Reddit Reddit reviews You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation

We found 21 Reddit comments about You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation
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21 Reddit comments about You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation:

u/bownettea · 16 pointsr/brasil

Leia esse livro (não achei ele em português): You just don't understend!

Basicamente a autora, que é uma acadêmica do estudo de linguista, aborda conversa entre homens e mulheres como comunicação intercultural...
Eu achei bastante esclarecedor.

Vou arriscar um TL;DR, mas é difícil explicar um livro inteiro em 2 frases:
Na cultura masculina se costuma negociar hierarquia em conversa, a das mulheres costuma ser negociar proximidade ou conexão. Ou seja, quando uma mulher te fala algo que tu considera estranho ela esta querendo provavelmente ela quer exercitar a conexão dela contigo:

  • "Minha tia tá tomando remédio controlado, graças a Deus está melhor": você compartilha comigo deste sentimento?

  • "Hoje minha cabeça amanheceu doendo", você entende como estou me sentindo?



    p.s.: Eu sei que sou um homem respondendo uma pergunta direcionada para mulheres, mas eu só estou tentando expor uma teoria de uma mulher que é especialista no assunto...

    p.p.s.: O prefácio é inteiro sobre como o objetivo do livro não é generalizar homens ou mulheres, que nenhum lado esta certo ou errado, são apenas diferentes e apresenta milhões de contra exemplos de pessoas que se comportam diferente da média. Então não me venha com chorumelas de sexismo...
u/jazzbeaux59 · 11 pointsr/AskMen

You don't need to write anything; it's already been written: You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen. Get two copies and each of you read one.

If you won't read the book, here's the super super distilled version:

  • say what you mean, be blunt, don't beat around the bush, don't hope he'll figure out what you mean; if you're not sure what you mean, don't say it until you are

  • ask for what you want - don't assume he'll read your mind - he can't.

  • take what he says at face value - men don't code their messages - he means what he says.

    Read the book
u/[deleted] · 10 pointsr/TwoXChromosomes

I'm not so sure this isn't in part a cultural issue. What I'm saying makes sense I guess mostly if you buy into Deborah Tannen's theories about how men and women talk to each other. I'm not suggesting that men and women necessarily should be talking to each other here, but I don't think anyone would deny that it's happening.

By cultural issue I mean that maybe in many cases women here are trying to build community on an issue and many of the men are seeing this as trying to establish a set of facts. These men may try to create what appears to them to be a more accurate set of facts than what's been posted, and the women posters see this as an attempt to destroy the community.

If the people who are coming here to "correct the set of facts" could understand that their help, however meant, is not necessarily in the best interest of the discussion, maybe at least the best-intentioned of them would relax a little and allow the discussion to proceed.

Trolls, of course, will always be trolls.

u/vmsmith · 8 pointsr/AskMen

Two things.

First, you left out values. Common values are way, way more important than common interests or attitudes. Perhaps you consider attitudes synonymous with values, in which case...never mind. But if you don't, then I think you have an omission.

Second, don't "noun" your partner. By that I mean, don't say "You are an idiot." Phrase it in verbs terms: "You do idiotic things." This makes a huge difference.

Bonus (from Deborah Tannen's You Just Don't Understand): If your partner is female, when she asks, "Do you want to do such-and-such," do not automatically think that she is requesting a yes-or-no answer. Many women want to negotiate an answer. So when she asks you that, the correct response for many women is, "I don't know, what do you want to do." It pays to figure out if your partner is one of them.

My wife and I just celebrated our 21st wedding anniversary. I attribute our happily long marriage to those three things I mentioned.

Edit: To account for zombiecyborgg and saylikeonemoretime

u/randomtask2005 · 6 pointsr/TheRedPill

First off, this is primarily a relationship sub, but the theory is applicable to more than just relationships. There's a lot of male bonding going on here. There a lot of people here who have been pretty badly burned by SOs to the point of never wanting to fall in love again. There are others who are using this sub as a springboard to positive action (getting introverts to leave their shell). It's not all about women bashing. We all take different things from this sub. As with everything else, YMMV.

>I'm glad you gave me the benefit of the doubt. Although I'm certainly a feminist, I'm here not to 'troll', but because I find almost everything I read here to be extraordinarily incoherent and I'm trying to understand why someone would believe these things.

