Summary

As women and men, we've been socialized into gen­dered identities, ones that reflect cultural constructions of femininity and masculinity. We become gendered as we interact with our families, childhood peers, and others who teach us what gender means and how we are to embody it in our attitudes, feel­ings, and interaction styles. This means communica­tion produces, reflects, and reproduces gender cultures and imbues them with a taken-for-granted status that we seldom notice or question. Through an ongoing, cyclical process communication, culture, and gender constantly recreate one another.

Because we are socialized into distinct communi­cation cultures, women and men tend to communi­cate for different reasons and in different ways. When we fail to recognize that genders rely on dis­similar rules for talk, we tend to misread each other's meanings and motives. To avoid the frustration, hurt, and misunderstandings that occur when we apply one gender's rules to the other gender's com­munication, we need to recognize and respect the distinctive validity and value of each style.

Gender Expectations

A Japanese publishing company purchases rights for a Japanese edition of Sharon Bertsch McGrayne's book Nobel Prize Women in Science. When the finished product arrives from Japan, McGrayne excitedly opens the package. However, she cannot decipher the Japanese characters of the title and is puzzled by what she sees. The cover features a kitten, steaming bowl of food, teapots, and a cartoon mother holding a spoon. A child tugs at Mom's apron while she thinks about molecules shown floating above her head. Tea­pots decorate the inside pages; the endpapers are pink.

McGrayne assumes that they have mistakenly sent her some­one else's book and is stunned to discover it is her book, now re-titled Mothers Who've Won Nobel Prizes. Although the gender gap is beginning to close, traditionally, Japanese women have not had access to important career positions. The publishers stressed domesticity, perhaps as a way to allay men's anxieties about women's achievements, to reinforce that they are homemakers first. Japanese housewives might buy the book because the cover relates to them. The artwork suggests that in spite of domestic responsibilities, women may now think about becoming scientists, too. By using a domestic context to honor women scien­tists, neither Japanese men nor women would feel threatened.

• The gender gap in many places outside the United States per­sists. Women are supposed to be wives and mothers first. In many occupations, they cannot attain the highest roles.

Spousal Abuse

Spousal abuse is allow­able where people believe that men are superior to women. Even if their lives are in jeopardy, wives fear letting authorities know. The women suffer in silence because they don't want to bring shame to their families. In the Asian family, the man is the head of the household. He dominates. Thus, no one is supposed to take action against his authority. And because spousal abuse has been a traditionally ac­cepted form of husband/wife interaction, many women have likely seen their mothers abused and view spousal abuse as a norm. Furthermore, part of the Asian wife's established duty is to please her husband. That is what it means to be a good wife. If there is a problem, she must change herself. She is also reluctant to bare the truth. To share family secrets runs counter to her cultural code. Asian Pacific wives are not the only immigrant victims who fear getting involved with the legal system to stop abuse. Latin American and Armenian women, too, are fearful. While they might at first call the police, they often back down when it comes to filing formal complaints.