Piper Curda

COMM 301

6 November 2018

Application Log – Genderlect Styles Theory

Reading about this theory reminded me of a conversation a girl friend of mine and I had

with a couple of our guy friends last year. One of our guy friends posed a hypothetical situation

to us: “If your significant other called you and was coughing and sneezing and sounded really

sick, what would be the first thing you said to them?” My girl friend and I almost immediately

responded with “are you okay?” and both of our guy friends flipped out. They both said they

would ask if their S.O. had taken any medicine, gotten much rest, or gone to the doctor—ways to

solve the problem.

They couldn’t understand why we would ask a question we clearly knew the answer to, if

it was obvious our partner was not okay by the way they sounded. We were all appalled at the

other gender’s answers, and now it’s easy for me to apply genderlect styles to this situation. In

the hypothetical story, me and my friend (females) opted for cultivating connectedness and using

words that imply feeling, which is how Tannen defined a typical feminine style of

communication. Conversely, our guy friends were much more directive and offered solutions, a

tendency of masculine communication.