“10 things your boyfriend doesn't want to hear”

http://www.yourtango.com/201053016/10-phrases-your-boyfriend-doesnt-want-hear


In the article “10 things your boyfriend doesn't want to hear”, the author uses a very stereotypical approach in presenting her arguments. The author concept is to reinforce the importance of women’s stereotype in a multi gender communication.

It is very interesting to note that the author discusses another view while dealing with relationship. The author pinpoints ten forbidden things to be spoken rather than translating the meaning of the opposite gender’s intention or providing the solution to overcome the misinterpretation between them. The author takes an early initiative to avoid quarrels, through selective communication. Communication is not solely based on interpreting other’s intention correctly, but also controlling each word going out from the mouth.

The author uses a very authoritative approach in writing the article. She implies clearly that when a woman deviates from the stereotype image and tries to mimic men’s traits, her relationship with man will be not succeed. This might be a strong approach to readers especially the current intended audience are women. However, one may conclude that the author strongly believes in the stereotype. Thus, it could be assumed that she also believed that women are powerless such that presenting her article in a dictating style will be more effective compared to merely weak suggestion.

The author makes use of several examples that prejudice women’s power. For instance, women are not allowed to keep silent and think about their problem alone. It is an obligation for women to consolidate about their problem to men. Telling problems to the men will open the opportunity to solve the problem. This statement implicitly wants to suggest the incapability of women to solve their problem! On the other hand, women are forbidden to interfere when men have problems. Her idea is similar with Gray’s which encourage the women to give the men privilege when the men want to go to the cave. Men will be able to take care of their problem alone, women’s interference will just mess it. The author illustrates women as a frail and independent being.

In order to strengthen the ideas, the author also puts some extreme examples such as “I’m just farted” and “I hate your mom” to point up that such sentences should not be spoken from women. She supports Lakoff’s idea of illustrating women as a polite and well-mannered being. When reading this article, one may think that it is very crude of the author to put such thing in top ten comment women like to utter innocently. How come women say such thing? Even it will be quite impolite for men to say such words. However, this impression is exactly the response that the author hopes to gain. One has to remember that the author wants to emphasize the significance of stereotype in her article. These examples would like to illustrate how inappropriate such things are said especially by women. Readers will strongly just believe the fact that these type of sentence are indeed should not be uttered by women. Thus, the author has successfully plants the idea of women stereotype into the readers.

From all the passage, the author gives the impression that women should never place themselves in an equal position as men. The idea of generalizing men and women to be similar is absurd. If a woman want to behave similarly with the men, men will unlikely be impressed by that. This is simply because men demand some typical image from women that women are different from men in term of their politeness and capability.

Response on Tootsie

Personally, I enjoy watching this movie as it depicts the importance of a balance life. This movie portrays Michael who is a big loser that no movie company wants to accept him. He indeed has a good talent in acting, but due to his snobbery and hot-headed temper, the movie world seems to ignore him. However, when he becomes Dorothy, he begins to show more politeness and care yet still pretending his pride. Balance traits of men and women in him. Thus, Dorothy immediately becomes a famous idol especially among the women. He puts women to have equal power to men.

This film shows the common stereotype of women. Women are still illustrated as powerless, frail and have no authority. Perhaps this condition is similar with the circumstances at that era where women still have not the same power as the men. The term masculinity and femininity are strongly emphasized in each gender so that men are identical with masculinity and women with femininity. Thus, this film wants encourage the emancipation of women to speak up. Women are not under men, but they are equal with the men.

The interesting part of this film is that it uses men to promote the gender equivalence. This idea could be quite bizarre at that time if we consider that women are put in the second class. Why a man would even bother to go to lower class? Nevertheless, they author introduces Michael Dorsey who first posses an egoistic and bad temper characteristics, which are commonly associated with men’s traits. He transforms into Dorothy with more balance traits, but he is still having some ego but with more caring and loving attitude. Rather than promoting the women to have the same position as the men, this film goes deeper by portraying a man who transforms to a woman. This creates a deep impression that not only a woman should not be too “feminism” but also a man should not be too “masculine” and. Dorothy could be very successful because she posses Michael’s masculinity with additional of woman’s feminism.

