Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" There are those who believe that the existence of gender differences at very early ages is evidence that these differences are biological or generic in origin. "

Related Quotes:

" When evidence emerged that Clinton was a devoted mother, Margaret Carlson writing in 'TIME' found her guilty of 'yuppie overdoting on her daughter.' "

Deborah Tannen

Guilty

Mother

Time

" I think it is important to remember that there are so many different ways to be sisters. "

" One of the first studies in the field of gender and language, by Don H. Zimmerman and Candace West in 1975, found that in casual conversations between women and men, women were interrupted far more often. "

" All of us aspire to be powerful, and we all want to connect with others. "

Deborah Tannen

Powerful

Want

" I wouldn't say that it's hard for sisters to treat each other with respect. Many do. "

" Relationships are made of talk - and talk is for girls and women. "

" There is probably no such thing as a level playing field in political campaigns. "

" We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups. "

" For women, detailed conversation is our lifeblood, while for men it's just not as critical. "

" A double bind is far worse than a straightforward damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't dilemma. It requires you to obey two mutually exclusive commands: Anything you do to fulfill one violates the other. "

" My writing is about connecting ways of talking to human relationships. My purpose is to show that linguistics has something to offer in understanding and improving relationships. "

" We tend to assume that we have a baseline of speech that's going to be normal in all contexts, but the truth is, we all change our ways of speaking depending on who we're talking to. And so I think it's kind of a gesture of politeness to the people you're speaking to to try to say something in their own idiom. "

" If women talk in ways expected of them or project a feminine demeanor, it's seen as weak. But if they talk in ways associated with men or bosses, then they're seen as too aggressive. Whatever they do violates one or the other expectation: either you're not talking as you should as a woman or as boss. "

" Sisters, to me, are fascinating because it is a unique connection of the coming together of connection and competition. The fact that you have these age differences is a built-in power struggle, and the fact that you're all trying to get attention and resources from the same parents creates competition. "

" When women told me they'd always wished they had a sister, they were thinking of this ideal of mutual encouragement and support. Many of those who have sisters also yearn for this ideal because their relationships with their sisters don't always live up to it. "

" It's a particularly modern myth that married people are best friends. The best-friend concept is a uniquely female phenomena. "

" Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations. "

" Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone. "

" The meanings of words and the uses of words come from practice from the way people in a given culture use those words. "

" We all feel wistfulness or regret about roads not taken. "

" Our ways of relating to each other become like habits. "

Deborah Tannen

Our

Ways

" There's the bond of a connection and the bond of bondage... When you are connected to somebody, everything each one does affects the other, and it's a kind of bondage. You're not as free as you would be if that person wasn't in your life. "

" In some ways, siblings, and especially sisters, are more influential in your childhood than your parents. "

" I've long believed that if you understand how conversational styles work, you can make adjustments in conversations to get what you want in your relationships. "

" Birth order is fascinating, and it is forever. "

" Most non-New Yorkers, finding themselves within hearing range of strangers' conversation, think it's nice to pretend they didn't hear. But many New Yorkers think it's nice to toss in a relevant comment. "

" The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate. "

" The study of gender and language might seem at first to be a narrowly focused field, but it is actually as interdisciplinary as they come. "

" It might seem at first surprising that when I studied women and men talking at work, I found that women 'interrupted' each other more often than men did - when they were in all-women conversations. "

Deborah Tannen

Work

Men

" Conversations with sisters can spark extremes of anger or extremes of love. Everything said between sisters carries meaning not only from what was just said but from all the conversations that came before - and 'before' can span a lifetime. The layers of meaning combine profound connection with equally profound competition. "