Catty1
12-26-2007, 02:31 PM
Hi, there:
I copied this from an internet group I am on - this woman and her husband were having a lot of laughs on Christmas Day, as they had a 'deal' that she would ask for help not using "Womanspeak". In response to the questions from forum members (mostly female), her husband wrote an essay to explain Womanspeak - and please note, he knows that this is a natural form of expression for women, and honest.
Share it with a good friend or S/O, and see what they think!
Best in the New Year,
Candace
************************************************** ************************************************** ************************************************** ********
Womanspeak
A Sergeant can give a Private orders, all day, every day. A boss can give an employee an order, if it deals with work, and nobody gives it
a second thought. A small child cannot give a parent orders, or at least that was true when I was growing up. The nature of an order is
the implied message, "If you do not obey, I can make you wish you had." It is that implied threat which makes all orders inherently
hostile, and which accounts for the resentment that builds up in people who are ordered around a lot. In songs ("Take This Job And
Shove It"), in specialty verbs ("to frag"), and in dozens of other ways, experience shows that there is a cost involved in giving orders,
even if it is only having to pay the employee his wages. At some level, everyone knows this, so it is not surprising that in good
marriages, the language of command is rarely heard.
But the urge to command is deeply embedded in human nature. In men it finds expression, or it doesn't; that is not our subject. Briefly put,
our subject is this: How does a woman get her way, if the language of command is too costly to use?
The honest (as men see it) alternative to a command is a request, but that too comes at a price: if you are forever making requests, you
come across as needy, a user. And, of course, the other person may try to balance the scales by making requests of his own, which defeats the
goal of getting your way. What to do? The answer, all too often, is Womanspeak. Not a command, and not a request, Womanspeak says "B" but
expects—even demands—to be understood as meaning "A".
Sometimes it looks like a question, as in the title of a recent book on mother-daughter communication: "You're Wearing That?". Depending on
inflection, that phrase may be a comment, a suggestion, or a command. It is not, however, a question. Used on children, Womanspeak almost
always disguises itself as a question, but every child learns early on not to answer it. "Don't you think you need a sweater?" is not asking
for a child's opinion; it is giving the child an order. Sometimes it looks like mere information, such as, "I'm cold." The hidden subtext, though, is a command: Turn up the heat.
However it is disguised, men see Womanspeak as dishonest--a ploy to give an order without paying the price--or, what is worse, a form of
manipulation. Men really resent manipulation, but we learn early on not to say so. Women don't believe they are being manipulative, and
get testy when told otherwise. After all, when they use Womanspeak, they think they are being diplomatic. And anyway, it is how their mothers talked to them, wasn't it? Yes, and it is how mothers talked to their sons, too, and we didn't like it then, either.
Probably Womanspeak dates back to the days when, as Blackstone said in his Commentaries on the Common Law, the husband and wife were legally one person, and that person was the husband. Back then, it served a useful purpose: it gave a voice to people who had none other. But
those days are past. The largest impact Womanspeak has today is that it encourages men to think what they dare not say, and no relationship
benefits from that, in the long run. At least that's what I think.
R*****
I copied this from an internet group I am on - this woman and her husband were having a lot of laughs on Christmas Day, as they had a 'deal' that she would ask for help not using "Womanspeak". In response to the questions from forum members (mostly female), her husband wrote an essay to explain Womanspeak - and please note, he knows that this is a natural form of expression for women, and honest.
Share it with a good friend or S/O, and see what they think!
Best in the New Year,
Candace
************************************************** ************************************************** ************************************************** ********
Womanspeak
A Sergeant can give a Private orders, all day, every day. A boss can give an employee an order, if it deals with work, and nobody gives it
a second thought. A small child cannot give a parent orders, or at least that was true when I was growing up. The nature of an order is
the implied message, "If you do not obey, I can make you wish you had." It is that implied threat which makes all orders inherently
hostile, and which accounts for the resentment that builds up in people who are ordered around a lot. In songs ("Take This Job And
Shove It"), in specialty verbs ("to frag"), and in dozens of other ways, experience shows that there is a cost involved in giving orders,
even if it is only having to pay the employee his wages. At some level, everyone knows this, so it is not surprising that in good
marriages, the language of command is rarely heard.
But the urge to command is deeply embedded in human nature. In men it finds expression, or it doesn't; that is not our subject. Briefly put,
our subject is this: How does a woman get her way, if the language of command is too costly to use?
The honest (as men see it) alternative to a command is a request, but that too comes at a price: if you are forever making requests, you
come across as needy, a user. And, of course, the other person may try to balance the scales by making requests of his own, which defeats the
goal of getting your way. What to do? The answer, all too often, is Womanspeak. Not a command, and not a request, Womanspeak says "B" but
expects—even demands—to be understood as meaning "A".
Sometimes it looks like a question, as in the title of a recent book on mother-daughter communication: "You're Wearing That?". Depending on
inflection, that phrase may be a comment, a suggestion, or a command. It is not, however, a question. Used on children, Womanspeak almost
always disguises itself as a question, but every child learns early on not to answer it. "Don't you think you need a sweater?" is not asking
for a child's opinion; it is giving the child an order. Sometimes it looks like mere information, such as, "I'm cold." The hidden subtext, though, is a command: Turn up the heat.
However it is disguised, men see Womanspeak as dishonest--a ploy to give an order without paying the price--or, what is worse, a form of
manipulation. Men really resent manipulation, but we learn early on not to say so. Women don't believe they are being manipulative, and
get testy when told otherwise. After all, when they use Womanspeak, they think they are being diplomatic. And anyway, it is how their mothers talked to them, wasn't it? Yes, and it is how mothers talked to their sons, too, and we didn't like it then, either.
Probably Womanspeak dates back to the days when, as Blackstone said in his Commentaries on the Common Law, the husband and wife were legally one person, and that person was the husband. Back then, it served a useful purpose: it gave a voice to people who had none other. But
those days are past. The largest impact Womanspeak has today is that it encourages men to think what they dare not say, and no relationship
benefits from that, in the long run. At least that's what I think.
R*****