Language Does More: “men”
Picture a successful CEO of a large company. How do they dress? What’s their demeanor? What’s their personality like?
There are a variety of traits a CEO could have, maybe they’re friendly and get along with everyone at the company, or maybe they’re arrogant and act like they’re the smartest person in the room. Aside from *always* dressing in business casual, there is one thing that these people all have in common that helped them reach their level of success- they carry themselves with confidence, and they talk like it too.
Regardless of a business leader’s personality, they need to be sure of themselves and what they bring to the company. Traits like assertiveness, confidence, decisiveness, and independence are all common among leaders, and linguistically — these traits are descriptive of Standard Male Conversational Style.
It’s no surprise that men have set the standard for communication at work. Up until the 1970s, men have made up over 60% of the workforce (although certain industries, such as education and nursing have been historically female) Why accommodate for different communication styles when the majority of workers were socialized to use language in the same way?
Because of the different ways that children are socialized to use language, men and women often end up using very different styles of speaking. Gendered social norms encourage girls to typically be empathetic and in tune with other people’s feelings, while boys are expected to be more confident and sure of themselves. This, in turn, leads to varied adult communication styles, and can easily be a source for miscommunications, especially for men and women interacting at work.
There are many benefits to having a masculine style of speaking in the workplace. Being direct and decisive in scenarios that require someone to think quickly and make big decisions is necessary for any productive business. For someone in a managerial position, being able to convey ideas concisely to employees without too much confusion and muddled words ensures that everyone can be on the same page without going over things multiple times.
The question we have to ask ourselves today about Standard Male Conversational Style as the “norm” in the workplace is this: how do we adopt (or not?) these masculine linguistic patterns and make them usable and accommodating to those who might typically use a more feminine speech style?
First, we need to be able to acknowledge all the benefits of using feminine linguistic patterns in business. To begin with, women, especially young women, are often the leaders of linguistic change. An article from the University of Chicago English Language Institute states, “William Labov has long researched language variances between men and women, and observed that women lead 90% of linguistic change.” Women often speak differently from men, and until children are raised without gendered social norms and expectations (which is considerably unlikely), there is no way around it. Feminine speech styles tend to be more involve more linguistic politeness with the goal of being receptive to others’ emotions. These traits can be beneficial in the workplace because it allows for others to feel heard and can create a more open dialogue where all parties feel comfortable saying their piece. The way that many women speak should be taken seriously instead of deemed “unprofessional”.
Second, we need to be able to recognize when women are using a masculine style of speaking, and be mindful of our interpretation of them. In the workplace, when men show anger or frustration, it often feels commonplace. Men are usually expected to have an opinion and stick to their guns, so showing frustration about a topic can reaffirm this stereotype. Women on the other hand, are penalized for displaying these types of emotions. A survey published by Victoria L Brescoll revealed that 75% of performance reviews about female employees contained some type of negative criticism tied to traits like “pushiness”, or “stubbornness”. In men, these traits are under much less scrutiny, but it is not inherently wrong for a woman to show these traits and give pushback or share an opinion. Being aware of one’s own biases and opinions of others is going to be crucial in order to maintain a diverse workforce.
At the same time, because of these same gendered social norms, men may feel an similar pressure not to display emotion, or at least certain emotions. Because of language socialization, men actually have a much smaller range of words to use when describing their feelings. In fact, a pilot study conducted by Memra in 2018 showed that on average, Men have a significantly smaller vocabulary for describing negative feelings they experience in the workplace when compared to their female counterparts…and out of all the words used to describe negative feelings, men and women only overlapped in their word choice 6% of the time.
What all of these discussions about language and gender come down to in the end is this: AGENCY vs IDENTITY. Most people want to be effective at work, while still being themselves. Learning how identity is indexed in language helps us build environments for agency and identity to be balanced well.
