The Genderlect Theory was developed by Deborah Tannen to explain the difference between the communicative styles of men and women. Tannen believes that the main cause of miscommunication between men and women is the fact that neither party realizes that their encounters are cross-cultural. This premise is rooted in the idea that the ways in which Men and Women experience the world, are completely different. Because of these fundamental differences in the way in which men and women perceive the world their resulting interactions differ and lend themselves to the formation of two different “gender cultures”.

Tannen goes on to describe certain ways in which the differing cultures make the way in which they interact, different. The main difference between the two groups is their communicative goals; mean seek to affirm their status within their society and women seek to form a human connection during interaction. Women attempt to form connections in many different ways such as offering nonverbal cues such as head nods, offering supportive feedback during conversations, or interrupting to share agreement.

The genderlect theory was created Deborah Tannen and defined as men and women miscommunication all the time and possessing different ideas. In the chapter Tannen there were different speech forms that showed that women valued rapport talk, while men value report talk. The different forms were private speaking vs. public speaking, when telling a story, while listening, when asking questions, and in times of conflict.

Genderlect, which was introduced by Deborah Tannen, is “a term suggesting that masculine and feminine styles of discourse are best viewed as two distinct cultural dialects.” According to Tannen, there is a clash of two cultures when men and women communicate. Women desire for human connection, while men desire for status. This leads to Tannen’s evidence that women value rapport talk, which seeks to establish connection with others, while men value report talk, which seeks to command attention, convey information, and win arguments. Tannen then breaks up the two cultures into five different sections: 1. Private Speaking vs Public Speaking, 2. Telling a Story, 3. Listening, 4. Asking Questions, 5. Conflict. In this cartoon, the women is talking to the man and asking him ridiculous questions about his day, which he answers concisely. She then goes on to conclude that Jeremy does not listen to her anymore, which is not completely true.

Deborah Tannen, author of You Just Don’t Understand, researched the differences between the way men and women communicate with each other. According to Tannen, when adult men and women are communicating with each other they are “tuned to different frequencies” and are speaking “different words from different worlds.” As Tannen studied men and women in conversation, she discovered that men are focused on being superior to everyone else while women are more focused on creating relationships and connections. There are five different topics that Tannen talks about which show the differences between men and women. The first one is private vs public speaking. She states that women usually have a rapport style of talking which is based on making a connection with the other person. Men usually have a report style which is used to command the attention of everyone in the room. The second topic is story telling. Tannen talks about how men tell more stories than women do, and when their stories aren’t jokes they (the men) are usually the heroes in the stories they are telling. Topic number three is all about listening and how it always seems that women pay more attention to what people are saying. This is because of the short phrases women interject into a conversation while the other person is talking, for example, “yeah” or “uh-huh.” The fourth topic has to do with asking questions. Men never ask for help, especially for directions, because it “whittles away at the image of self-sufficiency that is so important to a man.” The final topic is about conflict and how men don’t mind conflict since they see life as a contest.

This cartoon shows a little boy asking his grandma why moses wandered in the desert for forty years, to which she responds, “Because even back then men wouldn’t ask for directions.” This goes under Tannen’s fourth point about asking questions. Men think that asking for help will make them seem less superior to everyone else, so they never ask for help.