Just Pitschin’ Ideas: Mind the Genderlect Gap

by Madison Pitsch

Dear Madison,

Why do I feel like my significant other just isn’t getting it? It feels like I’m talking in a different language sometimes. Please help!

Answer:

Ah, the Genderlect Styles. Genderlects means the speaking of different dialects between two genders. Imagine, we all speak the same language, but men and women use it differently. It is largely believed in some communication scholar circles that women and men do speak “different languages.” Their reasoning for this is that we all grow up in different gendered-speech communities. As children, we tended to play with the people of our same sex. Therefore, girls grew up speaking with girls and boys grew up speaking mainly with boys. Obviously there is some mixing and special circumstances, but for the most part, this is how we grow up.

Theorists also observed the ways in which mothers interacted with their children. They noted that mothers of girls often used longer, more complex sentences, while mothers of boys used short and direct sentences. So if you feel that you and bae are speaking different languages, you’re kind of right.

Let me give you an example. If you are a girl, and you are talking to a boy about your problems, what does he do? He offers you solutions. You probably don’t like that all too much. He’s not doing that to be rude, or condescending (I hope!). He’s doing that because the male speech community has conditioned him to be that way.

How about an example for the guys. Let’s pretend you are speaking with a girl. She goes on and on, sharing her emotions, feelings and telling stories. She keeps encouraging you to talk and tell her about your day. You tell her it was good, and she gets confused because, “That’s it? Your day was just good? No, like what happened today? How was it?” This is the difference between men and women. Women use what is called rapport talk, which means they go into great detail, cover every inch of topic and will probably go back to describe it a little more. Men use what is called report talk. Report talk is just like it sounds, like reporting the weather. It is just how it is.

So what can we do to fix it? The author of this theory suggests sensitivity training. While that may be a far cry for broke college students to attend genderlect sensitivity training, she’s on to something. Maybe rather than assuming the person you’re miscommunicating with just doesn’t care about what you are saying, try to remember the natural differences in communication. Be aware of how the opposite sex communicates and try to adjust your communication accordingly. But take heart, you are not crazy for thinking you guys are on different planets!

Best wishes,

Madison