Relating Empathetically – Part 10: Readings – 2
In my earlier work I emphasized that women may get the impression men aren’t listening to them even when the men really are. This happens because men have different habitual ways of showing they’re listening. As anthropologists Maltz and Borker explain, women are more inclined to ask questions. They also give more listening response—little words like mhm, uh-uh, and yeah—sprinkled throughout someone else’s talk, providing a running feedback loop. And they respond more positively and enthusiastically, for example by agreeing and laughing.
All this behavior is doing the work of listening. It also creates rapport-talk by emphasizing connection and encouraging more talk. The corresponding strategies of men—giving fewer listener responses, making statements rather than asking questions, and challenging rather than agreeing—can be understood as moves in a contest by incipient speakers rather than audience members.
Not only do women give more listening signals, according to Maltz and Borker, but the signals they give have different meanings for men and women, consistent with the speaker/audience alignment. Women use “yeah” to mean “I’m with you, I follow,” whereas men tend to say “yeah” only when they agree. The opportunity for misunderstanding is clear. When a man is confronted with a woman who has been saying “yeah,” “yeah,” “yeall,” and then turns out not to agree, he may conclude that she has been insincere, or that she was agreeing without really listening. When a woman is confronted with a man who does not say “yeah,”—or much of anything else—she may conclude that he hasn’t been listening. The men’s style is more literally focused on the message level of talk, while the women’s is focused on the relationship or meta-message level.
To a man who expects a listener to be quietly attentive, a woman giving a stream of feedback and support will seem to be talking too much for a listener. To a woman who expects a listener to be active and enthusiastic in showing interest, attention, and support, a man who listens silently will seem not to be listening at all, but rather to have checked out of the conversation, taken his listening marbles, and gone mentally home.
Because of these patterns, women may get the impression that men aren’t listening when they really are. But I have come to understand, more recently, that it is also true that men listen to women less frequently than women listen to men, because the act of listening has different meanings for them. Some men really don’t want to listen at length because they feel it frames them as subordinate. Many women do want to listen, but they expect it to be reciprocal—I listen to you now; you listen to me later. They become frustrated when they do the listening now and now and now, and later never comes.
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You Just Don’t Understand, Deborah Tannen, William Morrow and Company, pages 142-143.
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Sunday’s coming. Do you have your sermon ready? Is it relevant? Will it effectively motivate your congregation to walk more in step with the Master? What about that Sermon Series you’ve been thinking about?
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