While searching for bibliographic information (or at least a publication date) for the Robin Lakoff reading, "You Are What You Say," I came across this blog post by an individual who claims to know Lakoff. And I get the impression that he is responding to essentially the same ideas as those presented in our reading.
"Language and Women's Place" [his title, not mine, so please don't throw rocks ;-) ]
This post may present a nice place to continue, extend, and ultimately bring some (though not complete) closure to our class discussions.
For now, I'm going to let the linked item stand on its own, as I think it provides ample and obvious material to respond to. But, I may come back and point out some elements to consider and comment on.
Update on 5/28:
"...bring some closure to our class discussion." Ha, ha! That was a good one, and I should have known better. With 13 comments on this post and 12 comments on the "Robin, Britney, and Christina..." post, it appears the debate rages on.
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18 comments:
I read the article, it was o-k.
I like how he notes the classifications of speech between intimate, formal, etc.
I think that makes alot more sense and is much more relevent to our discussion about subjective language towards women. He mentioned how as the conversation becomes more formal, like before a court, the differences betwen men and women's language becomes fewer.
That makes sense, when you think of a male putting down a woman or domnating her through language, what type of "man" coms to mind? For me its one of those white trash hillbillies that you see on "cops" for domestic disturbance. Their type of environment is really informal and much more personal, maybe giving the male more oppourtunity to excercise his "sexist" or "demeaning" language" towards women.
and whats with that joke at the end of the article? about how men dont mature? c'mon
Is Rita Rudner a feminist, or does she just want to make a bias/sexist joke to discount any proffesional opinion she may have presented before?
and marriage
the blogger wrote "The last two experiences that helped me to change me was marrying a Phi Beta Kappa wife (an honor I was so far from reaching it is embarrassing)"
he says it was an honor to marry his wife, some one so intellectual and accomplished.
And later in the article frok Rita Rudner "Women had once thought that they should marry older men since they are more mature but then women realized that men don't mature so they might as well marry a younger one."
Rita, the woman, doesn't take a very serious approach to marriage and is insulting men by claiming that they never will mature. what is your evidence for this jabberwocky knowledge claim rita rudner? have you met and known every man in the world?
Is that a loop hole in this whole article? How the blogger describes his marriage as an honor and a changing experience in his life, while a noted female author makes a sexist joke and approaches marrying a man as choosing the lesser of two evils, by marrying a younger man if they are all immature anyways.
c'mon
lets be real
The author of this article (that answers to the Lakoffs "you are what you say") says that Lakoffs arguments do not hold in every contest because they are anectdotal. When we discussed it in class though, even if at the beginning some of us made the comment "these are not very strong argumentation", we found out that Lakoffs arguments were in fact really relatable and that was why they appeared to be stronger than any scientific explanation she could have given instead.
An other thing with which i do not agree with the author is that the people (female and male) who have the same social power will talk the same. A woman in my opinion, wether she is a teacher a lawyer or the president of the United States is always expected to have a softer and mellower tone than a man when she talks. This i think, goes back to that education we received as childs when the social power was not even in our thoughts.
I found something the Language Guy said that was a little funny. He said that Lakoff does not have any evidence of women and men speaking differently besides the anecdotal. His explanation of his view also seemed to be anecdotal because he was basing them on his own experience like his observations of anchor men and women. The thing that made Lakoff's book so powerful and influential was that many other women were able to relate to what she was saying. How can a man or Language Guy relate to Lakoff's message if he is not a woman? Therefore, since he cannot relate to Lakoff's view, he must find another view that he is able to relate with and so base his opinion off of that with his own experiences. This just makes we wonder if you can make a statement without taking a side. For me, both the view of Lakoff's and Language Guy's seem true because I have experienced both of these in my life. With Lakoff, I do see that I use tag questions to give others the view that I am being submissive, while with Language Guy, I see that as language gets more formal for both women and men, they are the same. Both of these views seem true to me because I have experienced both, but do I have to take a side in my view and choose one over the other?
I agree with the reading as it describes how girls communicate. For example: girls tend to add questions when communicating. For various reasons I have found this to be true just by having a conversation with both genders. Although Lakoff has an accurate way of stating that males and females have different ways in communicating and has evidence to back this up, I don't believe it is a very good discussion for debate. There are countless ways of how the opposite genders are different from one another; language being one of them. Not much agrument there.
