Rating: 
Summary: The Difference in Understanding
Review: The Difference in Understanding Do men and women really interpret each other differently when speaking or expressing a thought? I believe there is a communication barrier that exists between men and women. In the book "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation," Deborah Tannen explains and gives examples of vast situations that men and women, girls and boys, encounter on a daily basis.
I strongly agree with Tannen that the difference in conversation stems from the way we are raised as children. She states,
"Intimacy is key in a world of connection where individuals negotiate complex networks of friendship, minimize differences, try to reach consensus, and avoid the appearance of superiority, which highlights differences. In the world of status, independence is the key because a primary means of establishing status is to tell others what to do, and taking orders is a marker of low status. Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and man on the second."
Boys and girls tend to play in same-sex group and though some activities they play are similar, many of their favorite games also differ. For example, boys tend to play in larger groups, with a leader who tells them what to do. They like to achieve status by grabbing center stage through telling stories, jokes or challenging the stories of others. Boys games tend to have losers and winners. Girls in contrast, usually play in small groups. Their most popular games are playing house or jump roping, where everyone gets a turn and no one wins or looses. Girls sit and talk most of the time. They are more concerned with being liked rather than achieving status.
As adults, women have a reputation for talking too much. Studies show, however, that in public, it is men who talk more than women. For men home may be a place where they are free because they do not have to compete. This might be due to men engaging in "report talk", Tannen states, a display of knowledge and skill and a way of holding center stage through verbal performance. For women, they seem more comfortable speaking at home or in private. In contrast as Tannen states this is "rapport talk", a way of establishing connection by exchanging similar stories. Men usually believe or think they seek dominant roles, whereas women lack experience in defending themselves and they may take what the opposite sex says as a personal attack. This book only goes deeper into the theme that women and men have different ways of talking and expressing their feelings. All conversations have two sides. Tannen discusses gender issue differences in communication and I believe she makes one of her strongest points when she states, "It is important for couples to realize one's partner most likely has a different conversational style than one's own." Couples or opposite sexes need to think of how a message could be heard differently than it was intended.
Why men and women seem to have such different ways of communicating, I as well as researchers do not know. Men and women use language differently. It is just something that has always been around. This book was very well written and argued. I have come to realize that in this book Tannen reveals experiences of many men and women that somehow reflect upon our very own everyday life. The best way we can all live and get along with each other is to listen and understand each other. This gives both men and women a fair chance at being heard and at the same time respected. Overall, there will always be a dispute amongst men and women. The best cure for this all is to simply know yourself, the time you need to speak and the time you need to listen and use them at the appropriate times.
Rating:
Summary: A clear explanation of male/female communication differences
Review: The first time I heard of Dr. Deborah Tannen was when I read the book "Threesome: How to Fulfill Your Favorite Fantasy." There author Lori Gammon uses Dr. Tannen's work to explain why female-female seductions so frequently fail. After the first few pages of "You Just Don't Understand", it was clear that much of the conflict between the sexes is little more than speaking styles. The huge differences resulting from those conflicting communication styles suddenly made sense. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in emhancing their relationships.
