Gender Talk and Tension: a Blog Encapsulated in Seven Points

Reading through the length of this blog, the following seven points have come into focus:

1. Communication is a tool that can empower or disempower.

2. We haven’t broken free from the chains of patriarchal tradition.

3. Examining and transforming gendered communication can allow us understand gender-based oppression and help us bring about a more equitable social world.

4. Equality does not mean sameness. Though men and women deserve equal rights and opportunities, their differences should not be erased but understood in all their complexities, as well as embraced and celebrated.

5. Examining how people communicate across gender can smooth our social relations and promote understanding and productivity.

6. Culture, race, and ethnicity bring a whole other layer of complexity to gendered communication. This complexity merits more opportunities for intercultural communications so as not to exclude non-White women from discourses of female empowerment.

7. Encouraging women to communicate and to project confidence and authority could help to foster a social transformation (in the business world in particular) and bridge the gender gap which characterizes senior leadership positions.

Keeping these points in mind, I can see overall how communication is inextricable from gender and gender relations. Communication not only expresses how we relate to the other gender in terms of power, but it also expresses how we see ourselves in relation to our own gender. To change the quality of this expression is to disrupt these power relations...an act which could lead to female empowerment and, hopefully, a more equitable world.

Any exploration, however, leads to more questions. Navigating through this blog has raised the following questions:

• What strategies could be used for fostering better communication between Muslim immigrant women and women from the White established class?

• This blog has focused solely on male-female gender relations, with a brief look at gender issues across cultures. However, sexuality has been omitted from these writings. How does sexuality complicate and/or enrich gender talk and tension? 

• Instead of focusing on culture, what systemic steps could be taken to promote women in senior management positions? 

You've Come a Long Way, Baby...but You have a Long Way to Go!

Brooke Boyarsky, A Harvard graduate, demonstrates how to raise her hand with confidence.

Despite all of our victories securing high-paying professional positions, women are still largely absent from senior management roles. However, closing this gender gap in senior positions would not only result in a more equitable society, but would ultimately be economically beneficial for business. According to the Conference Board of Canada "organizations with a higher proportion of women in executive positions exhibit stronger financial performance" (Huffington Post, 2013). 

Given that fostering gender equality makes solid business sense, Harvard University's Business School embarked on a large-scale project to transform the deeply-rooted phallocentric culture which permeates the school. Harvard's social surroundings disempowered women: though female students and male students entered the school with the same GPA, females consistently fell behind while males succeeded. From a faculty point of view, Harvard was having difficulty attracting and retaining female professors. However, misogynist attitudes were not limited to the campus grounds; rather, they were indicative of the culture of the larger business world.

Harvard decided they would become leaders in promoting gender equality, both in the academe and in the business world. In the 2012-2013 year they carried out a gender makeover. Their focus: communication. Female students lagged behind male students due to the fact that class participation counted towards 50% of each course's final mark. Male students, often fortified with the confidence that comes with inherited privilege, were eager to voice their opinions. Female students, however, despite their competence, hesitated to take part. Apart from a complete transformation of the curriculum, customs, and rules; Harvard coached women on how to speak out and to boldly and unapologetically raise their hands. A video illustrating this initiative can be seen at the following page:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/09/07/education/100000002370599/harvard-gender.html?smid=go-share

Perhaps the first step towards empowerment is to communicate this empowerment--with a loud voice and a strong hand.

For Harvard, the gender makeover of their Business School presented a bold step in terms of  leadership which raises multiple questions:

• Was this move towards gender equality "forced"? Are social transformations more sustainable if they come from the student body itself and not imposed as a top-down strategy?
• Could this lead to backlash which reinforces misogynist attitudes?
• What good is this gender makeover if the greater business world is still largely misogynist in culture?
• Does Harvard's initiative have the power to influence transformation in the greater business world?

Bibliography

Huffington Post Canada. May 15, 2015. Glass Ceiling Report Weighs In On Gender Inequality In Canada. Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/05/15/glass-ceiling-canada_n_3274301.html

Kantor, J. Sept. 17, 2013. Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity. New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/education/harvard-case-study-gender-equity.html?pagewanted=allhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/education/harvard-case-study-gender-equity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Gender and Intercultural Communication: The Québec Experience

The concept of gender is more a cultural construct than a biological way of being. There is little that is inherently biological or "natural" about a women's or men's roles and interactions in the social world. So much is culturally determined: the way we interact, the way we see ourselves (our identities), the way we see the world, and the way we see ourselves in relation to the world.

