You Just Don T Understand Summary

In the video lecture presented by Deborah Tannen, He Said, She Said, Tannen emphasizes that men and women grow up in very different social worlds. When boys grow up, they learn that there is often going to be an inequality of force in any conversation. For girls, however, they feel that equality is very important and that it needs to be enforced through sympathy-based bonding. As adults, these different messages behind socialization can often lead to confusion, miscommunication, and, sometimes, hurt feelings. Tannen explores the difficulties of cross-gender communication and how we can overcome them by understanding where these conversational rituals come from. As a reflection on Tannen’s lecture, this paper will analyze how the different developments of boys and girls lead to the different views men and women have on the world. First of all, childhood and friendship is perceived differently by each gender.

In the article Why My Mother Can’t Speak English by Garry Engkent, the men appear to hold more power than the women. The son shows that men have the power by taking control away from his mother and making decisions for her. The father shows this by preventing the mother from learning English and forcing his opinions onto her. Feminist theory examines how women in a piece of writing may be marginalized (Kennedy). It is important to examine this piece of writing with feminist theory because of the way that the dynamics in the relationships reflect patriarchy.

Gender derives its formative meaning from culture and societal values, it is not a universal entity as there are various cultures, societal values, beliefs, and preferred ways of organizing collective life across the globe and even within a single culture the meaning of gender varies over time. Chapters three and four of Gendered Lives by Julia T. Wood helps to insightfully look at those views, and rhetorical movements (women and men’s movements) that have overtime influenced, defined and given various meanings to gender (masculinity and femininity).

Deborah Tannen’s case study entitled “Can’t We Talk?” is the most relevant reading that I have ever done for any class. It relates to a problem that every person regardless of age, race or sex, will have to face many times in his or her lifetime. The problem is that men and women communicate differently and these differences can often lead to conflict. This case study is very informative because it helps to clarify the thought process of each sex. That said this reading leaves the reader somewhat unfulfilled because Tannen does not offer a solution to the problem.

In Tannen’s essay, the problem seen in society is that of marking, more importantly the marking of women. When referring to the

Many college students find themselves struggling, while trying to write papers in their English classes. This book was written to help you though these struggles. They say/I say by Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein is a book that was designed to help students be better writers. I think that this book is absolutely a huge help to anyone in need of becoming a much more confident and better writer. This book has helped me learn how to write more structured sentences and how to form them in ways that sound better and are also more grammatically correct than before. I have learned how to properly demonstrate and use many writing techniques such as making quotations, playing the believing game, how to write strong summaries, how to plant a “naysayer”, and incorporate “so what?” and “who cares?” into my writing. This book can be extremely helpful to anyone in need of assistance or for people interested in

Traditionally, men are viewed as strong, dominant and logical, while women are regarded as the weak sex, thus being dependent on the males to make decisions and to protect them as well as their children. These roles go far back in time when males in fact had to protect their families from other tribes, wild animals etc. Even today the same values are applied both in real life and in media. In general a woman is depicted as wife, mother or a sex object. (Sex, Gender, Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation”, Year unknown).

In Tannen’s book, You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, she begins with the basis of her general idea: “Many years ago I was married to a man who shouted at me, "I do not give you the right to raise your voice to me, because you are a woman and I am a man. This was frustrating, because I knew it was unfair. But I also knew just what was going on. I ascribed his unfairness to his having grown up in a country where few people thought women and men might have equal rights” (You Just...). This personal experience of hers seems

Chapter 5 of They Say I Say is a very interesting chapter because it talks about improving your writing. In the chapter, they talk about learning how to state your own opinion without sounding biased. I believe that one great example of this is when the author exclaims, “I have a problem with what liberals call cultural differences.” This type of writing is important because you can express your own views and opinions without sounding biased. This type of writing only works if you can integrate parts of their argument into your own. Another method discussed in this text was using references to things you said prior to that. One good example of this could be when it states that,“ We would argue that voice markers we identified earlier, are extremely

In this piece, Tannen is “sad” and disappointed that women are still treated differently than men are. According to Tannen, there is nothing a woman can resort to if she does not want to be judged. That is, no woman is “unmarked”. For example, she states that “There is no woman's hair style that can be called standard, that says nothing about her. The range of women's hair styles is staggering, but a woman whose hair has no particular style is perceived as not caring about how she looks…” (390). If a woman were to opt for a plain hairstyle, it would still give a message. In writing about this, Tannen comes to a startling conclusion. She finds that, even today, women have less

In this essay I will explore the different schools of feminism such as Marxist, liberal and radical feminism, who share the view that women are oppressed in a patriarchal society but differ in opinion on who benefits from the inequalities. Each school of feminism has their own understanding of family roles and relationships which I will assess through this essay.

To begin, Tannen’s article shows a primarily positive tone. She maintains a casual tone as she compares the dissimilarities between men and women’s communicative interactions. To further exemplify, Tannen first gives an example of either a male or a female encounter and then contrasts it with comparative words such as “but” or “while.” She uses language to divide but not exalt one language preference in greater esteem than the other. In her passage regarding apologizing,

In the essay Sex, Lies, and Conversation Deborah Tannen focuses on the differences and lack of communication between men and women though observations. She came to the conclusion that men were not lacking in their listening, but they were however listening in a different way than the women did. On the other hand, men aren’t the only people that have terrible communication skills. In many ways, these differences between the two genders can cause major conflict when not understood by the opposite side. A few examples of lack of communication may be when women don’t decide where they would like to eat, men who walk away from an argument rather than talking it out, and their decision making processes.

The author explains to us that many women are subject to subservient functions (Lakoff 46). The roles the sexes play in society have a determination in how they are treated Robin states (Lakoff 46). She tells us about her first hand experiences of this, which cause the reader to sympathize for her (Lakoff 46). The author thinks that we will find two different ways of discrimination women face in language. The author explains the way that women are taught to use language and the way that general language treats them (Lakoff 46). This is where the reader starts to see the problems that women may face. The rhetorical strategy ethos used helps the reader feel for her cause as if it were happening to them first hand. This makes the reader aware of what is going on. At this point the audience can start to

There is often miscommunication between the sexes, whether it is spouses, friends, siblings, or parents. The miscommunication between the sexes is not intentional; it is simply because of the differences in the way men and women think and interact. In Deborah Tannen’s essay, “But What Do You Mean?,” Tannen identifies the seven primary differences in which men and women interact. Of the seven differences between women and men interactions than Tannen points out, the most notable ones that I have seen to be true are apologies, jokes, and criticism.