Deborah Tannen You Just Don T Understand Summary

Is it Really Gender Difference? Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics, wrote the book You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation in 1990. This book shows a chapter about Tannen’s observations of how most classroom dynamics are fundamentally male. She uses these observations of the classroom to describe how women and men behave in this environment. Her main focus being on just the two groups makes the things she observed seem very one-dimensional. Can behavior truly be explained simply by one’s gender? Tannen did not consider all the variables that go into how someone reacts to an environment. These observed behaviors are probably so much deeper than gender. Things such as personality, past experiences, cultural …show more content…
An example of this would be a young woman not speaking up because she wants to give others a chance to speak. There is also the idea of speaking up in class first thing, so the teacher won’t call on them again. This could be possible instead of men thinking it’s their “job.” Family can also aspect Tannen didn’t cover. Children who have been raised with siblings might feel comfortable speaking up in a classroom, or having a larger group of friends while someone who is an only child might react differently. It could also be how the parents connect with the child. If a parent doesn’t pay as much attention to a child, the child might try to seek more attention in class.
Tannen even states, “These different teaching styles must make our classrooms wildly different places and hospitable to different students” (par. ). Her own words contradict the main point she tries to make about the conversation differences being mainly about gender. In different environments, people act differently. A person might act one way at home, but would never act the same in a work environment. This means that the person’s surroundings could heavily influence how he/she acts, instead of gender controlling