Interpersonal relationships: concepts and dynamics

Interpersonal and 'Gendered' Communication in the Workplace Setting

The movie, "Adam's Rib," effectively illustrates differences in interaction and communication between males and females. The conflict in the movie, which stems from the seemingly biased and sexist view of the society against Amanda Bonner's client illustrates how females are generally viewed more complex and difficult to interact with than males. Moreover, the film illustrates audio-visually the dynamics of communication among males and females, particularly in the courtroom setting. The conflict in the movie is not a fictional work of art. Indeed, conflict between males and females in the workplace setting is prevalent, particularly in a supposedly neutral community such as academic institutions. Despite the objective image illustrated by educational institutions, male-female dichotomies are abounding in the workplace setting, whether it is among student-instructor or instructor-instructor relationships.

One particular example is the conflict experienced by a female and a male academic instructor, who belong to the same faculty in a university. The male professor, a lawyer by profession, displays sexist attitude when describing females during faculty meetings. The male professor contends that female professors should not be delegated as decision-makers during faculty meetings because they tend to be 'emotional,' and usually take advantage of their emotionality to have their decisions and proposals approved, followed, or implemented. Of course, the female professor expresses disagreement over the male professor's arguments, stating that though women tend to be emotional during faculty meetings, they can be objective when discussing important issues that needs to be addressed.

This situation illustrates clearly stereotypes built around a woman's image, wherein females lack objectivity, i.e., they are more subjective than males. Indeed, these stereotypes are formulated and developed not without any basis. Stereotypes may or may not illustrate the truth about female and male communication styles, but as Hartley (1999) argues, developed stereotypes on males and females are based on an individual's "world view." The concept of world view is essential in the study of gender communication, since this posits that communication is an individualist and subjective interpretation of a person's view of his/her social reality, which includes his/her interactions with other people. Furthermore, studies indicate that men and women do have different communication styles, especially in the context of workplace communication. A study conducted by Ash (1996) illustrates this point, where she enumerates the substance of each conversational style in her discussion of into Men's and Women's category: Male conversations/communication are mainly humorous, goal-oriented, authoritative, and often characterized by loud and interruptive talks, while Women conversations / communication tend to be based on self-mockery, indirectness, consideration, and compliment-giving is considered a "ritual." Ash's study confirms that indeed, the assumption that men and women have different conversational styles in both substance (content) and manner of communicating.