A Defense of the Cross-Cultural Approach to Male-Female (Mis)Communication

Starting from the realization that gender-related discriminatory practices are still encountered frequently enough as to account for the coinage of words like mansplaining (2008) and hepeated (2017), this article retraces the roots of divergent linguistic behaviours to the gender stereotyping underlying parental behaviour or social normativity and articulates the importance of analyzing cross-sex interaction by using the cross-cultural communication framework of analysis. This approach has the potential for equity-inducing change by helping people break the psychological hold of the gender-related ideologies thrust on them in childhood and by ensuring that members of both sexes are sensitized to the others’ interactional idiosyncrasies and encouraged to accommodate them.

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