Successfully Speaking: Evolutionary differences contribute to gender discrepancies

Located in Springfield, Jane Sanders has expertise in gender communication, authentic leadership, presentation skills, and meeting facilitation.

Continuing on the topic of how gender differences affect communication, an interesting aspect of communication differences stems from social conditioning.

For example, social characteristics attributed to men include strength, aggressiveness, competition, superiority, independence, hiding and denying emotions, and being very brief and focused. Social attributes in women include a stronger desire for monogamous relationships, consensus, harmony, conflict avoidance, attention to detail, fine motor skills, strong verbal and social skills, and highly developed intuitive and people-reading skills.

Keep in mind, however, as with biological differences, these are generalities. There will always be exceptions.

Throughout the centuries, gender-based responsibilities helped program us with characteristics necessary to adequately handle such duties. For example, if men were responsible for hunting, building and protecting, doesn't it make sense that they would be programmed for strength, aggressiveness, competition and superiority, more so than women?

This programming was for survival, a matter of life or death. To keep himself, his family, and the species alive and protected from harsh weather, enemies and predatory animals, a man needed to feel superior and be competitive. He also needed these characteristics for dominance, control and victory over other tribes to ensure the growth and longevity of his own group.

If he went on month-long hunting or "manhood" trips, independence would be very important, wouldn't it? Now if he stood in front of an enemy and burst into tears, that wouldn't serve him very well, would it? So hiding or denying emotions became a way of life, literally one tool to stay alive. And men were responsible for saving lives, so they were brief and focused. They didn't have time for details.

Due to other survival issues and responsibilities, women were programmed differently. As much as women hate to admit it now, back then, they needed men's protection to survive. If an enemy or a saber-toothed tiger killed a man, or if another woman stole him away to replace her previous partner, his female partner and her children would likely die. Which also explains some of the innate, subconscious competition between women today.

Social programming is deep and enduring, and in many cases subconscious. This survival instinct is centuries old, it is solid and it is ingrained. Women are programmed for monogamous relationships because it meant life or death to them.

Men, on the other hand, were programmed to procreate and keep the species alive, to strengthen their tribes through sheer number. Gentlemen, this is no longer necessary! There are plenty of human beings on the planet now. This is one of those tendencies that must be adapted to fit current social norms.

So, here we have deeply ingrained gender-based differences in survival issues, resulting in a totally contradictory approach to relationships. And we wonder why there's conflict and confusion between men and women.

Because women's responsibilities included raising children, women are programmed for consensus, harmony and avoiding conflict. Also, a woman didn't want to make her man angry because if he left, she might die! Raising children and gathering fine seeds and grains gave women more attention to detail.

Strong verbal and social skills and highly developed intuitive and people-reading skills manifested in women due toresponsibilities for relationships and child rearing.

Pat Heim, who holds a doctorate in communication, has observed that men offer friendliness, whereas women offer friendship. It is a subtle, yet profound, difference.

"Friendliness comes and goes as needed to get something done. Friendship is a relationship that overrides the project," she said.

Heim attributes this difference to childhood practices. Men grew up playing on teams with boys they didn't necessarily like, and learned to pull together anyway. Women grew up with more choice and control over who they socialized with, so liking someone became crucial to their ability to create a relationship. One result of this socialization is that men are more goal-oriented, and women are relationship- or process-oriented.

We are different!

As you can see, men and women are very different, biologically and socially, and that's good! We are different from conception, and those differences are reinforced socially. It's nature and nurture combined.

Think how boring life would be if we were all the same. The key to successful communication is to be aware of our differences and understand how to work with them. Next month, I'll look at behavioral differences!