Here's some points from the No side (it's biology not society):
- Size wise male and female brains differ (male brains are larger by 9% and while men and women have the same number of brain cells they are packed more densely in women), which leads to differences in how the brain functions in terms of communication.
- Female brain is greatly affected by hormones, which influence's values and desires as well as prioritizing what is important day-to-day (In my opinion, these findings could be used to make the argument that women are better situated for handling the psychological aspects of the second shift - definitely dangerous thinking in my opinion).
- A women's neurological reality is not as constant as a man's. Male brains have been compared to mountains (worn away over a millennia of time) while women are like weather (constantly changing)
- Neurological Differences: 1) different brain sensitivities to stress & conflict, 2) Use different areas to solve problems, process language, and experience emotion, 3) Process stimuli, hear, see, sense, and gauge others feelings, 4) Men us 7,000 words per day while women use 20,000 - studies claim that women get a dopamine and oxytocin rush that has been compared to orgasm-like, and 5) Women speak faster (250 words per minute) versus men (125 words per minute).
- Women have been programmed to keep social harmony through communication
- Deborah Tannen claims that "genderlects" exist: Brain sets up speech differences. Women use language to build consensus. Men use language to command others. (Rapport v. Report talk)
And some Points from the Yes side (society perpetuates these differences):
- Views communication as not biological hardwiring or programming, but a dynamic process that humans use to produce, interpret, and share meaning.
- Communication is based on our social identities (age, gender, sex, religion, race, ethnicity, class, nationality, etc): Aspects of a person's self-image derived from the social categories to which an individual perceives her/himself belonging.
- We communicate through intergroup communication, which balances our personal identities with our ingroup/outgroup statuses and we make comparisons about social groups both our own and others
- Communication is based on the salience of gender and sex as both a personal and social identity and the comparison of ingroup/outgroup status.
- Power and privilege determines how gender relates to communication style: 1) English is a patriarchal language, 2) Speech style is related more to women's relatively powerless position in society rather than essentialist characteristics like biology, 3) Differences due to socialization process, including literature that asserts differences.
- Through communication, we culturally develop and disseminate hierarchies of gender and sex: We create labels, ascribe meaning to them, and use them to refer to one another as social groups.
So which side do you take? Are our communication styles as men and women based on biology or is it a socially constructed process that occurs through socialization and intergroup communication? Do you have examples from personal experience that can either confirm or refute these points?
Additional Resources:
Brenda Allen's Difference Matters web site: http://www.differencematters.info/
Deborah Tannen's works:
Louann Brizedine's The Female Brain -
All of these books could serve as a pop press book for your theory application paper!
