Blog #9 "‘I Totally Agree with You’: Gender Interactions in Educational Online Discussion Groups."

Guiller and Durndell claim that “the discussion groups with the highest proportion of females tended to have the greatest proportion of female language features, positive socioemotional responses and self-disclosure”. After reading this passage, I realized that this same claim could be made about our linguistics class. The women out numbered the men by almost two to one, and there seemed to be numerous positive responses and self-disclosures. Of the posts I read this semester, most of the responses were positive and agreeable. There were nearly zero arguments or instances of verbal posturing in the discussion boards, and there was plenty of self-disclosure.

Because of the “female” atmosphere, I felt comfortable writing in a more subjective style and allowed my feelings to show more than I would have if the majority were male. The more men there are in a group, the more competive I feel. Thus, my writing becomes more technical and objective in the presence of other men. Around women, I feel more comfortable being myself, and allowing my thoughts to flow more openly. In the db’s, it seemed that everyone was agreeing with everyone else because the “point” of the db’s was to build each other up and share ideas. I actually enjoyed writing in this online community, and felt that I could be more open and honest because the most likely response to my posts would be positive.

Blog #8 "Gendered Voices in Children's Television Advertising"

One of my favorite activities as a child, and even as a teenager, was watching cartoons on Saturday mornings. Growing up, we did not have a TV for over ten years and when we did have one, we usually were only allowed to watch movies. Because of the lack of TV exposure, I thoroughly enjoyed those Saturdays when I got to spend three hours watching cartoons. The commercials were more memorable than the shows themselves. I can distinctly remember that there were “boys” and “girls” commercials and that the “boys” commercials were always exciting and action packed and the “girls” were boring and full of feelings. I even remember the ad mentioned in Johnson and Young’s article about the RC MEGA RACING remote control car and how cool the ad made it look to be a boy with a car. I can still hear the aggressive voice-over in my head.

I am not surprised by what Johnson and Young found in their study, but it does make me feel like I should throw out my TV right now so that my 7 month old daughter does not get exposed to such blatant and exaggerated sexism. Kids in this country have almost no chance to be sensitive to sexist language when they are constantly being shown and told how to be a certain gender. The sexism found in TV commercials scares me because it is shaping who we become without our direct knowledge. I want my daughter to be open to a wide range of possible roles in her life, so watching Saturday morning cartoons may be off limits for many years to come. I will tell her later that she can thank my Linguistics class for her lack of TV viewing time.

Blog #7 "Molehill or Mountain? What We Know and Don't Know About Sex Bias in Langauge"

I decided to blog on Henley again because her last article got me so worked up. In “Molehill or Mountain?” she somewhat redeems herself in my eyes. She actually admits there has been progress made in changing sexist language, but she says it is too insignificant to celebrate just yet. This view was refreshing to see on paper. “Molehill or Mountain?” clarified much of what I found irritating in the last essay. The main reason for my turn around is due to her continued insistence that sexist language is the culprit and not the speakers. She claims that unsuspecting, well intentioned speakers, like me, may be using sexist language without even realizing it. As much as it irks me to say it, I agree with her.

Before this class, I did not know that using singular “they” was incorrect grammar, and I use it in speech all the time. If I missed learning this small rule of grammar, I could also be using sexist language without my own knowledge. It is unnerving to realize that the rules of language are so ingrained in who I am that I do not even know why I use certain words or phrases. I still think that each person is responsible for understanding how words may affect other people, and making the choice to be a user of non-sexist language. However, after reading this article I have a new appreciation for issues and concepts that I do not fully understand

Blog #6 "This New Species That Seeks a New Language: On Sexism in Langauge and Language Change"

Nancy Henley's article about sexism in the English language and language change was difficult for me to read without getting upset. I feel very strongly that in my life time women have drawn equal with men in everyday life. Even in the case of language, sexism is not what it once was. I feel it is sexist men who think they are inherently more important than women that use sexist language and not the language that makes people sexist. Men are not all aligned against feminist reform. English is not set in stone. There are alternatives and we all have a choice whether we want to use sexist language or not.

Henley says that "a women's sex is commonly treated as if it is the most salient characteristic of her being, but this is not the case for males" (4). I disagree with Henley. Again, a women's sex is her most relevant characteristic if you happen to be a stupid, hard headed, sexist man, but I am able to choose to focus on more than her gender if I want to. As a man, my experience has been that the characteristic other people, women and men, notice most is that I am a man. I think Henley's statement can be equally true for either sex.

This article made me mad because it had me feeling like the progress towards non-sexist language that has been made is being ignored in favor of more extreme changes that may be possible. I am all in favor of changing the world for the better, and eliminating sexist language would help, but progress is slow and painful. How about we celebrate the positive changes instead of complaining about what is still left to do. I may be wrong, but it seems that sexism in language has already changed for the better since 1987.

Blog #5 "Complimenting - A Positive Politeness Strategy"

In Janet Homles' article about complimenting, she says “it seems that in America compliments on appearance may be experienced by males as very big face-threatening acts”. She continues by saying that the biggest reason men do not often compliment each other on appearance is to avoid the assumption that they are homosexual. I have experienced these claims first hand in my life, but I have also found an exception that I would like to point out. In my experience, when it comes to men complimenting other men, the closeness, or intimacy, of the relationship is a huge factor. For example, when I recently told my classmate Owen that I liked his goatee but that I thought he would look even better without it, he ignored the compliment and even looked around to make sure nobody else was paying attention to our conversation. He looked rather embarrassed and did not talk to me much after that. On the other hand, when I recently told my brother that I liked the way he styled his hair, he said “thanks, I’m trying something new”. My words and intentions were very similar, but the reactions to my compliments were very different. I think that if the two men have a close and longstanding relationship with each other, then a compliment is more likely to be taken as an act of solidarity. But if it is a casual, recent relationship, then a compliment is much more likely to be taken as a face-threatening, possibly homosexually based act. In my mind, a compliment should be accepted for the content of the words and not for the meaning behind them because there is far too much variability in what is “meant” by a compliment.

