Issue 5: Culture and Sex Differences

Is culture really the primary source for sex differences when it comes to communication? When you think of men and women and how the typically communicate with one another you normally think of the women doing most the talking. I know for as long as I can remember I have always pictured the women being the more "talkative" one and the one instigating the conversation. But is that always how it works? It might appear that men and women have brain differences when it comes to communication styles, but they really are similar in many ways. Its more about what type of personality someone has and how much they like or want to talk or communicate. People are often shy and don't like to talk around people they don't know, or there are people like me who really dosent care who is around or listening I like to talk. One point that Brizendine brought up was when she mentioned how women are always gossiping and telling secrets to each other. She also brought up the point that all men have noticed, when a girl goes to the bathroom she absolutely has to have a girlfriend go with her otherwise she probably won't go. I've never really understood why that is and I have never really stopped to ask a girl why it is. Something else Brizendine mentioned was how a teen girls brain will often freak out over things. I agreed with pretty much all the points Brizendine made, except there was one thing I really didn't know how I felt about it. She mentioned that women speak about 20,000 words a day and men only speak about 7,000 words a day. But then after a study conducted by Matthias Mehl, he found out its more about 16,000 words for women and 15,000 words for men.

One thing that I thought was interesting that Brenda Allen talked about was the social identity theory. The social identity theory is about how humans have the tendency to label themselves and others based on individual and group identity. I really thought that theory was interesting because in many cultures you can tell when one group or individual is thinking or talking about another group and comparing themselves to each other. People of the same sex and even the different sex are constantly comparing themselves to the things and people around them. That is one way stereotypes are created among people which leads to communication differences. She also talked about how power matters when it comes to social identity and classification. There are many different level or power and social identity can be completely different on each level.

Questions:
1. How can power change the communication style a man or women uses?
2. How can the communication styles between the sexes change from one culture to another culture?