One of the major problems about Women understanding TRP, is we do not speak the same language. Men and women infer completely different things from the same conversation. Male conversations often deal with an inferred status and we can jockey for it constantly within a single conversation. Men focus on independence and competition rather than interdependence and communication (this is not to say those things aren’t valued). (For more on this read "You Just Don't Understand" by Deboarh Tannen )

The focus of TRP is about the exchange of knowledge. Knowing something or being able to fix something is fundamental notion of what masculinity is. When men have a problem, we seek a solution. Ironically, this is also a sticking point in many relationships. When women complain to men, they want sympathy. What they get are suggestions to a problem (not what they want) that leads to frustration on both sides.

So when we initially come to this sub, we aren’t looking for a shared point of view, we are looking for a solution to a problem. That problem is “I’m doing exactly what I’m told should make me happy, why am I not happy?”

This question is normally regarding (but not limited to) relationships and how some men have ridiculous success with women, while others have none. TRP is about explaining why this occurs. (i.e. What makes one man who has Dissocial Personality Disorder (a/n: not what I was looking for, but I can’t recall the correct term) more attractive than a man who is respectful, stable, and caring? Do his attributes define him, or do his choices?)

TRP is a process-driven method of thinking, where the results are dictated by the process you followed to obtain them. We cannot and do not expect the world to change simply because we want it to, so we are attempting to make lifestyle changes that will affect the outcomes of events and the way we perceive them. The thinking is “by emulating certain qualities of successful males (of which there are many definitions), I too can be successful in __.”



> If you wouldn't mind, could you please explain how confidence, humor and approach-ability spring from adopting the redpill mindset? Would you also agree that these qualities can exist entirely independently of the redpill mindset?

“Alpha” men are men that display qualities of leadership. While there are a number of different methods of leaderships, one who is alpha is likely to have some combination of confidence, courage, intelligence, humor, physical strength, charisma, and potentially sexual prowess as character traits. Someone that lacks most of these traits is typically termed a “beta” or a follower. The penultimate goal of TRP is to nurture the qualities of leadership in “betas” to become “alphas” by providing our own personal opinions and the steps we took in order to achieve this change.

While I will concede, these character traits can exist independently of the red pill mindset, we believe that they are a fundamental building block of our own personal ideal of what an “alpha” is. We believe that emphasizing “alpha” traits will give us the courage to overcome our fears and doubts to become the man we want to be. We believe that living a courageous life will bring us success. We believe that we can change the way the world looks by changing the way we look at the world.

What this is also means is being aware of the methods a woman can emotionally manipulate men and avoiding them. This is not to make the assumption that all women constantly do such things, but that they can. (I would like to believe that women also make other women aware of the methods that a man can take to emotionally manipulate a women and steps to avoid them, but it’s not my place to tell a woman how to be a woman)

> From what I've read, redpill seems to be about acting as though women were incapable of progressing beyond emotional adolescence, incapable of unconditional love, and susceptible to training in much the same way that a dog is. For the life of me I cannot see the connection between believing terrible shit like that and being approachable. I, for example, do not believe any of those things, and feel that I'm quite approachable.

There are a few parts to this question.

First off, what are you are citing are analogies to describe the kind of emotional “rock” the man needs to be. A woman will test the foundations of their relationship with a man what we call a “shit test” to judge his emotional stability. When you say “…women were incapable of progressing beyond emotional adolescence…” we mean “avoid little arguments. Focus on the bigger picture and don’t compromise your emotionally stability over petty squables”. When you say “women are…incapable of unconditional love” we mean “women are susceptible to doubts about a solid relationship. Seek to allay those doubts by treating the doubts themselves are inconsequential to the relationship, even if they are”. A man must be sure where a woman is unsure. You can’t anchor a boat on rocky seas to another boat on rocky seas.

As to the content of TRP, every man at some point has been emotionally manipulated by a woman to do something for them. Having a guy around who is “just friends” or has been “friend zoned” is a form of emotional manipulation because the relationship is inherently unequal (with mismatched desires) in which one side of the relationship uses the other for their benefit with no intention of providing any form of restitution. (We call this a “beta orbiter” or a beta male that constantly provides a specific woman with validation in the hope that she returns his affection.)