Blog #4 "Performing Gender Identity: Young Men's Talk and the Construction of Heterosexual Masculinity"

I thought it was interesting how Cameron says that we perform our gender roles instead of having a gender role. This distinction highlights the dynamic, fluid nature of male and female identity. In arguing her point, Cameron claims that men actively participate in gossip when around close male friends, and avoid it when in the presence of women and acquaintances. I have experienced performances of gender in my relationships with other men. I spent most of my teenage years with the same small group of males. When together, we did talk a lot about women, wine, and sports, but we also spent an incredible amount talking about other men and how gay they were. I never thought about it as a way to separate us from other definitions of gender. However, now that I reflect on those years, we did tend to think of ourselves as the “masculine” group and the other guys as the “gay” group. Not one of those “gay” men really turned out to be homosexual, but in the process we defined or performed what we wanted to see as masculine. According to Cameron, we were simply performing what we expected to see in other American heterosexual men without realizing we were participating in the stereotypical female activity of gossip.

Blog #10 "Sex differences in parent-child interaction"

Gleason makes a point that really caught my attention. She claims, much as other linguistic experts, that language differences between adult men and women arise in childhood. What makes her claim stand out is that she states “the most likely context of their development lies in the arena of parent-child interaction” (190). The rest of the reading I have done so far says that children learn to speak a particular way from their young peers, but Gleason thinks it has much more to do with the child’s parents. This just makes sense. Parents are the people a child interacts with most for the first few years of their lives when language is being developed. Parents teach their children about the world around them using language.

I have a four month old daughter, and I cannot imagine that as her parent I do not have a major role in teaching her how to speak. Once my daughter is four or five and attending school, I can see her learning to hone her gender specific language skills on the playground, but she must learn the basic skills at home before she can even play with the other kids. I know I speak to her in a certain way because she is a girl, and when I have a boy my language towards him will be different. If sex-linked language differences are partly a product of the environment, I have to agree with Gleason that girls and boys must learn their language related gender roles from their parents.

Blog #3 "Talk Control: An Illustration from the Classroom of Problems in Analysing Male Dominance of Conversation"

Joan Swann's article was fascinating to me because I have found her claims of male dominated class rooms to be true in my life. Women get a bad rap for talking so much, and I have even heard on television that women use twice as many words as men during a 24 hour period. However, in the classroom setting, men talk much more than women. I have experienced this to be especially true in college classrooms. Just last night in my health behavior class, I paid close attention to number of answers and comments by males and females. In a 3 hour long class, only one female offered a comment/answer without being called on by the teacher, and only 2 other females spoke when asked their opinion by the teacher. On the other hand, 8 different males answered on their own accord and 4 answered when called on by the teacher. I was shocked at the ratio! The class was completely dominated by males when there are more females enrolled in it. Since last night, I have been pondering why there is such a big sex-linked difference. I have come to the conclusion that males are more often encouraged by others, including teachers, to be leaders and to voice their opinion. Also, women do not want to be known as a know-it-all while men pride themselves on the amount of facts and knowledge they can present to other people. I will definitely be observing my other classes this spring to find out if they are also male dominated.

Blog #2 "Talk in the Intimate Relationship: His and Hers"

Deborah Tannen's article stood out from the others this week because it seemed to describe every misunderstanding between men and women I have ever experienced. Reading it was like reading a script of my parents conversations and now my own marriage. Just the other night, my wife basically said "after all this time, you should know what I want without my telling you". I could not believe what I was hearing! I knew her whole argument was flawed because I was convinced of the logic of my position and the illogic of hers. Then I read Tannen's article and saw a replay of our conversation.

It is amazing to realize how such small differences in the way men and women approach talking and what they expect out of a conversation can quickly escalate into arguments and hurt feelings. Now I know the biggest source of conflict in my marriage is so called "metamessages". For example, last night, my wife said "your Toyota is probably going to be recalled", and I avoided eye contact, used a negative tone, and said "my car is fine". My wife got really mad because she read my message as "you are never right and I think you are stupid", but I was simply making a statement about the health of my car. Unfortunately, telling her that my communication flaws are the result of learning how to have conversations with boys only just further infuriated her. Needless to say, I will be rereading this article.

Blog #1: "Yanyuwa: Men speak one way, women another"

After reading and reflecting on Bradley's article, the idea that keeps repeating in my head is that of traditions. When asked why their language has separate dialects for men and women, the most popular answer of the Yanyuwa people is "men speak one way, women speak another, that's just the way it is!" (pg 14). The phrase that stands out to me is "that's just the way it is". Every culture has words and dialect that are passed from one generation to the next, yet not many people think about why they talk the way they do. Until reading this article, I never put much thought into the words I use and the way I pronounce them. I just talk. Traditions are the often the same. Language is tradition. It is passed on from parents to children without much thought, yet language usage clearly identifies people as part of a culture, region, ethnicity, or race. A tradition as powerful and universal as dialect should have deep meaning to the people who use it and should not be used simply because "that's just the way it is". After taking this class, I will hopefully be able to understand more fully why I speak the way I do.