There are many forms of communication but simply defined communication is “interpersonal acts that exchange meaning and information” (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts, 2013, p. 126). Note that the word ‘speaking’ is not mentioned because communication is made up of both verbal and nonverbal cues. One doesn’t always need to speak to another person to communicate; things like our facial expressions, clothing, tone of voice or mannerisms also can be channels in which to relay a message to others. If everything we say and do communicates a message to the people around us than how can we be sure that the message we are trying to relay is perceived in the manner in which we intend? The answer is we can’t; errors in communication happen every day and these errors can have drastic consequences for those involved. In today’s day and age this concern is exemplified by the many errors in communication that occur between men and woman, specifically in the workplace. Susan Faludi highlights this issue in her novel Backlash which is described as a “metaphor for what ails American female-male relations – a simple misunderstanding.” (Faludi, 1991)
The communication process, or model of communication is when “An idea is generated by one person, shaped into a message, and sent by the person to another person, who then receives the message, interprets it, and then generates his or her own idea.” (PSU, 2019) Sometimes this simple framework is altered, sometimes referred as noise or biases, which can be caused by the originator of the message, the sender, encoding their message incorrectly or the person on the other side of the conversation, called the receiver, decoding the message incorrectly. These breakdowns in communications occur every day but the number of miscommunications between individuals increases substantially when bridging between different groups or cultures; for instance, between men and woman. “Men and woman typically communicate in different ways, making it very easy for disagreements and misunderstandings to happen.” (Freed, 1992) The fine line between what is appropriate between individuals of the opposite sex gets even smaller when in the work place especially with the acceptance of ignorant clichés such as “she asked for it” or “boys will be boys”.
Rape culture, victim blaming and abuse of power all came to fruition in the public’s eye in the wake of the “Me Too” movement. Even though said issues are great to be brought into the light and to start to open pathways towards discussion on these issues the “Me Too” movement only hinders our abilities for men and woman to communicate effectively even further. Again, errors in communication can be due to biases and societal norms or “the status quo”. Our society defines “manhood” as dominate and sexually aggressive and defines “womanhood” as submissive and sexually passive. (SCSU, 2018) So even before any man or woman opens their mouths to communicate with each other they are already a step closer towards a misunderstanding; a misunderstanding that by its very definition that we created can cause harm and hostile atmospheres. This issue between men and woman is in no way a new concern but because large numbers of woman have entered the workplace in recent years, the “obvious communicative style differences between men and woman have been discussed publicly.” (Kelley, 1996) As someone who has had to endure sexual assault as well as sexual misconduct by a superior I must say that I believe the message behind the movement has skewed from starting dialogue to shifting blame. Although this is not always the case, it is very often that these horrible situations can be avoided if we took the time to understand each other. This is not to excuse any acts just because of poor communication but many times poor communication can be the reason for said acts.
When I was working at a sleep away camp I worked under a male supervisor. We couldn’t have been any more different, he was 30 and I was 21, it was his first summer working for a camp and it was my ninth year at that camp, he was from Saint Martin and I was from New York. Over the course of the summer as he grew more comfortable with his staff he began progressively making more and more sexually explicit jokes and comments and for the entire summer neither myself nor my coworkers said anything; we just went on each day and tried to ignore it. When I returned the next summer, a little older and a little wiser, I spoke up and confronted him about how his actions affected me and made for a very uncomfortable work environment. He couldn’t be more apologetic and he expressed that it wasn’t his intention to make me uncomfortable. Where he is from the people are very open about sexuality and there is no stigma around sex like it is here in the states. The message he thought he was encoding and the message that I was decoding and vice versa were not one in the same. To him the jokes and comments were just friendly banter and by us laughing it off he assumed we had no issue with it and to myself him making those jokes and comments made me feel as if he was coming on to me and that he wanted something more. Once we spoke up and actually took the time to understand each other we were able eliminate the problem and the error in communication. We can’t assume that just because the message is clear to us mean that it’s clear to the listener. This overconfidence in one’s ability to communicate leads to an egocentric point of view, “the inability to take on other people’s perspectives”, when one creates and sends a message. (PSU, 2019) We can’t change people or cultures and the way that they communicate but the goal in cross-gender communication is not to change the style of communication but to adapt to the differences between them. (Kelly, 1996)
“While there are many models of communication, the basic process involves encoding and decoding a message through a channel between a sender and a receiver.” (PSU, 2019) Both non-verbal and verbal forms of communication can be misinterpreted especially when spanning across different groups or cultures, of which one example is communication between people of the opposite sex. Men and woman both have their own unique way of communicating and thus have a hard time communicating with each other. These dissimilar types of communication divide the sexes and create a toxic nature between us, particularly in the workplace. The rise in the “Me Too” movement has indirectly further disrupted this gap in communication by causing woman to be more defensive and men to tiptoe around their every word. To reduce this gap in communication we must become aware of our communication style, understand the communication style of the opposite sex, adjust to those conversational styles, stop assuming that the opposite sex understands our message and stop criticizing others who communicate in a different way than we do. (Kelly, 1996) In the bible the book of proverbs discusses the importance of listening with the understanding to others who speak. (Prov. 11:12; 18:2, 13; 29:20) And although we can’t stop being different from one another, we can start communicating more effectively if we just work together.
References:
Proverbs. In Bible.com. Retrieved from https://www.bible.com/bible/1/PRO.11.KJV
Faludi, S. (1991). Blacklash. New York: Crown.
Freed, A. F. (1992). We Understand Perfectly: A critique of Tannen’s View of Cross-sex Communication. Berkeley: Berkeley Woman and Language Group,1, 144-152. Retrieved from https://www.montclair.edu/media/montclairedu/chss/departments/linguistics/Tannen-Review-Berk92.pdf.
Kelley, R. H. (1996, September 5). Communication Between Men and Woman. Retrieved from https://cbmw.org/uncategorized/communication-between-men-and-women/
Penn State University (2019). Lesson 04: Global Communication. OLEAD 410. Retrieved February 9, 2019, from https://psu.instructure.com/courses/1964331/modules/items/25821685
Southern Connecticut State University. Rape Culture, Victim Blaming, and The Facts. Retrieved February 7, 2019, from http://www2.southernct.edu/sexual-misconduct/facts.html
Schneider, G. (n.d.). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing social and practical problems.
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