Most guys get rejected. They suffer alone. Silent. Wondering where they messed up. So when they realize that they were never viewed as relationship-worthy, they get pissed for being so naïve. I was one of them.

See, most of us were told by our mothers that being a "nice guy" would get us that great girl and let us be happy. If we read between the lines a little, what we were actually told was that manipulating the feelings of women would be the path to our own happiness. So we did. Doesn't that inherently make many "nice guys" into manipulative assholes? Of course it does, but it didn’t seem that way at the time.

The truth is it takes a ton of soul searching to figure out what you truly want and need, enough that very few people ever do it. Which means no one knows what they want and we wasted a lot of time listening to bad advice about how to give women what they want. It could have been much simpler if we were told “be a man that other women would like to experience the adventure of life with”.

So yes, there is some bad blood here in this sub. It's male bonding. It’s unavoidable in this sub.

Lastly, as a woman, not much in this sub applies to you. You don’t have to be approachable. You are approached. You choose who your ideal partner is. In that respect, women have the power of choice.

TRP is about getting great men out of their own way so they have a fighting chance to get a great woman.

u/Nibble_on_this · 6 pointsr/politics

>Years ago, after I wrote that women are more likely than men to use indirectness when asking someone to do something, I received a letter explaining that indirectness is the norm in a context civilians mistakenly associate with barked orders: the military. The letter-writer said that he learned this lesson fresh out of boot camp in a class taught by an experienced Navy officer. Standing in front of the class, the officer said it was hot in the room. The students nodded. The officer said it again, and again the students failed to react. The officer then explained that when he said it was hot in the room, he expected them to do something about it. Then he said it again. This time the students got up and headed to the windows to correct the situation. This, the man wrote, was a lesson that served him well in his military career. The lesson, I’d say, was to listen for the metamessage in the words of a superior.

Really neat to get a linguist's perspective on this sort of stuff.

edit: If anyone hasn't read Tannen's seminal book You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation, I highly recommend it.

u/Tedesche · 6 pointsr/FeMRADebates

I don't contest the idea that men are trained not to cry and women are allowed to. I simply contest the notion that this is because men are trained not to express their emotions, whereas women are. In my opinion, men are simply trained to express their emotions differently than women.

More to the point, I think men are trained to be more independent, whereas women are trained to be more interdependent. Thus, when men encounter a problem they do not feel they can solve, they get angry and express that suffering with angry outbursts, because their implicit understanding of their suffering is that it is their fault for not being able to find a solution on their own. By contrast, when women encounter a problem they cannot solve, they cry and/or seek help, because they are trained to construe their failure as evidence of lack of support.

The idea that men are trained not to cry because their pain and suffering is considered "weak" is a distinctly feminine construal of male psychology. If you look at men who go to other men as a means of support, you see them asking for advice, not emotional support (Google "Deborah Tannen" for an excellent summary of this phenomenon), because they value practical solutions over emotional support, because that fits with their belief that they ought to be able to generate their own solutions, rather than rely on other people for assistance. By contrast, women seek other women's emotional solidarity, because they are trained to believe that they cannot solve their own problems independently.

u/knowstuffsolveprobs · 4 pointsr/linguistics

Another very pop-linguistics author is Deborah Tannen. You Just Don't Understand has made a cultural impact, I would say.

u/porkchop_d_clown · 3 pointsr/AskMen

Others have already mentioned the classics - always dating, negotiation, your life will change, etc...

Here's one that saved me personally: When my wife and I were still just shacked up and livin' in sin (like we used to say) we had no problem with working out anything important but we kept having fights over the stupidest stuff. Eventually I found a book on the different linguistic patterns of men and women - and how those differences were causing us to misunderstand each other, leading to fights.

30 years later the book's a classic and still in print: You Just Don't Understand

u/Tangurena · 2 pointsr/AskMen

> how have you handled situations where your SO said something hurtful while she was upset?

After she calms down, I ask her what she meant and we talk about it then. Cruel things, said in the heat of passion, can't be taken back. But you can talk them to death. Stay away from declarative denunciations (such as your example of divorced parents) and stick to a recipe like "when you say X, I feel Y". This way it stops being confrontational and lets you process the feelings and focus on what was said/meant.