I really agree with the idea that most differences in male and female speech comes from the way we are raised. I'm a child care cadet teacher at the school, and I even notice it there. Often times, girls are more incouraged to "be polite" or "play nice" while the boys are used to just hearing "stop" or "don't do that." It's like the stereotypes are already being impossed on these preschoolers and of course they will carry that along with them. Boys usually play games where they are tough and trying to dominate something else, while girls' games often include elaborate scenarios. I think that this plays a huge role in how they begin to speak. Boys give demands and make certain statements. (ex. "Move over, I'm the boss here and I'm taking over) Girls make suggestions and throw out ideas. (ex. "How about I be the mom, and you can be the sister.... etc)
This is the begining of the whole male dominance issue, and much of it comes out in the language that young kids begin using.
This article demonstrates that there are ciricumstances and exceptions to the rule. It is evident from our discussion that there is with no doubt a difference between how men and women communicate. The main argument being that women pay closer attention to trivial detail. I appreciate that this blogger demonsrtaed that all behaviors are circumstantial. This can be seen in the court room exmple. It is true that those on the same intellectual level will communicate and utilize similar language. It is clear that "You Are What We Say" is a bit one sided. This is a result of the mentality that men are often foun less intelligent of that of women, thus women often utilize more detail as a result of such knowledge. Also, it demonstrates frustration towards how women are often seen by what they say whereas men are often deemed by what they do. This blogger demonstrates that women and men aquire such language behaviors based on thier environment and it is often the case that females have been taught to pay attention to such deatil whereas men pay closer attention towards "greater pictures". Thus, I feel that the blogger demonstrates how behaviors are circumstantial and are affected not independently upon gender but by thier everday environment and experiences.
The other article he mentions about how men and women speak differently so they have trouble communicating is an article that we read earlier in the year in anthropology. We has an interesting disscussion. I said that in a group setting with men and women men tend to speak longer and tell stories so that they sound more intelligent, while women speak less beucase they are interupted by men. And when they do speak they make shorter statments. In our disscussion every male who talked told a story. The room was divided into males and females and we each had about 20 min to make comments. In our 20 min the girls had about twice as many speakers, and indevidual comments as the boys did in their 20 min. Just an interesting perspective that relates.
The issue of how women talk opposed to how men talk can be justified in a few ways. Firstly, men speak with "demanding" tones because in our society men are excpected to be in charge, we are ment to be providers (although there are exceptions) most women want a strong male to provide for them and protect them. this can be traced back to survival of the fittest where a women selects a man for his ability to provide food and protection. Pertaining to women however, they seem to speak so that they are not conflicting with anyone, it seems like women want to be accepted by everyone. This might be a product of history because history suggests that women have had a long history of oppresion.
The article was alright and it is weird how i have never noticed the difference in the way men and women talk. Language is such a huge part of living for everyone but it is also very overlooked. I think it is really interesting how men are just so straightforward and confident while women seem to "beat around the push" and seem to almost always lack confindence in converstation. I wonder if that has to do with our physical differences. Men are usually bigger and stronger while women are more gentle and smaller and physically weaker. The differences between men and women are so interesting and I am glad we are doing this whole language unit because now I notice more on how I talk compared to a guy. But like Tannen said "Boys and girls are raised differently and Tannen, a sociolinguist, noting this saw differences in how males and females talk as akin to cross-cultural differences, which, to a large degree seemed to let males off the hook for tending to try to dominate females by ignoring topics introduced by females, interrupting females more than males, and valuing the views of males over females. After all, boys are raised to be competitive and to dominate whomever they can" I think that is really interesting how men tend to pass a woman's thought or feelings but they respect a mans. Is it because we {women}are "weaker"?
I liked jamie's example of the preschoolers. Since the time we are able to interact with one another, the girls seem to be taught to "play nice" whereas and young boy is told "Stop!" Some might think this is just because of the person teaching us, but i think it is Society itself that trains us to be like we are. The interaction between the sexes can't be changed overnight, and for that matter, what is the problem with the ways the two sexes interact. No one seems to have much of a problem with the roles played UNTIL someone brings them up.