Rating: 
Summary: She just doesn't understand
Review: The following are just a few of the more glaring weaknesses of this unfathomably popular bit of pop-psychology masquerading as linguistic science. 1) It's empirically feeble. For example, what can you say about a book purportedly about the difference between male and female speech patterns that doesn't even mention the phenomenon of swearing. In Debbie's world, profanity --surely a genuine hallmark of the masculine linguistic style-- doesn't exist. 2) It's claim to gender objectivity is bogus. I mean, the giveaway is right there in the title: "You just don't understand!" Does anyone reckon that to be a gender-neutral utterance? Hardly. This book is actually a prolonged whine about those darn guys who just can't read the nuances of the supposed feminine speech code. 3) Theoretically it is a mess. For example, a basic premise of the Tannen worldview is that men are hierarchical critters, while women are natural egalitarians. She actually routinely compares men to pack animals like dogs. The notion that women are non-hierarchical is already pretty staggering (I mean, did Deborah Tannen never attend high school?). But her next move, that of associating men's alleged speech style with hierarchy, and women's alleged speech style with an absence of hierarchy, flies in the face of common sense. According to Deb, the male style of plain, blunt, confrontational speaking is hierarchical, whereas such a style is in fact a hallmark of egalitarianism if anything. What Tannen identifies as female speech patterns --indirect, allusive, mutually face-saving-- is a courtier's style of speech, proper to sharply stratified social contexts. Elsewhere, Tannen has actually championed Japanese linguistic protocols as a model that Americans could benefit from, and compared Japanese styles to what she idealizes as feminine speech. Professor Tannen: Japanese society is not particularly famous for its classless, egalitarian character. Your theory stands reality on its head. See Toqueville and Mrs. Trollope on American bluntness of speech as the natural social product of a socially egalitarian society. 4) This book is one massive over-generalization. Yes, there is some element of truth to Tannen's description of feminine speech codes. Her description holds true for a certain subsegment of white middle-class American womanhood. To the degree that it is true, these women ought to take remedial lessons in plain speaking, rather than expect the rest of the world to adapt to their passive-aggressive habits of parlance. Most of the women of the world, however, just don't suffer from this problem. Tannen sometimes comes close to acknowledging this, albeit in a somewhat bizarre fashion. As in the case when she nominates Italian women as expections to her feminine rule. Apparently Italian women have no trouble expressing themselves in a forthright manner. Brava for them, say I. This being the case, the syndrome of indirectness that Tannen implicitly treats as a hardwired element of the female mind is obviously a cultural construct after all. On the other hand, anyone who likes that "Men Are From Mars, Women are From Venus" slurp is likely to enjoy the Debster too.
Rating: 
Summary: Made me think, but missed the mark.
Review: The main thing that I give the book credit for is that it made me think about things that I do as a man and try to come up with my own explanations for my behavior, since hers clearly didn't resonate with me. I like to think of myself as "not a typical guy"; most of my women friends would agree. Yet I did recognize my own behavior in some of Tannen's examples. However, when she went on to explain why men do these things, it made me ponder my childhood relationships with other boys and, well, it wasn't anything like what she said. To be sure, there are boys/men who see the world in the binary one-up/one-down way that she describes. We've all met "super-alpha" men like this: the proverbial high-pressure salesman... the man who, upon entering a room where people are conversing, instantly creates a crowd. This isn't the way most boys/men are; some, certainly, but not most. Also, the assumption that men are universally combative is incorrect. I think a more accurate picture of most boys growing up is that we find ourselves unwillingly placed into competition by bullies/super-alpha boys. I found myself picked on or challenged constantly in my childhood, when, all I really wanted was just to get along with everybody and not have people hassle me. I think most guys would nod their heads with me on this one. This, for me, is a much better explanation why men see people as challenging them where women do not, as men are hypersensitive to such challenges... and if you failed to rise to the challenge, you were humiliated by the bully's gang in front of your peers. Boys too wanted to be accepted by their peers, and thrived on community. This explains the popularity of team sports among men. Some of the best memories of our childhood were our bonding with our teams for the unified purpose of winning a game. Another point completely missing in her theory was the fact that, from a very early age, boys are "taught" not to show vulnerable feelings. Doesn't matter how enlightened your parents were. Unless you grew up in a vacuum, your peers would be sure to teach you that. This would explain why men relate to each other without actually ever talking about themselves or their deep feelings, but rather like to keep topics to common interests (most of the time). Likewise, in male-female relationships, women are just as likely to be controlling as men. Women take different approaches to control, as brute force doesn't usually work for them. The idea that every woman just tries to get along flies in the face of the facts in some of my less successful relationships; I tend to be conflict-averse (a trait she attributes universally to women). I have infuriated some past partners who found "verbal sparring" a meaningful form of engagement (a trait Tannen attributes universally to men). Anyway, she came up with some interesting observations that, I think, are universal to most men from super-alpha to enlightened/sensitive men, then used an "all men aspire to be super-alpha males" approach to try to explain them; and the converse seems to be true of her approach to explaining female behavior as well.
Rating: 
Summary: What we all need to know
Review: There is no one over the age of 10 who would not benefit from this book. Tannen tells us how men and women talk, to each other and to members of their own sex. More important, she tells us how we misunderstand us and why we do. Although she offers no sure-fire methods for overcoming the barriers to good communications, just reading the book, especially with someone you are in a relationship with, will help enormously. And, for married or about-to-be married couples, this should be required reading.
Rating:
Summary: Over-simplified version of life that doesn't ring true.
