Sex, Lies and Conversation Essay Example
Sex, Lies and Conversation Essay Example

Sex, Lies and Conversation Essay Example

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1)The author claims that the men more likely to talking in public place, but less at home. The women is more likely to talk to their husband at home, but do not talk in the public. We see this when the author explain the reason. She states, “In the public setting of a guest lecture, men felt challenged to show his intelligence and display his understanding of the lecture. But at home, where he has nothing to prove and no one to defend against, he is free to remain silent. For his wife, being home means she is free from the worry that something she says might offend someone, or sparks disagreement, or appears to be showing off; at home she is free to talk.” This suggests the men likely to talk in public because they want to show their intelligence to other

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people, but women feel free to talk at home because they do not have to fear about creating conflict with others.

2)The author’s main belief in “Sex, Lies and Conversation”, is that both men and women come from two different cultures and that during a simple a conversation it would seem as if it was “cross-cultural communication”. Tannen states that in a research video, she noticed that during conversations between women, “their eyes anchored on each other’s faces and they faced each other directly”. However, for the men she states “they sat at angles to each other and looked elsewhere in the room, periodically glancing at each other”. She shows an example of a young couple where whenever she wanted to talk to him, he would lie down on

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the floor, close his eyes, and put his arm over his face.

She clearly thinks that he is taking a nap, but he insisted that he was blocking out everything around him and was listening extra hard. This is true because women think guys don’t care because they are not paying attention, but deep down they do, we just don’t know what’s going on inside their heads. The author claims that women regard talk as the “cornerstone of friendship”, while men rely more on sharing experiences than conversation. Because of these differences, Tannen says, the expectations of communication in marriage differ between the sexes. She also links physical positions as a major difference in the way men and women communicate with each other.

3)Tannen discusses the fact that men and women have a difficult time understanding each other because of their different expression or reaction toward a situation. Women and men tend to misinterpret each other’s signals, body language and/or expressions. Tannen, writes that “the tendency of men to face away can give women the impression they aren’t listening even when they are.” This is true because women think guys don’t care because they are not paying attention, but deep down they do, we just don’t know what’s going on inside their heads.

4)She asks if you think that women have unreasonable demands on communication expectations. In addition, you will receive a specific example of a personal experience. My view on women in communication is that they don’t have an unreasonable demand to communicate. As Tannen says, “For women, talk creates intimacy.” Also that the women’s greatest fear is being pushed away.

As for the men side of the conversation Tannen then says, “But men live in a hierarchical world, where talk maintains independence and status.”

Which then gives you the thought that men are on guard to protect themselves from being put down and pushed around? In her investigations of males Tannen found, that much like the girls, boys have their closest friends, but boys demonstrate their closeness to one another by doing things together instead of talking like the girls do. Since boys don’t consider talk as important as the girls do, and don’t practice it as a means of becoming closer to one another, boys do not know what a girl means when she wants talk. The girl wants intimacy, and they boy thinks she just wants to chat.

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