Media post #4

Synposis

- Women encounter difficulty in getting promoted in the workplace

- Factors include education, attitude from males, rules and procedures in organization, and differences in sex

- Folk linguistics = common beliefs about a language

- Women stereotypically express difficulties in both oral and written communication.

- Written and oral communication = two most important skills for success

- Women discriminated against in both taught language and how general language treats them

- Many studies done/ looked into – inconclusive since many conclusions are based on opinion, speculation, personal experience, and introspect.

- Stereotypes about expectations and assumptions of the linguistic behavior persist.

- Stereotypical generalizations also stem form cultural differences

- Women tend to be rated speech wise as submissive, while men are rated as aggressively

- Based on sex role image

- Women may have a harder time communicating in a male dominated environment versus a women dominated environment.

- Study done: Receiver's gender does not influence the communications of either the male or female sender.

- Written communication is less effective than oral communication: Adds the stereotypes into the person's mind, causing different reactions to happen. (A lot like email and texting today – Did they mean this or this?)

Clarification: The study done focused on written communication between males and females in a MBA program, and focused on these three questions:

1) Do females use a different communication style than males in managerial communication situations?

2) Is the quality of females' communication different from that of males in the managerial communication situations?

3) Do senders' communication style and quality differ as a function of the receivers' gender?

Overall thoughts: This article is a good source to keep. Maybe we can try creating an activity by using the study and seeing if the results are the same in class?

Source:

Smeltzer, L. R., & Werbel, J. D. (1986). Gender Differences in Managerial Communication: Fact or Folk-linguistics?. Journal of Business Communication, 23(2), 41-50. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

-Submitted by Ellissa