Gender-based interactions which take place across cultures (ethnic, national, racial, etc.) add yet another layer of complexity to these dynamics.

With globalization and massive immigration, cultural fusions and collisions form part of everyday living--especially in the West. Gender and intercultural relations has become a point of contention in fervently nationalist countries such as Germany, France, as well as in French Canada. The controversy has focused on North African and Near Eastern women, many of whom are Muslim.

Having lived in Québec, I witnessed a lot of arrogance on the part of non-Muslim women. These women tended to be over 50 years old and seemed concerned with "liberating" Muslim women from their supposed oppression. The solution of these predominantly white feminists was to ban the hijab, niqab, burqa...

There was no intercultural communication involved; rather, the communication was unidirectional--one group of women (white, feminist, established) dictating to another group of women (Eastern, Muslim, immigrant) what they thought was "best" for them. Did anyone think to ask Muslim women for their opinion?

Now the Québec Values Charter proposes to ban all government personnel from wearing obvious signs of religiosity (turbans, hijab, kippahs, etc.). Artfully disguised as a secularist project, it seems more like a veiled attack on Muslim women. This divisive policy has contributed to the fragmentation of intercultural communication in Québec.

 Instead of Western women imposing their belief systems on other women (and ultimately alienating them), more work needs to be done on fostering intercultural communication on gender and women's rights so that women of all cultural backgrounds can collaborate towards a better future.

Image from Gabrielle Wee's blog, "to know itself." The caption reads: Power to all types of feminists (with hijab or not) against all types or patriarchy!

Equal; and yet, different.

Equal; and yet, different.

Early struggles for gender equality attempted to erase difference between men and women. However, equality does not imply similarity. In general, women and men are fundamentally different--particularly in terms of their social interactions.  

Mary Ellen Guffey, Dana Loewy, Kathy Rhodes, and Patricia Rogin point out the communicative differences noted in women and men. According to the authors, during conversations men:

• pay less attention to the interlocutor (the other participant in the conversation)
• use interruptions as a way of directing the conversation 
• are attentive to facts 
• maintain eye contact less 
• move around more

Women, on the other hand:

• pay more attention to the interlocutor
• use interruptions to express agreement, to elaborate, and to become more engaged in the conversation
• are attentive to the whole person, seeing the conversation as a connective experience
• practice sustained eye contact 
• are more still ( 2013, p. 47).

The findings of the authors are, of course, generalizations: a great deal of communicative diversity exists both within and across gender categories. Nonetheless, being conscious of communicative differences can help make us more effective when listening and speaking.

Dr. Sylvia Gearing provides a summary of the communicative differences between men and women in her video, "How to Talk to the other Gender":

 
Works cited
Guffey, M. E., Loewy, D., Rhodes, K., & Rogin, P. (2013). Business Communication: Process and Product Brief (4th Canadian ed.). Toronto: Nelson.  

Escaping the Phantoms of a Sexist Past

Our everyday communications emerge from a sociocultural history—a history which almost always comes steeped in oppression. 

Our communications are haunted by the phantoms of an overtly sexist past. These phantoms continue to haunt our vocabulary: we often unconsciously use gender-biased language in our daily encounters, demonstrating how difficult it is to shake off the remains of sexism.

What’s in a word? Words can empower or disempower. Many of the gender-biased words that circulate in our daily communications identify certain positions/roles as male or female, perpetuating the stereotypes that many have fought to dismantle.

Many of us commit the following gender-biased mistakes:

Qualifying the female/male gender for traditionally male/female occupations. This happens when highlighting people’s genders in reference to their professions: ie. a male nurse, a female machinist, etc. 

Using gendered job titles. Titles such as “stewardess” or “fireman” perpetuate the genders traditionally associated with these professions, impeding the development of gender equality in these fields. However, gender neutral terms, such as “flight attendant” or “firefighter” promote inclusivity.

Language is never neutral. We must be conscious of our words and the power they have to hurt, to heal, and to empower.