Review: This book aspires to explain sociological conditioning of the sexes in an over-simplified manner. While the idea that men and women communicate differently is one with socio-linguistic merit, and worthy of study, it is not soley GENDER based. There are more issues to be explored and included that were not (class, age, background, to name a few). I was disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: a must-read for everyone who talks to the opposite sex
Review: This book can change your life, but only if both you and your spouse read it. Or a good handbook for singles, hoping to figure out just what exactly that other strange species is really saying. What is most impressive is how even handedly Dr. Tannen treats female- and male-oriented communication styles, noting that neither style is inherently better, but just profoundly different, and that understanding the basis for how women and men communicate so differently can really lay a groundwork for avoiding lots of misunderstandings. This is absolutely true. As a man, I am amazed that Dr. Tannen has such a solid and objective understanding of male-pattern communication styles. I certainly learned a lot about how women communicate, and thus have avoided perhaps 50% of the misunderstandings in my marriage. Now if I can only get my lovely spouse to "just read the book" (which alas has turned into my final defense on more than one occaision), we can eliminate the other 50%!
Rating:
Summary: A tool for life.
Review: This book changed the way I look at the world. It is truly a tool for life and probably the single most important book I have every read. Whether you use it for honing your management skills at work or in your personal relationships, Tannen's book will be helpful. This one is better then her previous works
Rating:
Summary: It was very illuminating!
Review: This book really helped me understand all the frustations I've had talking with my husband are not so much "him" as it is a "guy thing". He read it also, and told me that it was an accurate reflection of how men communicate. As a woman, I felt it was also accurate on women's conversational styles. I'm back to buy two more copies to give to friends - I find myself saying (repeatedly) "you need to read this book!" It is really fasinating when read in conjunction with "Sex on the Brain" - which discusses some of the biological differences in the sexes.
Rating:
Summary: Complementary schismogenesis
Review: This is a book of sociolinguistics and is also suitable for the general reader. What is more interesting than how men and women talk? Gender research is controversial. It is important because when all other cultural disparities are eliminated, issues of gender differences in communication styles remain. For men home may be a place where they are free to sit in silence because they do not have to compete. For women home may represent to them a place where they are able to speak freely. They may pursue intimacy. They don't necessarily have to play a supporting role, and they don't have to go to the trouble of claiming the stage and appearing self-involved and vain. Some men do not discuss their troubles with anyone. Women bond in pain. Still, women know that talk is risky. Among other things, the consequences of malicious gossip may ensue. Attention to details concerning a person is often a sign of romantic interest. Men and women have different habits for social talk and make different uses of it. Where women are expert and men are not, they may lose ground in conversations because men, for cultural reasons, may still be seeking dominant roles. Women lack experience in defending themselves against challenges and they may misinterpret challenges as personal attacks on their credibility. Typically, in writing and speaking men may seek to persuade in order to be respected and women may seek to be inoffensive in order to be liked. Experimental studies show that men are more comfortable than women giving opinions and speaking in an authoritative way to a group and women are more comfortable supporting others. Women engage in rapport-talk, emphasizing connection. Men engage in contests. Men may not want to listen at length because it frames them as subordinate. Men understand they do have to listen to fathers and superiors, bosses. Men may invoke the theme of aggression to meet affiliative ends. Different world views shape every aspect of talking. Women tell stories of community, men tell stories of contest. Female accomodation for the sake of harmony can take its toll in mounting resentment. Sometimes the result is divorce. Indirectness in and of itself does not signify powerlessness. Entire cultures operate on elaborate rules of indirect speech. The example of Japan comes to mind. There are cultures where the men use indirect speech, more stately, nore elaborate, possibly more formal and archaic, and the women use direct rough speech. Styles more typical of men are generally evaluated more positively. Women make more adjustments than men in mixed groups. Complementary schismogenesis, a mutually aggravating spiral, may set in where men and women have divergent sensitivities. The book is well-done, the case is well-argued, and the results are, in a sense, disheartening since none of us can leave our skins. Men are urged to acquire female characteristics of communicating, and women male styles, in order to have more skills and sensitivities at their disposal. I would guess that the disheartening aspect of the experience of reading this quite excellent book is encountering the case studies of misunderstandings which all too well reflect our own experiences in every day domestic and voacational life.
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