Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other? (Essay Sample)

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Sex, Lies and Conversation
Tannen’s article brings out a revelation of different behavioral traits that people hold. These traits are varied across gender. She entitles her essay ‘Sex, Lies, and Conversations’ to mean how people from different gender view others as lying to them when exchanging talks when actually they are not usually due to different behavioral characteristics and genetic makeup. In her compilation of the essay, Tannen simply wanted to pass a message to the reader concerning the theory of understanding each other. For instance, she mentions ‘lies’ when she was actually meaning misunderstandings. This is because according to her research, many break ups of friendships or relationships happen due to lies. Basically, a close review of the lies reveals that they are not actually lies but a sense of misunderstandings occurring between two parties. An example is the instant where she talks about a man closing his eyes as he listens to his wife and the wife thinks that the man is sleeping and ignoring conversation from the woman. In actual sense, the man is just trying to avoid communication destructors by closing his eyes but the wife interprets this as ignorance. This therefore becomes a sense of misunderstanding rather than lies.
She also mentioned about ‘sex’ in the essay, a phrase that brings out the meaning of differences due to gender. She was trying to put across information to the reader about the importance of understanding that different genders have different techniques of understanding and interpreting information. An example is a situation where Tannen brings out the conclusion that bonds between boys is similar to that between girls and that while the bond between girls is based upon talking and sharing secrets, boys do not assume talk as cement that binds a relationship. This means therefore that as they grow, men usually do not know the kind of talk that women want and so it becomes wrong for women to judge their men from the point of view of conversation.
Tannen points out conversation as the core thing that binds relationships. Nevertheless, the point she tries to bring out to the reader is that problems arise when people concentrate on assumptions. For instance a woman assuming that a man should be telling her a certain thing and the man expecting a certain talk from the woman. The truth is that based on personality and behavioral characteristics, men are totally different from women. A good example of behavioral trait is the tendency of men to keep switching topics during conversations while women tend to stick onto one topic. The switching of topics gives an impression from a woman point of view that the man is not liste...