Deborah Tannen
Deborah Tannen
Deborah Frances Tannenis an American academic and professor of linguistics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She has been McGraw Distinguished Lecturer at Princeton University and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences following a term in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSociologist
Date of Birth7 June 1945
CountryUnited States of America
men focus independence
Though all humans need both intimacy and independence, women tend to focus on the first and men on the second. It is as if their lifeblood ran in different directions.
men decision natural
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.
baseball men talking
Saying that men talk about baseball in order to avoid talking about their feelings is the same as saying that women talk about their feelings in order to avoid talking about baseball.
sex communication men
The Pavlovian view of women voters - plug the words in, and they will respond - sends a chill down my spine because it sounds like an adaptation of something I have written about communication between the sexes: When a woman tells a man about a problem, she doesn't want him to fix it; she just wants him to listen and let her know he understands. But there's a difference between a private conversation and a presidential election, between what we want from our leaders.
men issues independence
The desire for freedom and independence becomes more of an issue for many men in relationships, whereas interdependence and connection become more of an issue for many women.
men doors connections
The chivalrous man who holds a door open or signals a woman to go ahead of him when he's driving is negotiating both status and connection.
men public-speaking feels
More men feel comfortable doing "public speaking," while more women feel comfortable doing "private" speaking.
men understanding want
Many men honestly do not know what women want, and women honestly do not know why men find what they want so hard to comprehend and deliver.
mother father men
Like most men, my father is interested in action. And this is why he disappoints my mother when she tells him she doesn't feel well and he offers to take her to the doctor. He is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.
morning character men
To say anything about women and men without marking oneself as either feminist or anti-feminist, male-basher or apologist for men seems as impossible for a woman as trying to get dressed in the morning without inviting interpretations of her character. Sitting at the conference table musing on these matters, I felt sad to think that we women didn't have the freedom to be unmarked that the men sitting next to us had. Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman.
frustration men offering
If women are often frustrated because men do not respond to their troubles by offering matching troubles, men are often frustrated because women do.
adjust attitude convey dismiss fact ignores information involved major monitor people reasonable seem setting small social talk talking toward worthless
Many of us dismiss talk that does not convey important information as worthless - meaningless small talk if it's a social setting or "empty rhetoric" if it's public. Such admonitions as "Skip the small talk, " "Get to the point," or "Why don't you say what you mean?" may seem to be reasonable. But they are reasonable only if information is all that counts. This attitude toward talk ignores the fact that people are emotionally involved with each other and that talking is the major way be establish, maintain, monitor and adjust our relationships.
coming dealing feeling gives people somehow
When you feel that the people you are dealing with day to day don't have manners, it gives you the feeling that the world is somehow coming apart. It makes you feel that everything is out of control.
agreement people mind
The argument culture urges us to approach the world-and the people in it-in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition over-weighted.