Genders and Language

It is believed that everything differs when they are used by different sources, so “Gender and …” topics have always been argued for years. On the other hand, it has always been believed that the way people use languages differs because of their genders. It is strange to have such a claim since we are living in a world where everything is certainly different, not even equal to one another. However, if we have to analyse the relationship between gender and language, we should start with differences they usually use.

First of all, women are tending to be politer, waiting for approval for their words, instead of directly saying what they want to mean, as a result of being oppressed for years and not being believed in when they said something, they try to imply it. They use questions most of the times such as “isn’t it?”. During conversations, women use their body language such as nodding their head in order to show their support for you, addition to saying “uh-huh, mmm, oh dear etc,” to reveal that they are listening and supporting you. Meanwhile, it has always been assumed that men talk about facts and objects more, they put their emotions away and talk in serious way all the time, don’t talk too much and they are tending to control the topic being spoken about. Addition to all these, women are said to talk more than men. However, does every women talk more than men, and does every men talk less more than women? I mean, how can we be so sure about this since everyone differs from each other? We can’t. If we do generalize everything, then we can.

We all are born into a judgemental society, in which if you don’t follow its norms you would be excluded. There are written rules for neither women nor men, but they always say that there are stereotypes both women and men must obey. Everything I have said about both men and women are results of those stereotypes. Women tend to be politer because they are told to be that way, men focus more on facts or daily life but not on their emotions, because it is accepted that men can’t reveal their emotions and talk about them, the way women are allowed to and it can only be men who reveal facts or information. People directly judge women who try to take the lead, because everyone believes that it should be men who must take the lead. Women wait for approval while talking because their ideas have always been put on a back burner when there were men in the room. Despite accepting these all as differences, there are women and men who don’t use language this way and these all are results of both effects of social norms and generalization. We should consider the reasons, before generalizing and titling things as differences.

On the other hand, both genders differ in terms of language production, do they? It is considered as that instead of talking for hours about every details of an event, men just talk about key words, don’t involve lots of details. Meanwhile women talk about the whole event, overanalyse it and also add their opinions about the situation. Is this that way for real or is this about characteristics of a person? Besides, researches object some of these while agree with others. It is found by Psychologist Campbell Leaper that men talk more than women, surprisingly. Instead of talking about themselves, men talk so much when they are talking about other issues and speak more than ten thousand words. Studies also suggest that women are better speakers than men. When we look at researches and society, we get totally two different conclusions so it is not that healthy to generalise and stigma everything.