“His Talk, Her Talk” by Joyce Maynard and “Man To Man, Woman To Woman” by Mark A. Sherman

When I look at the topic male-female communication, the first thing that comes up to my mind is that man and woman must have a very good communication, because there are only men and women in the world. But as I think a little bit deeper, there is something different between a man and a woman, different types of talking styles, different ways of thinking, and different point of views. For instance, if a guy thinks that he spends too much time on his girlfriend, but somehow she might think that he doesn’t have enough time to be with her, so that if they are not willing to communicate to solve this problem, they will break up very easily. So when two different kinds of people get together, problem and conflicts will appear between them. There are two articles “His Talk, Her Talk” by Joyce Maynard and “Man To Man, Woman To Woman” by Mark A. Sherman and Adelaide Haas. Both articles talk about the same topic male-female communication.

In the article “His Talk, Her Talk” by Joyce Maynard, she believes that men are not smarter, steadier, more high-minded than women. She tells an experience of her own to show that there is such thing as “men’s talk” or “women’s talk”. At the party that she attended, “it suddenly became apparent that all the women were in one room and all the men were in the other” (27). Of course, they redistributed themselves then, but no one had suggested they segregate.

Also, she feels that “the talk in the kitchen was simply, all the women, felt, more interesting” (27). She also mentions that man and woman are both have different types of talking. “I think I know my husband very well, but I have no idea what goes on when he and his male friends get together. Neither can he picture what can keep a woman friend and me occupied for three hours over a single pot of coffee” (27). When a group of women conversation to her, “is likely to concern itself with matters just as pressing as those broached by my husband and friends” (27). So her conclusion is that man knows woman talks different, and problems appear. Then man would ignore the problem by doing something else rather then listen to woman.

In the other article “Man To Man, Woman To Woman” by Mark A. Sherman and Adelaide Haas, they think that in the male-female communication, the spoken language can serve different functions for the sexes. They did a research with 166 women and 110 men, and they found out that “female friends report more talk than do men about relationship problems, family, health and reproductive concerns, weight, food and clothing. Men’s talk is more likely than women’s to be about music, current events and sports. Women’s topics tend to be closer to the self and more emotional than men’s” (28). Women’s topics are closer to the self and more emotional than men’s. In the same topic, men and women would have totally different comments.

Also between the same sex conversations, “women talk about other women much more than men talk about other men” (29). But different topic doesn’t damage the conversation that much, the key point is how they feel when they talk. “For men, talks with friends are enjoyed primarily for their freedom, playfulness and camaraderie” (29). For women, talking with the same sex is more emotional. “While many mentioned ease and camaraderie, the feature mentioned most often was empathy or understanding, which involves careful listening as well as talking.”(29) Women sometimes are sensitizes, men sometimes are not paying enough tension on women, so the misunderstanding will become bigger and bigger. That’s why men need to be a good listener, sometimes women would feel better even the men are just listen to what they say.

I recommend “Man To Man, Woman To Woman” to those who are struggling in male-female communication because this article is based on the information from the research. Also the other article “His Talk, Her Talk” is based on Joyce’s experiences and a lot of her thinking. Of course, sharing experiences means showing the real life examples, which are all the real things that really happens. But sometimes giving too many opinions will influent the reader. And on the other hand, using the research data to show differences between men and women conversation is better because the data is scientifically and reasonable, because the data that from the research are base on what the people are thinking. Also they have to do some calculation to have the outcome. So I recommend “Man To Man, Woman To Woman” this article.