A Paradigm for Understanding How Men and Women Communicate Audrey Nelson PhD

I have a great paradigm that helps us understand and organize the different ways that men and women communicate. I want to begin with the direct, which is more the male style, indirect, more the female style. Let's go to her first. Honey, would you like to go out to dinner tonight? Now that appears to be a question, but really it's an indirect linguistic style that has embedded in it a comment. So the comment is hiding out behind the question. So the comment really is, what? Honey, I'd like to go out to dinner tonight. So men throw up their hands and they, Audrey, why can't she just come in and say it? I want to go out to dinner tonight. I feel like Italian food. You'll see her do this at work. Are, are you really going to do it like that? Really means it's code for, I don't think you should do it like that. So people say, why do women do this indirect thing? And I feel like I have to play 20 questions. It's often a self-defensive device because when women are more direct like men, she will often be accused of coming off too hard, too strong. And sometimes we have names for those women. Now let's look at men in contrast. Men tend to be much more direct. She says to him, Bob, how do you think I did in that presentation to the board? He thinks men are literal communicators. She asked me, so I'm going to tell her. Well, I've seen you do better. She's upset. She feels he's brash. He's harsh. He's uncaring. He's unfeeling because he has such a direct style. In his defense, he's saying, she asked me, I'm going to tell her. So men tend to be direct. Women tend to be more indirect. There's no right or wrong. These are different and really both have advantages and disadvantages. The next one is men tend to be more goal-oriented, women more process-oriented. Have you ever heard the saying, what's the bottom line? Speak to the point. That was born out of male culture. For her, it's a process. He says to her, well, I have those numbers by Friday at noon. Now that question could be answered with a yes or a no. She begins with the process. Well, you won't believe what happened to me last week. That new car broke down on the freeway. I had three people out with the flu, and on top of that, the computers were down. He still doesn't know, will he have those numbers by Friday at noon? She's process-oriented. She wants to tell the story. He wants to hear the goal. One word answer, nope, I'm not going to have those numbers for you. I can have them for you on Monday though. And often, that's all he wants. He doesn't want the process. In fact, if you look at men sometimes when she's going on in that process dialogue, he gets that kind of dazed look, that dog looking in the fan look, like all I want to know is will I have these numbers by Friday at noon? The next one is he is very independent. She is more interdependent. What does interdependent mean? What's the implication for that for women? She is more interested in connecting, relationships, networking. He has no problem standing alone, saying an opinion that might be counter to everybody in the group, but for her, building community, friendship, bonding is critical. Interdependent, that connection. The next one is men tend to be focused more on content, women on feelings. So what do I mean by that? You can even see it not only in the way they talk linguistically, their patterns, but also in the way they listen. If you ask a man what did someone just say, he can relay the content by organizing, enumerating it, categorizing it. Well, you just said three reasons why we will never make that budget go. And then he'll enumerate them and tell them to you. For her, she'll be focused more on the feelings. Is the person uncomfortable? Are they doubtful? We're going to get the collaboration and cooperation we need. So she focuses on that dimension of the communication. And then finally, men are very good at representing self. Women, in contrast, tend to be more other-focused. So if you have that Monday morning staff meeting, she'll say something like this, you know, we heard from everybody, but John, we haven't gotten your input yet. I'd like to know what you think about this project. She'll be other-oriented and she'll be sensitive to who's been talking, who hasn't been contributing. And in contrast, men are very good at saying what they think, what they want, what they believe. They're good at representing self.