You Just Don't Understand

by Deborah Tannen

Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men on the second.

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Many women feel it is natural to consult with their partners at every turn, while many men automatically make more decisions without consulting their partners.

But a man who wants to avoid feeling that he is following orders may instinctively wait before doing what she asked, in order to imagine that he is doing it of his own free will. Nagging is the result, because each time she repeats the request, he again puts off fulfilling it.

Rather, they heard it as a threat from a boss: “If you don’t like it here, you can jolly well leave.”

“chauvinist.”

But a protective gesture from a woman suggests a different scenario: one in which women protect children. That’s why many men resist women’s efforts to reciprocate protectiveness—it can make them feel that they are being framed as children.

Instead of different dialects, it has been said they speak different genderlects.

By doing field work in a junior high school, Donna Eder found that popular girls were paradoxically—and inevitably—disliked. Many girls want to befriend popular girls, but girls’ friendships must necessarily be limited, since they entail intimacy rather than large group activities. So a popular girl must reject the overtures of most of the girls who seek her out—with the result that she is branded “stuck up.”