Actually, I do not like the way the author put women as a very frail human being. For example, he puts Sandy as a woman that easily fall in love with Michael just because Michael sleeps with her once. She even forgives all Michael’s fault without further taking initiative of what actually happen on Michael. It seems that women are too passive. The same case happens with Julie. Even though she knows that the director is cheating on her, she does nothing because she needs his support. Was such discrepancy really happened at that era? Were women so powerless at that time that women just accept everything without bothering to check further?

Furthermore, the fact that Julie falls in love with Michael in the end of the story gives a big question mark. If only, Dorothy were purely a woman, would Julie also fall in love with her? Would this later explain why the term “Lesbian” exist? Or, they would be still being a very harmonious friend? In my opinion, the term “Lesbian” do not need to exist in this story. Even if Dorothy were a woman that charms Julie very much, they would not be a lesbian. The story would go such as Dorothy would be acting more as Julie’s mother that take care of her and teach her how to be a woman.

Overall, this film is very good. There are a lot of humour that it does not make me felt bored. The important message sent that one has to consider the importance of balance masculine and feminism character. If on that era, women were really as weak as illustrated, they should be motivated by this film to go and fight for the justice. The same case happens with the men, men should consider to posses some traits which formerly they thought as femininity, e.g.: caring and sensitive, into their own personality.

Response to: Talking Like a Lady

“Language and Woman’s Place” thoroughly discusses about the prejudice of woman’s language. The writer, Robin Lakoff, proposes that some of the woman’s speeches are different from the man’s that it discriminates the women.

Lakoff not only explains the fact that men and women put emphasis on different words, but also cites neutral and commonly used examples as a tool of comparison. For instance, she clarifies the proper usage of tag sentence. In turn, it helps the reader to better understand the difference when a woman uses it.

In addition, Lakoff realizes that as the era changes, man-woman discrepancies are becoming obsolete. In her article, she argues that “many self-respecting women are becoming able to use sentence like ...”, although she also mentions that most people still disagree with woman using ‘harsh’ language. This provides evidence that Lakoff acknowledges the recent development of equalization between female and male.

However, upon reading the article further, it is inferable that Lakoff represents her idea by putting men’s language as the ‘better’ language. Rather than describing woman’s language as polite and friendly, Lakoff merely portrays those traits as results of woman’s powerlessness. This approach makes woman’s language seem inferior, and thus implying that woman has to reduce the usage of such language.

In another argument presented in the passage, Lakoff’s assumption on the superiority of man’s language ignores the advantages of woman’s language. Woman’s language is indeed considered more respectful and well-mannered in comparison with the neutral’s or man’s language. For instance, the uses of compound request (for example, “Will you please close the door?”), or the use of “Oh dear!” instead of “Shit!”. A man’s use of the exclamation “Shit!” in his conversation is assumed to be acceptable as it shows a stronger emphasis.

Moreover, Lakoff herself also notes that “little girls are indeed taught to talk like little ladies, in that their speech is in many ways more polite...”. Such statement should be used to balance a woman’s position. Still, Lakoff seems to keep reinforcing the fact that a polite request is, in actuality, weak.

In summary, Lakoff does not agree with the discrepancies between man and woman in speech. Yet, she gives no concrete solutions on how to deal with it. She states that woman’s language is too ‘weak’. On the other hand, she also proposes that women are supposed to be polite and that they should be more careful in choosing their vocabulary. This implication results from Lakoff’s bias against woman’s language. Without the assumption that woman’s speech is inferior to man’s, its uses could be considered more respectful and polite.

Response to "Can't We Talk?" by Deborah Tannen

In “Can’t We Talk”, Tannen posits that one has to learn the opposite gender’s way of thinking to bridge the communication gulf between one another. To gain readers’ interest, she inserts some attractive stories about how different approaches are taken by men and women in facing a same situation. Nonetheless, Tannen puts aside the depth of analysis of her research in this article. There is also a contradiction in her explanation. Furthermore, one may decipher that Tannen is more biased towards the women’s side in presenting this article.


