The Study of

Communication, Hello!
Gender, and Culture
CHAPTER 3
Reasons to Learn about Communication, Gender, and Culture

Learning about communication, gender, and culture serves three important goals.
First, you will gain increased appreciation of complex ways in which cultural values and
practices shape understandings and expectations of masculinity and femininity and men and
women.

Second, as you become more aware of ways cultural expectations of gender are
communicated to you, you will more deeply understand your personal gender, both as it is
now and as it might be if you choose to remake it

Third, studying communication, gender, and culture will strengthen your effectiveness as a
communicator.
Differences between Women and Men

Men are more logical, analytical, rational.

Women are more intuitive, holistic, creative,
integrative. Men have a much more difficult
time relating to their own feelings, and may feel
very threatened by the expression of feelings in
their presence.
 Relationships among Gender, Culture, and
Communication
According to John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, he could not discuss
any single part of the natural world in isolation. He observed that each
part is “hitched to the universe,” meaning that every part of nature is
connected to all other parts. Likewise, gender, culture, and
communication are hitched together. We cannot really understand any
one of these concepts without knowing about the others.
 Although many people use the terms gender and sex interchangeably, they have
distinct meanings.

Sex (female or male) is a designation based on biology and assigned at birth. Gender
is far more complex. Gender is socially constructed and expressed. It includes one’s
internal sense of self as a woman, man, or neither (gender identity), the external
communication of one’s gender identity through clothing, hairstyles, behavior, and
voice (gender expression), as well as the cultural expectations assigned to one’s sex
(gender role).
 Sex
Sex is a biological classification based on external genitalia (penis and testes in males, clitoris and vagina in
females) and internal sex organs (ovaries and uterus in females, prostate gland in males). Genitalia are determined
by chromosomes. In most cases, people who are biologically male have XY sex chromosomes, whereas people
who are biologically female have XX sex chromosomes.
But sex is not as neatly binary as Western culture represents it to be. They have XO, XXX, XXY, or XYY sex
chromosomes.

Gender
Gender is the social meaning assigned to sex. Related to gender are the concepts of gender identity, which is an
individual’s perception, and subjective experience, of gender, and gender expression, which is how one
communicates gender to the outside world. Gender, gender identity, and gender expression are not innate. They
also tend to be less stable and more fluid than sex. Most of us are born male or female (sex), but we have to learn
to see ourselves as gendered (gender identity) and to act in masculine and/or feminine ways (gender expression).
Gender varies across cultures, over time within a given culture, over the course of individuals’ life spans, and in
relation to other genders.
Current meanings of masculinity and femininity in the United States:

Masculine is to be strong, ambitious, successful, rational, and emotionally controlled. Those we regard as “real
men” still don’t cry in public and are successful and powerful in their professional and public lives.

Feminine is to be physically attractive, emotionally expressive, nurturing, and concerned with people and
relationships.

Gender is learned. From infancy on, we are encouraged to embody the gender that society prescribes for us.
Although individuals learn gender, it is not strictly personal. Rather, cultures stipulate the social meaning and
expectations of each sex. Because society’s views of gender permeate public and private life, we tend to see them
as normal, natural, and right. When society constantly represents women and men in particular ways, it is difficult
to imagine that masculinity and femininity could be defined differently. But, as we will see, gender varies widely
across cultures and history.
Conventional views of both sex and
gender are challenged by people
who define themselves as trans
(transgender), genderqueer, or
gender nonconforming.

Meanings of gender also change

as the result of role models, who
embody visible alternatives to
traditional gender identities.

To realize the arbitrariness of

the meanings of gender, we
need only to consider different
cultures’ views of masculinity
and femininity.
 Sexual orientation refers to a person’s preference for
romantic and sexual partners. People who have heterosexual
orientations are romantically and sexually attracted to
people of a sex different than their own.

How ar
e you? Hi!
 CULTURE
which is structures (also called institutions) and practices (also called activities) that
reflect and uphold a particular social order. They do this by defining certain identities,
values, and patterns of behavior as natural, good, and important and defining other identities,
values, and patterns of behavior as unnatural, bad, or unimportant. Because gender is central
to cultural life, society’s views of gender are reflected in and promoted by a range of social
structures and practices.

One of the primary practices that structures society is communication. We

are surrounded by communication that announces social views of gender
and seeks to persuade us that these are natural, correct ways for men and
women to be and to behave.

Another cultural practice that upholds Western views of gender is the custom whereby a woman
takes her husband’s name if she marries. In taking a man’s name, a woman’s identity is linked to
his, but his identity is not equivalently linked to hers and he is not defined by his relationship to
the woman.

In many respects, Western culture, as well as many other cultures, is patriarchal.

Really g
r eat!

The word patriarchy literally means “rule by the fathers.”

This is because the United States was originally governed by
men, historically it reflected the perspectives and priorities
of men more than those of women.
 COMMUNICATION
Communication is a dynamic, systemic process in which two levels of meanings are created and
reflected in human interaction with symbols.
Communication Is a Dynamic Process
- which means that it continually changes.
For example, the word queer was strictly derogatory but has been reclaimed by many who identify as LGBTQ.
And before trans activists questioned the stability of sex and gender, “cisgender” was unnamed because it was
simply assumed.
-This is because communication is a process, communicative interactions have no definite beginnings or
endings.

Communication Is Systemic
-Communication occurs in particular systems that influence how we interact and what meanings we
attach to messages.
For example, suppose you observe the following interaction. In an office building where you are waiting for
an appointment, you see a middle-aged man walk to a woman’s desk, put his arm around her shoulders, and
say, “You drive me crazy when you wear that outfit.” She doesn’t look up from her work but responds, “You’re
crazy, period.
We can’t interpret this interaction, because we don’t understand the systems within which it takes place.
Recall John Muir’s statement that each part of
nature is “hitched to the universe.” As a system,
all aspects of communication are hitched
together, so they interact with one another.

Communication is also influenced by how we

feel: When you feel tired or irritable, you may
take offense at a comment that ordinarily
wouldn’t bother you.
Great!
The largest system affecting communication is
our culture, the context within which all our
interactions take place.
 Communication Has Two Levels of Meaning
The content level of meaning is its literal meaning. For example, If Ellen says to her
partner, Ed, “You can’t buy that car,” the content level of the statement is that he can’t buy
a car.

The relationship level of meaning defines the relationship between communicators. It reflects
and influences how people feel about each other. It tells us how to interpret the literal message.
In our example, Ellen believes she has a right to tell Ed what he can and cannot buy. Ed
could respond by saying, “I certainly can buy it, and I will.” Here, the content level is again
clear. Ed is stating that he will buy the car. On the relationship level, however, he may be
arguing about the power balance between himself and Ellen, and he may be refusing to accept
her control. If she says, “Okay, then buy it,” she accepts Ed’s claim that she is not running the
relationship.
 Meanings Are Created through Human Interaction with
Symbols
This premise highlights two final, important understandings about communication.
First, it calls our attention to the fact that humans are symbol-using creatures. Symbols
are abstract, arbitrary, and often ambiguous ways of representing phenomena. For
example, ♀ and ♂ are symbols for female and male, respectively. Words are also
symbols, so female and male are symbols for particular humans.
Human communication is symbolic, we have to think about it to figure out what it
means. Symbols are ambiguous; that is, their meanings may not be clear.
Differences in interpretation are the source of much misunderstanding between people.
However, you can become a more effective communicator if you keep in mind that
people’s perceptions and interpretations often differ.