I agree with Jamie's comment. I think that since she is a part of cadet teaching, it shows a firsthand experience of how boys and girls are raised differently. Although some of us were reared as "tomboys" or "mamma's boys" we are generally treated a certain way according to our sex. Boy's get blue and trucks and cars while girls get pink and barbies. This is generall how it goes. This doesn't necessarily show a flaw in human developement but this is merely how we react to a person who is man or woman. I think that the purpose of this is to create a reason for why women talk the way they do and why men don't talk. very interesting topic.
i think that poeple look at this and they get all sorts od twisted. they really get twisted when the start to argue their main points. though i know that i sound like a passifis why cant you sit back and go hey thats the way its been thats the way it will be we use diffrent word for male and female discription. if you wanted to make it even take those word out and make a neutral word and see how far that gets you in this word.
i reall y do beilve that this is the way it is and its the way it will be till it changes.
I agree with the article about how the different genders speak. I completely agree with the way that he says women communicate. Women tend to add questions at the end of their sentences. I don't mean to pick on this person, but I never noticed how much women do this until we had a discussion in class about women and their tag questions and a lot of my female teachers tend to add tag questions at the end of their sentences!! For example, one day I was sitting in choir and we were deciding if we should sing "Leonardo.." for graduation and Mrs. Kirstein said, "Well I think it is a good idea. I mean, don't you think it's a good idea? It talks about dreaming, so I think it would be perfect. Don't you think so?" That discussion made me notice that women do that. Before the discussion I never noticed it or even cared. I agree with Selene's comment... I thought it was strange how the author said that women and men talk the same when they have the same social power because I don't see how having the same social power would make women talk the same as men. It all goes back to how we were raised and having a job that is the same social power as a man would not make her talk any different.
well of course men and women talk different. we both have different rolls in society so thats going to reflect the way we speak and present ourselves. womens roll is generally to be nurturing and take care of children while men do the hard physical work. (dont get mad all you girls who have a suppression complex). so women are deffinatly going to speak in a less threatening manner while men tend to impose their will on others. also keep in mind that although the roles of men and women are different, they are both just as important as the other. we could not exist with only one gender.
The reason males and females communicate and behave differently is because males and females are different. In class we made the observation that all men aren't aggressive and all women aren't passive, especially in relationships. Instead the man and woman compliment each others tendencies. The author of the blog points out that in some situations, namely formal ones, men and women behave similarly. That is because in those situations, like a courtroom, people aren't supposed to focused on gender. In more intimate settings however,gender and behavior is pivotal. This behavior stem directly from cultural and societal structure. There really isn't much to do about it.
The author of this blog is no doubt opinionated and unafraid to show it. He makes some bold statements some of which I want to agree with and others that I would deny. However, I cannot put my faith in those that appeal to me because he provides such little credibility and justifications for his statements. One in particular was the statement “science wants objectivity and feminists don't.” In that single sentence he judges the objectives of all feminists and of science at the same time. What more is the he doesn’t follow up this controversial statement with any kind of evidence. If research studies cannot provide confirmation to his statement then it’s only his personal opinion. Yes, research studies cannot be fully trusted, but at least they were reached by collaboration not one persons experience and opinion. It is pity that he doesn’t expand on this point because some of them are very intriguing and seem legitimate.
To address his point that when formal speech is used there is a greater leveling of language between genders, cultures, races ect. I would deduce that such is the case because the formal language, the word bank for formal language is limited in scope. This allows for much more compromise in form of words, but I would argue, personally, that inner feeling, ideas, opinions of the individuals speaking are as different as they would be in an informal conversation. Formal language provides for a limited structure that when expressed in those formal words only, the statements are indirect.
I trying to come up with some explanations for the points he made.
I also agree with Jamies idea about Preschool. It seems as if its pounded into our heads at young ages, for young girls to be more polite and nice and if i girl werent to be as such the would get a slap on the hand, where if a boy were to do it, the boy would get thinking and looked at normals like he said nothing wrong. Like kayla i never noticed how different girls/woman/ladies/females talk then man. As kayla said during that discussion in class, most all of the girls ended with a tag question, and if they didnt they were trying very hard not to. I think this a confidence issue, that way if a woman is wrong, then they wont be looked as THAT stupid of their answer was THAT wrong. Example: "2+2 should =4, thats right isnt it?" the womans gives some gray area by saying "thats right isnt it" just in case they maybe wrong.
Sorry to bring biology into this, but the concept of boys and girls being raised differently can be debated that it is innate or learned behavior. I think that though many women have a majority of similarities and shared behaviors as men do among their sexes, I still do not like to place them into those steotypes and/or roles in society indefinintely. There are always exceptions to the rule. I can see how the majority of women are more intelligent in school as an example is our present IB candidates. But this is just one example, there may be a greater amount men in IB at another school.
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