Gender Differences Essay

1027 Words5 Pages

A lot of studies have been done in order to know and document the social differences between both genders women and men. "This theory about gender does imply that gender differences are flexible, because they are dependent on the immediate social role of individuals. For example, individuals occupy many roles simultaneously, all of which impinge on their behavior. Work roles, such as leadership positions for instance, might override their gender roles and reduce gender differences" - Eagly & Johnson, 1990. One of the aspects that have been studied is the amount of talking between women and men. It is known universally that women talk a lot than men. Louann Brizendine, the founder and director of the University of California, published a book …show more content…

They rated the total number of words that each volunteer spoke daily for 17 of 24 hours. In most of the students, the number of words spoken by men and women were the same. The two genders came out just about even in the daily rates: women at 16,215 words and men at 15,669 words. By this result, James Pennebaker broke the myth of women being chattier than men. In New Zealand, too, research suggests that men generally controls the talking time. Margaret Franken compared the amount of talk used by female and male ‘experts’ assisting a female TV host to interview well-known public figures. In a situation where each of three interviewers was entitled to a third of the interviewers’ talking time, the men took more than half on every occasion. In conclusion, Social context and relative power determine who talks more, men or women. Reaching the question ‘Do women talk more than men?’ can’t be answered with a straight ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The answer is rather, ‘It all depends.’ It depends on many different factors, including the social context in which the talk is taking place, the kind of talk involved and the relative social confidence of the speakers, which is affected by such things as their social roles (e.g. teacher, host, interviewee, wife) and their familiarity with the

Open Document