The myth of gender cultures

similarities outweigh differences in men's and women's provision of and responses to supportive communication

Readers of this journal are certainly familiar with the claim that men and women are so different that they comprise strikingly different "speech communities" or "communication cultures". Many best-selling books aimed at the general public have propounded this "different cultures" thesis in recent years, including works by John Gray, Deborah Tannen, and others. The idea that men and women belong to different communication cultures has also gained wide acceptance in academic circles. Claims about the deep differences in the ways women and men communicate, and the misunderstandings these differences create, fill professional journals and college textbooks, as well as popular best-sellers:

Although the different cultures thesis has been prominent in both academic and popular literatures for more than two decades, not until quite recently have there been studies that claim to find support for hypotheses derived from it. In this article, we offer a critical appraisal of this research and identify limitations in these studies that call their conclusions into question. Then, to evaluate the different cultures thesis further, we report the results of three studies designed to provide more valid tests of the same hypotheses examined in the research we critique. Our overall aim is to provide a rigorous assessment of the claim that men and women constitute distinct "communication cultures," particularly with regard to their manner of engaging in supportive communication.

The Different Cultures Thesis

In brief, the different cultures thesis maintains that gender-specific socialization of boys and girls leads to different masculine and feminine speech communities. These communities represent different cultures--people who have different ways of speaking, acting, and interpreting, as well as different values, priorities, and agendas. According to the different cultures thesis, masculine and feminine modes of thinking, speaking, and interpreting represent stylistic differences, not functional differences; each community is held to develop its own characteristic styles of addressing communication goals. Different styles are assumed to be equally valid and functionally equivalent; that is, within their respective communities, different styles are assumed to be equally effective at achieving intended outcomes.

The different cultures thesis has been elaborated particularly with respect to gender differences in intimacy, emotion, and the disclosure and discussion of emotional upset--what doctors refer to as "troubles talk." Indeed, some writers have concluded that "caring seems to be the principal category that differentiates one sex from the other". Proponents of the different cultures thesis maintain that women value close relationships for their emotional and expressive qualities, whereas men chiefly value close relationships for their instrumental features. According to this perspective, girls are taught that talk is the primary vehicle through which intimacy and connectedness are created and maintained, and thus come to value and enact forms of supportive communication that explicitly validate and explore a distressed person's feelings. Boys, on the other hand, are socialized to view talk as a mechanism for getting things done, accomplishing instrumental tasks, conveying information, and maintaining status and autonomy, and thus come to value and enact forms of supportive communication that avoid the discussion of feelings and focus on either fixing the problematic situation or directing attention away from it.

According to the different cultures view, each gender prefers its community's own unique style of expressing and communicating about emotion. Women allegedly perceive men's comforting efforts as dismissive or belittling when, in fact, men are trying to provide support in a way that is respectful and non-assuming. Men allegedly perceive the emotional support offered by women as demeaning or self-focused when, in fact, women are trying to express understanding and sympathy. Because members of each gender culture supposedly prefer their own stylized ways of providing support, they should prefer members of their own culture as support agents.

The different cultures thesis has serious implications for theory, research, and various forms of practice (e.g., counseling, pedagogy). Theoretically, the different cultures thesis implies that what makes messages more and less effective with respect to certain outcomes is purely a matter of convention. That is, messages have particular effects because, within a specific community, certain message forms become conventionally associated with a given effect This contrasts with the view that messages have certain effects because of how their features operate on the underlying psychological processes of their recipients. Further, because the different cultures thesis maintains that men and women feel, communicate, and relate differently, it implies that distinct theories of emotion, communication, and personal relationships need to be developed for each sex. Consistent with these theoretical implications, proponents of the different cultures thesis argue that much research on close relationships is methodologically flawed for inappropriately using "feminine yardsticks" in assessments of intimacy, closeness, and emotional support; such flawed research allegedly fails to consider or assess culturally distinct masculine styles of expressing closeness and care. The pragmatic implications that follow from the different cultures thesis are just as far reaching as its theoretical and methodological consequences. The remedy for the "cross-cultural" misunderstandings that plague communication between men and women is to increase "multicultural" awareness and sensitivity. Educators are encouraged by proponents of the different cultures perspective to develop programs that foster "multicultural awareness" of stylistically different, but functionally equivalent, approaches to communication events such as "troubles talk".