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Deborah Tannen Sex Lies And Conversation Summary

Decent Essays

In “Sex, Lies and Conversation” Deborah Tannen argues that the problems of men and women in marriage are caused by a misunderstanding rather than lack of communication. Throughout the passage she discusses theses misunderstandings and reveals the solution to the problem. Tannen effectively opens with an anecdote about how she was at a gathering for a women’s group and men were invited. She talks about how one guy was very talkative, offering ideas and telling stories, while his wife was sitting in silence. Towards the end of the evening Tannen commented that “women frequently complain that their husbands don’t talk to them”. The man quickly agreed with Tannen and admitted that his wife was the talker in their family and if it weren’t for …show more content…

She found that at every age, girls and women faced each other directly. On the other side of things, she noticed that at every age, boys and men sat at angles to each other and looked elsewhere in the room. Tannen demonstrates this when she gives the example of a woman in college who was frustrated because every time she would try and talk to her boyfriend he would lay down and put his arm over his face. This signaled that he was taking a nap, but he insisted that it was the only way he could listen without being distracted. Tannen follows by saying, “I believe these systematic differences in childhood socialization make talk between men and women like cross-cultural communication, heir to all the attraction and pitfalls of that enticing but difficult enterprise”. She backs her claim by discussing a research she discovered in an issue of American Psychologist. The research revealed that children’s development is most influenced by the social structure of peer interactions. The research later showed boys and girls tend to play with children of their own gender, and their sex-separate groups have different organizational structures and interactive

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