The book you refer to is pretty bad. Much better books that discuss gendered communication are You Just Don't Understand, That's Not What I Meant and many of the books in Elgin's series of books with Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense in the title.


If you think that you are being emotionally/verbally abused, Suzette Haden Elgin has a few other books covering that, like You Can't Say That To Me and How to Disagree Without Being Disagreeable. Additionally, read Emotional Vampires and In Sheep's Clothing.

u/nonsensepoem · 2 pointsr/AskMen

It's less of a self-help book than it is a popular and very practical adaptation of an academic work (by the same author, who is qualified in her field). I strongly suggest you read the whole thing.

u/Hynjia · 2 pointsr/Blackfellas

> It's no accident that women report on surveys that they have the best talks with their partners under three conditions: on the phone (they don't see him piddling around to reduce his excess arousal)

This is what makes me dread going from a long distance relationship to living with my SO. I am a pretty good listener, and I do pay attention to her. But that's because right now I have the space to do stuff other than just sit there and be awkward as fuck. This will obviously change when I live with her and she's going to feel slighted because I'm not giving her my undivided attention.

I read a book earlier this year/end of last year: "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation" by Deborah Tannen. This book also reflected my experiences as a man pretty well by saying that boys grow up in a hierarchical culture of masculinity. The way we navigate our world is based on somehow getting on top or positioning ourselves as some sort of authority. But, and this is the kicker, this is how we bond with other men. When these same tactics are applied to our interpersonal relationships with women, they don't "translate" because women grow up in a completely different feminine culture with it's own set of rules. ("Why can't you ever listen to me" doesn't mean just listen to them, for example).

Anyway, I think a large part of why feminism doesn't appeal to men is because feminism is for women. I know, that seems tautological, but I mean, feminism is for women in terms of how women approach the world. Tannen's book and your book suggest to me that "Meninism" needs an entirely different approach that takes into account feminist critiques of men's behavior. Hierarchy is important to boys and men. And what that means materially, I think, is where we can make some huge strides in terms of addressing our problems as boys and men.

u/thecrowdsourceror · 1 pointr/AskWomen

I like this book a lot

I don't remember if it addresses women speaking "in code," but I often find that what frustrates me about the way men talk to me is them lecturing to me or talking at me rather than trying to relate to me. This book elucidates those gender differences really well.

u/Danascot · 1 pointr/AskReddit

Not an article but a great book on the topic: You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, Deborah Tannen
http://www.amazon.com/You-Just-Dont-Understand-Conversation/dp/0060959622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262224407&sr=1-1

u/foundtheseeker · 1 pointr/relationships

I'm glad I could help. As a man in a relationship of 7 years, I have had time and opportunity to encounter a lot of gender-based conflict in communication, living styles, behaviors, etc. And I've had an understanding, thoughtful, intelligent spouse to hash these things over with. Without her, I'd be totally lost, and that's the truth.
If this kind of thing is a topic that interests you, you might like You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Coversation by Deborah Tannen. It's written in an accessible, conversational style, yet it's good linguistic science. Tannen is still giving talks on this book more than 20 years later.
I hope things go well for you and your boyfriend! Differences in behaviors like this are common, and a little understanding on BOTH (read: he needs to understand your behaviors, too) parts goes a long way. Good luck!

u/glucoseboy · 1 pointr/fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

Get this book. Changed my life forever.

Oh, don't get the John Gray book, it's crap

u/platinumgulls · 1 pointr/AdviceAnimals

Yes, but that's just the first step.

Men and women communicate completely different. Just because you can talk, doesn't mean you communicate in a way that the other sex understands.

