Today in class, we had a very interesting discussion about gender and language. It actually surprised me that the claims about "male-speak" and "female-speak" were played out in the groups that we had. I was equally surprised when the mixed-gender groups got all loud and talkative, more so than the single-gender groups.
For your blog this weekend, I want you to observe language use over the next couple days and notice if/how gender plays a role in communication. Ask yourself "who is talking? about what? and how?" Are there interruptions, clarifications, hedges, questions, agreements, deferrals, arguments, etc?
Submit your own observations and then comment on the observations of others by Tuesday.
See you then.
Tiffany
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What was most salient regarding the group discussion in class was, indeed, the level of reticence in certain individuals.
In the male group, there was one individual who was expressly silent (and, as a course of the matter, has been silent the entire class for the most part, from what I've seen), whereas within the mixed group, three out of five women were nearly completely silent.
What draws this?
Regarding my own position with women, I find women are a much easier group with which to speak. Hyperbolic masculinity makes me uncomfortable, and in many cases I find it repugnant. Their dialogue is often hetero-normative, steeped in sexism/patriarchy, and really quite foreign to me.
Men very often don't seem to be capable of not seeing through gendered glasses, in the same way that women must feel entrapped by them.
I pity both lot, and wonder very much how human civilization will look when systems of gender are fully questioned.
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