Gender influence on communication skills. The way biological sex shapes/influences our emotional expressiveness, sensitivity and communication skills.

Gender Influence in Communication For years people have been trying to figure out how to communicate with the opposite sex . In relationships , in office atmosphere , and in every day contact , it seems that much miscommunication occurs when a man tries to talk to a woman - or vice versa

John Gray says in his book , Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus that when men and women talk , they hear different things

For instance , Gray surmises that when a woman says This is not working ' a man hears This is your

fault ' When a man says It is not a big deal ' a woman hears It is not important . Let 's just drop it and move on ' With translations like these , it is easy to see how there is a communication problem between the genders . Terms like battle of the sexes ' come from such conflicts between men and women

Women seem to be more sensitive to what is being said . They search beyond what was actually said to find what they believe was actually meant . This is not necessarily only when they are communicating with men , but also when women are communicating with each other . Women try in essence , to go beyond the words and read the mind of the person they are communicating with

According to Gray , women are like waves ' Gray says that women 's emotions rise and fall such as a wave rises and falls in the ocean Hormones play a very large role in a woman 's mood swings ' Gray says that when it comes to women in relationships , when her wave hits bottom , she is more vulnerable ' When her wave is high , she feels that she has more to give those she is in contact with . This is how men get confused . Men want to take credit and believe that when a woman is happy , it is because of something they did or said , and when a woman is angry or sad , it is also because of something they did or said . Based on a woman 's actions or reactions , men take a lot of responsibility for things that may not have a thing to do with them

A woman 's ability to read between the lines ' is actually a key in reading other people . This is also where a woman 's intuition ' comes from . A person can come to work looking dressed to kill , yet say one thing that targets a warning bell in a woman 's mind and she can usually tell more about this person than the men around her

According to Deborah Tannen , author of You Just Don 't Understand : Women and Men in Conversation , the difference between men and women and their communication , falls into how they understand two things - intimacy and independence . Intimacy is the development of interpersonal relationships . Independence is the ability to have status . How men and women handle these two things , according to Tannen , is largely what affects their communication ability . Men , she says , are...