One of the fiercest accusations that we face is that Gender Communication is a myth; that there is no difference in the way that we communicate, and we understand each other very well.
I think we have addressed the issue of myth before – but let’s consider the situations that both genders have faced in the past which may have had an impact on the way in which we designed our communication.
Our communication process has developed over the years, and our ability to share complex ideas and abstract constructs has led to development of societies and civilizations. We are a product of the way in which we communicate.
Political thought; social responsibilities; concepts of rights and privileges and our own realisation of our place in the world have all been communicated to us at one time or another.
The relative position of the sexes throughout history is a matter of fact not of conjecture. We may argue about the reason, but the fact is that there were vitally different roles assigned to men and to women throughout the records. If we lived within the society that structured those roles and privileges differently, then we would usually be complacent and in agreement with the way things were.
Men, because of a perceived superiority, would not wish for change; while women, because of perceptions of submissiveness would not have imagined the possibility of change. It would take some world changing events to shake those rigid perceptions – and in actual fact it took two - World wars that is.
It was the need of a more industrial society for people to operate the machinery of war, providing the ammunition and weapons for the fighting men that first allowed women into the workplace 'en masse'.
After the First World War, when women returned to the domestic front, it appeared that little had actually changed. But we can find evidence to the contrary in the fashions of the day. Women had been confined to long, inconvenient skirts for centuries; and now for the first time short skirts were the demand. Traditionalists shook their heads over it and proclaimed ‘Nothing good would come of it!”
The Second World War was even more dramatic in its reassignment of roles. Once again men flocked to the flag and once again the factory doors opened wide to women. However this time, once peace was declared there was not the same willingness from the women to return to their domestic duties with its dependency on men.
This time it needed a concerted effort to convince women that the traditionalist roles were in effect the norm and the war time roles were merely an aberration; and many women did not buy it.
And so we were overwhelmed by Magazines extolling the domestic virtues; fashion houses produced the fripperies and flounces so associated with dolls not dames; the newfangled television sets were awash with serials populated with traditional families – hard working dad, domesticated mum and docile children. We are probably familiar with the reconstructed version in ‘Happy Days’
But it never quite worked – the cat was out of the bag so to speak; women had tasted the freedom of choice, the freedom that earning your own income had brought. They had single handedly ran households and businesses while their men were overseas and saw no reason to return to the status of what one woman (my mother) called ‘being a kept woman!’
Throughout all this time the styles of communication adopted by each reflected the conditions of society. Men – away at work and faced with the expectation of supporting his family, constructed a style of communication that was functional within that environment. Women – home based and faced with the expectation of creating a stable and harmonious home, constructed a style of communication that was functional within that environment.
Unfortunately, those styles did not always cross over the doorstep harmoniously!
In today’s world we find a far different reality. Men and women both work within the workplace; both bear the responsibility of supporting the family and many women are adopting the workplace style of communication without realising it. To suggest to these women that there is indeed a feminine style of communication can generate hostility.
And with the emphasis on more inclusive leadership within the workplace, there is a need for a more inclusive style of communication, far different from the previous one that supported the command and control regimes. But to tell these male CEO’s that they need to lose their masculine communication and adopt the feminine one to create harmony within the workplace, can face real opposition.
The main point to take from this is that what we call ‘gender specific communication’ is really only the creation of two differing styles of communication which is accessible to both, when and where appropriate.
We are no longer The Way We Were – and we need to learn how to adopt and adapt our communication style to support our expectations. But first we need to know what they are and what they achieve, and to do that we might need to take the word ‘Gender’ out of the equation and just concentrate on the Style.