I would recommend reading: You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation it really helped me in how I talk to women.

u/SparklePlatypus · 1 pointr/asktransgender

In terms of word choice and so forth, I learned a lot from the book You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. It seems to be written with the goal of helping men and women communicate with each other better, but you could also use it as a kind of "how to" manual.

u/duplico · 1 pointr/relationship_advice

Get You Just Don't Understand by Deborah Tannen. Great pop-sci book (We read it in a linguistics course I took) about the different ways that men and women use language to communicate. The overarching theme of the book is that women use language to build rapport, and men use language to report facts. Using these different lenses to look at communication lets us get through a lot of mysterious differences.

u/AlphaCygni · 1 pointr/AskReddit

I'm not a therapist, but I am a scientist interested in gender/sexuality and I've spent a lot of time observing sexual relationships. Here are a couple of points that I think will help you out:

  • There are no Vulcans. A bunch of you think that you are highly logical and not driven by emotional and all that, but you actually aren't. Studies have shown emotion drives our logical thought processes, to the point where most of the decisions that you make that you think are 100% rational actually are backed by emotion.
    As someone who is generally considered a Vulcan by others and has really broken down their mental processes, I can assure you that you are feeling emotion but just using pseudo-logic to support your emotional choices. cite
  • Different people experience these emotional processes different ways. Some people are more aware of the emotion underlying their decision. Other people (like me) like to analyze the hell out of everything. As a 'logical thinker' person in a relationship with an 'emotional feeler', I can assure you that no way of thinking is superior. The odd thing is, my boyfriend's impulsive decisions often bring him to the same place that my researched decisions bring me. In fact, over time, I've come to realize the importance of trusting my instinct since most studies show that using your gut leads to better choices (and helps you decide quicker). cite And again, most of us end up using our guts for the important decisions. The 'logical' thinkers just wrap up our answers in rational explanations after the fact. cite
  • Men and women are socialized differently. "Traditionally, [Western] cultures have rewarded males for being decisive and proactive, whereas females are socialized to be more thoughtful and receptive to others' views." The conflict where women often want to be heard and men often want to solve comes from this. When a woman brings an issue to you, she wants you to be thoughtful and receptive to her experience. She's not looking for a decisive proactive solution. In other words, think of this as a bonding exercise. cite
  • Make it a point to say early only that 'nothing' is not a valid answer to a relationship question (but not when it happens in an argument!). My boyfriend and I banned this response from our fights. What I do when my boyfriend is upset but unable or unwilling to articulate why is to give him a hug, tell him I love him, then ask him if he wants to be left alone or cuddled. If he wants to be left alone, I give him his space, but do something nice for him, like make him a good cup of tea. If he wants to be cuddled, I give him back massages and head scratches and bring up happy memories/funny things.
  • If she wants to vent listen. Because a lot of men are socialized to solve problems quickly and early, I see a lot of heteros arguing where the woman is upset about something and the man is becoming overly defensive, which just compounds the issue. Just sit and listen. I have a het couple friend who takes turns talking out problems day by day. One half goes the first day, the second half goes the second day, etc. My boyfriend and I have never had a problem that complex, but we'd definitely try that method first before we'd try solving it in one day.
  • Still want to solve the problem when it appears they just want to rant? I do. So I do this: After I've listened, I say, "That sucks. Is there anything I can do?" At first, my boyfriend would say 'no'. Now he asks for cuddles, tea, etc. I also make up ridiculous advice (note only works when they aren't angry at you) to cheer him up. His coworker sucks? I say things like, "Obviously, the only solution is to kill him." However, you have to be careful that you don't come across as flip when responding to their problems. A lot of times the ranting people just want someone to acknowledge that their problem does suck. Once I've listened for a while to the rant (genuinely listened), I then ask him what he plans to do about it. After he's said his plans, I then insert my own advice. Usually though, I've found that he does have a good plan, he's just bonding with me through shared experiences.
  • If you don't care about your spouse's problems, then something's wrong with your relationship. It may be that you don't love your partner (I've found that if I don't, I'm not interested in solving their problems). It may also be that your spouse complains too much and doesn't do anything to solve their problems (I can't date people like this).


    Here's a good book for understanding how men and women are socialized into different conversational styles.
u/cyrano741 · -6 pointsr/AskWomen

There is an interested explanation of this in "You Just Don't Understand" (https://www.amazon.com/You-Just-Dont-Understand-Conversation/dp/0060959622/).

Roughly: men seek to establish independence in conversations, and one way to do that is to not follow instructions given to them. So when a man's wife/GF asks him to do something, he may instinctively "disobey" the instruction to establish his independence. Of course, this causes the wife/GF to repeat the instruction 5 minutes later, resulting in nagging.