By proposing not one but seven (including the introduction) entertaining anecdotes about different actions taken by each gender in a common activity, Tannen could alluringly deliver the important highlights about the issue. As can be concluded from the article, Tannen describes men tend to be a serious and straightforward while women tend to be more friendly and talkative. With some cases where both genders are having arguments due to misunderstanding, Tannen wants to underline the importance of understanding each other’s characteristics to lessen the conflicts.


Nevertheless, in order to create this appealing article, Tannen sacrifices the depth of her analysis of each case. It is true that after each example given, Tannen presents the underlying reason of why men and women take differentactions to approach the same situation. However Tannen fails to further elaborate each reason given. For example, she states that “to most man talk is information” and ”he is focused on what he can do”. She does not provide any explanation of why man thinks and behaves in such way. Academia will find such approach as too soft, superficial, and lack of evidence.

Moreover, Tannen also provide inadequate research to support her argument. She merely gives some random stories and her own experience without any scientific data or details. People in general may not be to concerned about this, but the academia will find this relatively vague. For example, Tannen writes “In trying to prevent fights, some women refuse to oppose the will of others openly.” The meaning of some is not clear in this point. The reader may assume that some is refer to a few people only.

There is also a contradiction in her argument. In the first story, Tannen writes that the woman was irritated as her husband says ‘no’ to her question. This depicts that once the woman thinks the listener is showing a sign of rejection, she will feel infuriated. In the second story, Tannen tells her experience about how she accepts other’s consideration. She even restates that “woman was approaching the world ... as a network of connections seeking support..” Relating both of the stories, woman in the first case should have merely negotiated with her husband again without feeling irritated at all. She should have been trying to seek for her husband approval towards her request.

Investigating more on the article, Tannen positions herself more to woman’s point of view rather than being a third person. In her statement, “To Josh, checking with his wife would mean he was not free to act on his own. It would make him feel like a child or an underling”, she seems to show that woman behaves better than man. In this case, Josh seems to be very childish that he only want to follow his ego. It would be better if Tannen explains Josh’s disagreement is because he does not want to let his fellows think that he is an independent man. Again, the statement used by Tannen will be very bias without any convincing verification which unfortunately, is not provided by Tannen.

Tannen has put great effort in presenting her article with interactive and interesting daily facts bygiving out six different events from daily lives. Nonetheless, an excellent article should have strong and supportive data behind to proof its credibility, which is ignored by Tannen. There is also a contradiction in her examples that further weaken her arguments.

I personally feel that her article is far from convincing. As stated in my previous paragraph, her examples are rather vague and are not strongly supported. From my point of view, I will not react like the woman in the introduction, where she easily angry after thinking that her husband does not agree with her, the “Advice vs. Understanding” where the woman deciphers her husband’s word wrongly. As she does not give any supporting verification upon her stories, her stories merely seem to be limited for certain people. After reading for several times, I am not convinced about her stand. It looks as if rather than differences in gender; the main cause of the fight seems to be due to the differences of personality of each person.

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeSvkE9ZtHk

This video clip portrays a reality where a boy was raised as a girl. This happened as Bruce had a little accident in his very young age that his male organ was mistakenly cut. Her mother changed his name to Brenda. Ever since 'she' was still very young, her parents appointed her to a physiciant to build her characteristic as a female. However, deep down in her heart, Brenda, like to do 'boys' stuffs. At first, the physician thought that he could change Brenda's personality. But actually, it did not turn out as smooth as predicted. Later on, Brenda found out that she was a boy. A shocking fact that haunted her life. She could not believe that her parents did such thing to her and commited to suicide.

This video shows that we can not go againts the nature. Man and Woman are born different. We could see it physically.

