UpDate - Vol. 12, No. 34, Page 8
June 10, 1993
Communication: Men and women have different styles

     It's frustrating. Why does  a woman receive little response to an idea
she introduces at a meeting while minutes later a man with virtually the
same idea is hailed as brilliant?
     It's mystifying.
     Why does a man who tells a joke to a group gathered at the coffee
machine receive glares from his female colleagues instead of laughter?
     But why ask why?
     Because "if all of us can start looking at men and women and
acknowledging the differences and working with the differences in our
communication styles, we'll all work a lot better together in the future,"
said Rene Shepley Ragan, a management trainer and consultant, to
approximately 300 members of the University community who attended her
luncheon talk June 7 in the Rodney Room.
     The 75-minute seminar was sponsored by the Commission on the Status of
Women (CSW) in response to concerns voiced by professional women at the
University during a focus group session held in the spring of 1992. The
participants perceived that communication between men and women in the
workplace often breaks down or has an effect that is not intended. This
situation is particularly frustrating for women, who are more often in the
less powerful position in exchanges with male supervisors or coworkers.
     Ragan is executive vice president of Insight Institute Inc., an
international company headquartered in Kansas City, Mo., that designs human
resource materials for trainers and consultants. She also is president of
Shepley Resources Systems, a consulting firm that conducts workshops on
team building, gender issues and communication skills for corporate and
organizational clients.
     Her message was meant to promote understanding of communication styles
commonly associated with one gender or the other rather than to pass
judgment on or to stereotype behaviors. She said she has noticed a
transition in her audiences in the past 10 years from all-female audiences,
who wanted to learn to communicate more like men in order to advance in a
male-dominated business world, to more mixed-gender audiences.
(Approximately one-third of Monday's audience was male.)
     Now, Ragan emphasizes that each communication style has certain
strengths. For example, women are often better at interpreting nonverbal
communication, while men are often more goal-oriented and convey more
strength of purpose in their dealings with coworkers. "Both men and women
have a lot to offer and can contribute a lot if we look at these strengths
and use them," she aid.
     While Ragan admitted that the debate will not soon be resolved over
whether genetics or socialization plays a greater role in determining
gender-related communication differences, she does see at least one source
of those differences in messages we received in childhood.
     "Girls are taught that they must relate to others in order to
survive," she said, "while boys are taught that they must compete with
others to survive." That basic difference in our orientation to others, she
explained, colors all aspects of communication, from the purpose of
conversation, to one's body language, to the kind of humor people think is
funny.
     The purpose of conversing with others, for example, is often quite
different for women than for men, according to Ragan. "Women talk about
people and feelings to enhance personal interaction," she said. "Men talk
about things and activities to gain information." Therefore, disclosure of
personal information in the workplace often has a dramatically different
effect on men than on women. To women, revealing information about
themselves is a way of establishing a connection with their colleagues.
Men, on the other hand, often see such disclosure as unnecessary,
inappropriate, or even threatening.
     According to Ragan, men tend to view the workplace in a more
hierarchical manner than women, and communication plays a big role in
determining who's on top in the hierarchy. Men's body language-using wide
gestures or sitting with knees spread apart, for example-often gives the
impression of status and dominance by carving out a larger personal space.
Women, Ragan suggested, could learn to use some of these gestures and
postures in situations where they want to appear more confidant and
powerful.
     Several times during her talk, Ragan challenged members of the
audience to use their new level of awareness to understand the dynamics of
work and social situations, whether those situations involved members of
one or both sexes.
     "The next time you're bored at a party," she said, "look around at
which people are talking, how they're standing, who's nodding and smiling,
and see if you can tell what's going on."
     Members of CSW's professional constituent group, who planned Monday's
event, expressed satisfaction that Ragan's seminar was well-attended,
especially by men.
     "I think we've hit on a topic of widespread interest and concern,"
said Rob Longwell-Grice, assistant director of housing and residence life
and a member of the commission. "People I've talked to who were there said
they found the presentation both enlightening and funny. We hope that there
will be a ripple effect as people take the information back to their
offices and discuss it with their coworkers."
     "We hope that this leads to some changes and practical application of
these ideas in people's lives," added Donna Tuites, program coordinator in
the Office of Women's Affairs and also a member of the seminar planning
group.
     "We'd like to continue working on this issue, perhaps with workshops
about the next stage-how to start acting on the awareness of male-female
communication differences-in the future."
                                        -Beth Chajes