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Gender Communication

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GENDER COMMUNICATION The Bible says that God created man and woman on the sixth day and then He rested on the seventh day. I like the version that says God created man on the sixth day, and rested on the seventh day, and on the eighth day God created woman then nobody rested. This is a joke commonly told by men to describe how differently most women communicate, and although greatly exaggerated there is some truth to it. There is no denying it, men and women communicate differently. Men mostly communicate to get status or simply to share information, while women communicate to be more intimate and connect. I will show you how I both follow this standard and how I break away from it. “Men typically ascribe some kind of reason or bottom line to the talk of women…” (Johns et al. 76) I, like most men communicate to share information. When people tell me things I usually think that they must be going somewhere with it, that they have a point to what they are saying. This is mostly true of men, but not always true of women. For example, my friend Caitlin called me up to “vent” because she was angry over a recent misunderstanding. She proceeded to tell me all about it and I made the mistake of asking her “so…what’s your point?” Needless to say she thought I was a jerk and hung up on me. I did not know at the time that all she wanted was a little empathy but that’s not how I was used to communicating. “…men typically see concern as condescending…” (Johns et al. 77) I unlike most men do not see concern as condescending. I like it when people genuinely care about me and I try to treat them the same way. For example, I recently had a former church leader of mine call me up. He wanted to know how I was doing, even though I hadn’t seen him in months. It meant a lot to me that he would take the time to show he still cared about me. Men and women communicate differently,

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