Response To: Teacher Classroom Strategies

In “Teacher's Classroom Strategies Should Recognize that Men and Women Use Language Differently”, Deborah Tannen highlights the issue of the current teaching method that is unsuitable for women because female students are more passive than male students. Hence, she feels that teaching should be conducted in a smaller class size. She begins by predicting the slightest probability that one would want to review his usual teaching method. She emphasises the weakness of the usual teaching method that it prejudices the woman’s side. She also tries to catch her reader’s attention by using a little bit informal language and positioning herself as one of the teachers who has experienced such a situation. Nevertheless, her stand is rather weak as she does not substantiate her argument with enough evidence. Furthermore, towards the end of the journal, Tannen could not clarify the relation of gender issue with the need of breaking down the class into smaller groups.

To start with, Tannen begins her article in an interesting note such that she is able to capture the attention of the audience. The beginning part, “When i research my book.. The furthest thing from my mind is re-evaluating my teaching strategies..” creates an awareness among her audience that reshaping regular habit is not easy. Tannen notices that altering conventional system is a challenge. Therefore, this introduction wants to lead the readers to be cognisant about one’s eagerness in ruminating whether the approach he uses to teach totally suits the students in general.

Tannen continues to explain the inconveniences felt by woman. To support her argument, she gives the background of the different ways of how men and women perceive things. She states clearly that “a girl has a best friend with whom she sits and talk... For boys, activities are central”. The statement brings the idea that women will be less likely to be active in the class participation which is unfortunate as the current teaching method mostly require an active participation from students. Tannen describes current way of teaching from her fellow male teacher’s story as “public display followed by argument and challenge”. Therefore, to lighten the burden of female students, one has to revise the teaching methods to cater to them.

To really grasp the target audience who are the teachers in general, Tannen uses a casual writing style rather than the formal one. With this kind of style, Tannen wants to highlight that she is not forcing the other teachers to amend their years of teaching style to be like hers. Instead, she is giving a picture of how the usual style is actually a bias for most of the woman. Having the instructors and teachers as her intended readers means they already read a plethora of critical writings beforehand. Thus a usual critical article may not leave a significant impact on them. In addition, her casual tone enables her to avoid a critical response as well as encourage other teachers to have another look at their teaching system. Furthermore, Tannen provides her personal experience while conducting a small experiment towards her students. Sharing her personal experience gives a better point of view that she also faces the same problem as others.

Nonetheless, Tannen fails to go further on the example of the case study. Although the given example is also supported by a statistical data, it is merely her own case study and it is just based on a single pilot study which is inadequate. The result may not be applicable to other contexts. There are also external factors that may cause such result in her case study such as family background or country background. This can be seen as her class have a diverse culture background. Besides, there is no proper explanation why she conducted the experiment in grouping her class according to degree, gender, and personality. Although her journal is presented in a casual tone, it does not mean that a proper source of research and facts can be ignored. Such a flaw should not be done in presenting a journal.

In particular, above all the discussion, Tannen does not successfully identify the root of the problem. From her case study, the main reason for the bias teaching method seems due to the inner personality from the student. This statement could be derived from the way Tannen explains that each student has his prefered way in interacting in each other. Regardless of the gender, some students prefer to raise hand while the others do not; some could easily create an immediate question while others will take times to realize it into words. It deviates from the topic where she is supposed to elucidate the relationship between differences in gender with the current teaching system. From this description, one would assume that the main reason for the current ineffective method of teaching is not because of the gender’s issue, but the incapability of teachers to cater all the different personality of each student in a big class size.

In summary, Tannen’s article gives an excellent argument to influence the readers. She manages to clearly pinpoint the inadequacy felt by the female students in current teaching method. The plot and writing style are arranged well to attract the readers. A casual tone chosen for the journal presents a friendly approach towards the target audience to generate greater enthusiasm in digesting her journal content.

Nevertheless, after thorough examination, Tannen overlooks the importance of supplying strong data to support her stand. She also does not further elaborate the importance of gender issue behind the current teaching system. Instead of elaborating the gender issue, the article gives the impression that without considering gender, each individual is unique so that a smaller class is needed to fully accommodate to them.