknowledges you or your suggestion. Shortly after-
wards, a man proposes YOUR suggestion -- the one you
just made -- the one that was ignored. The group
responds with, "great idea, Tom." As the bottom drops
out of your confidence with a nasty thud, you find out,
perhaps for the first time, that even women can have an
urge to kill.

However, we must persevere. There are other things we
can do, or learn to change in ourselves. There was a
woman in our department named Pat who played the "I'm
just a poor lil' old stupid woman" game to perfection.
She sat around taking it easy while males in the de-
partment did much of her work for her. That is until
Bill came along. Fluttering up to him in her usual
wounded bird manner, she chirped out her tale of female
deficiency. Needless to say, Bill rose very high in our
estimation when he replied softly and with careful
kindness, "Pat, it's women like you who make men like me
male, chauvinist pigs."

We not only can change our programming, we must over-
come it and be strong enough to deal with the results
of our changes. Archaic programming has destroyed many
women and it will destroy us if we do not continually
work at changing our attitude and expectations. We are
strong. We are intelligent. We deserve to be heard
and we shall be.