Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
This book was referenced at an event I attended several years ago about women and the law. I finally picked it up recently and it is filled with gendered assertions with no support. It also occasionally relied on outdated studies that are truly concerning and it ignored context around communications.
informative
medium-paced
I went into this assuming it would be very outdated. It is in some aspects. You need to go in with a couple of asterisks:
* Tannen argues that men value status and women value connection. Maybe we're culturally socialized to that, but we all know examples of women who value status and men who value connection. You have to insert "people who value connection" when she says "women" and "people who value status" when she mentions men.
*She also makes this out to be some kind of dicotomy, but I think we all can think of virtues that people might value outside of status or connection. For example, a person who values honesty more than status or connection is going to have a different impressions and take-aways from conversational misunderstandings than people who value relationships, for example. It's not just status and connection.
* Also just insert "white American culture" when she generalizes about what "our" culture values or how they communicate.
She does try to include some examples outside of America and outside of white-ness, and the epilogue is useful. I'm surprised the whole "men don't ask for directions" came from her book and not elsewhere- funny that.
But if you need a reminder that "people value things differently" when you're dealing with communications, this is a good book for that.
Listened via Hoopla
* Tannen argues that men value status and women value connection. Maybe we're culturally socialized to that, but we all know examples of women who value status and men who value connection. You have to insert "people who value connection" when she says "women" and "people who value status" when she mentions men.
*She also makes this out to be some kind of dicotomy, but I think we all can think of virtues that people might value outside of status or connection. For example, a person who values honesty more than status or connection is going to have a different impressions and take-aways from conversational misunderstandings than people who value relationships, for example. It's not just status and connection.
* Also just insert "white American culture" when she generalizes about what "our" culture values or how they communicate.
She does try to include some examples outside of America and outside of white-ness, and the epilogue is useful. I'm surprised the whole "men don't ask for directions" came from her book and not elsewhere- funny that.
But if you need a reminder that "people value things differently" when you're dealing with communications, this is a good book for that.
Listened via Hoopla
informative
medium-paced
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
medium-paced
It's one of those books that's not really wrong, but also not really right either? Idk...it's a good theory on gendered communication, but SUPER generalized. She has a tendency to prove her point mostly through examples rather than direct research. Anecdotes have their time and place and in my opinion she uses waaaay too many.
Not everything is on point, but Tannen forces her readers to think much more intentionally about cross-gender communication. I felt like I learned a good bit, especially through discussing the material with male and female friends to see what they thought.