For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.
Interpretation
Women often use conversation to build connections and maintain relationships.
Deborah Tannen's quote highlights the idea that for many women, conversation serves as a tool for creating rapport and fostering emotional connections. It suggests that women may prioritize relational dynamics in their communication style, using dialogue not just to convey information, but to nurture bonds and navigate interpersonal relationships.
In practice
In a workshop on effective communication, this quote can be used to illustrate how women may approach conversations differently.
Women as mothers grapple with corresponding contradictions. The adoration they feel for their grown daughters, mixed with the sense of responsibility for their well-being, can be overwhelming, matched only by the hurt they feel when their attempts to help or just stay connected are rebuffed or even excoriated as criticism or devilish interference.
Sister relationships span a huge range, from best friends to worst enemies. From 'I adore her; I talk to her five times a day' to 'I decided to cut her out of my life.' For most women, it's in between.
The trickiest thing about the double bind is that it operates imperceptibly, like shots from a gun with a silencer.
Mothers and daughters find in each other the source of great comfort but also of great pain. We talk to each other in better and worse ways than we talk to anyone else.
Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention - an argument culture.
Treating people the same is not equal treatment if they are not the same.
Do things for others and you'll find your self-consciousness evaporating like morning dew.
What does open us is sharing our vulnerabilities. Sometimes we see a couple who has done this difficult work over a lifetime. In the process, they have grown old together. We can sense the enormous comfort, the shared quality of ease between these people. It is beautiful, and very rare. Without this quality of openness and vulnerability, partners don't really know each other; they are one image living with another image.
When I say my brother and his wife are heterosexual, that doesn't mean I'm talking about their sex lives. Likewise, when we say someone is gay, we're talking about sexual orientation, not their sexual activity.
A kindness received should be returned with a freer hand.
I sincerely hope I can contribute to the progress there has been in relations between Jews and Catholics since the Second Vatican Council in a spirit of renewed collaboration.
Dating or finding someone is the last thing on my mind.
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