UWP 1

Professor Michele Zugnnoni

Xinyu Han
July 25, 2017
Hello, Aggies,

I am one of your classmates and friends, and I am curious about conversational

differences between men and women because I have seen various communication styles between

male and female students in the group discussion in the laboratory. Some male students like to

join the discussion, but some do not, and some female students are shy and quiet in the

discussion, but some are not. Likewise, I always saw some differences in how to deal with my

sister and brother. My sister spoke softly, and she spoke about her feelings. On the other hand,

my brother spoke loudly, and he spoke about vesical facts.

According to my experiences, I am wondering that there are many differences in

communication between men and women. Moreover, I learned about gender stereotypes and

differences in the communication class last quarter, and some stereotypes and differences

represent the old concepts of sexism. For instance, some people think women speak softly

because they are shy and timid, and men speak aloud because they are confident and brave.

However, some studies showed that some women like to talk and want to keep nice appearances

and good social relationships with others, and some men do not like to talk and want to keep

silent in unnecessary communication (Quintanilla, K. M., & Wahl, S. T., 2017).

Therefore, I think it is imperative to comprehend these situations because they can help

us understand verbal and nonverbal communication better and find a proper way to communicate

in the society.

Otherwise, service sectors are the jobs that mostly require communication every day, so I

decided to observe how male and female servers communicate differently with customers in the

public place. However, the service sector within the huge economy environment is extensive, so

it is possible that men and women communicate differently in different places. Also, because I
only took two hours on observing at one place, my findings cannot represent a general claim.

Therefore, I chose to focus on single male and female server who are working at shopping mall

Arden Fair near the north of Davis. Before I start telling the story, I want you to think about a

question with me, "Have you observed conversational differences between male and female

servers at Arden Fair? How do they interact with their customers there? "

I personally hypothesized that women are probably friendlier than men in service

working places, and I expected to find the reason that causes this phenomenon could be males

and females have different conversational purposes. I hope you are interested in male and female

conversational differences in the public service field, and I encourage you to keep listening to me

with curiosity and find interesting points under this topic.

Taking through the observation, I found that a female server at the Zara store where I

conducted my first observing spot tended to interact more with customers than a male server

does. During the weekend, I went to Arden Fair with my girlfriend, and I observed that gender

individuals who employed in Zara have different verbal conversational habits. Firstly, I observed

a female service representative who likes to offer more immediate friendly assistance than

others. In the store, when my girlfriend was walking around and selecting clothes, the female

representative was coming and asking if we needed any help. Then, after we responded to her

and walked away, she kept speaking to my girlfriend like "wow, you have beautiful nails, I like

this color." I felt that she intended to express and try to get close with us because creating a good

relationship with the customer possibly help her introduce products and promote sales.

Conversely, I observed a man who was working at the check-table was not good at schmoozing

with customers, and he spoke less and kept calm when no customers are in the line. Additionally,

when a customer asked him for help or asked him questions about products, he only spoke a few

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words, like "yes, the medium size is on the right of the corner and he never initiatively starts a

conversation and greetings to customers.

In brief, I noticed that the female server talked more than the male server at Zara, but

there was probably a couple of different reasons. Firstly, that female representative is easier to

get closer to customers because she talks softly and friendly. Secondly, different personalities

make differences in communication styles (Carnes, D, 2015). The female representative is

probably more hospitable and friendlier than the male representative who may be shy or

indifferent, so she liked to talk more with customers.

However, I changed my opinion when I was sitting in Mikuni Japanese restaurant in the

shopping mall. In the restaurant, by thinking about different nonverbal communication habits, I

observed that a male server is more passionate and active than a female server, but the female

server is more patient and tender than the male server. When I walked in the restaurant, a female

server was smiling on me and leading me to the seat with a "please" gesture. Because I wanted to

see more dramatic reactions to gender differences, I told this female server that I wanted to

change my seat to the one next to the window when I just sat down. Then, she not only helped

me clean up the table but also led me on the way with a smile. From the beginning, she always

kept smiling and spoke with a gentle and patient tone. After I had sat down, a male server

introduced himself with a loud and confident voice and asked my needs with a smile because he

intended to impress me as well. I intentionally told him that I needed more time to read the menu

because I wanted to see if he would have the same attitude next time. After he left, I obviously

saw that his smile was gone immediately as well. While I was looking through the menu, I was

observing and contrasting this male server's attitudes with the female server who let me to the

seat. The male server was polite and active, and he always served customers with a fancy smile

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and loud voice. Nevertheless, when he turned around, he had no smile on his face. For a while, I

caught him when he was standing with a no facial expression, prospectively, he started smiling at

me when he noticed me. In the opposite, the female server was smiling to customers all the time,

and she liked to repeatedly ask customers' needs with polite body language, such as turning

heads and stopping. Although some customers were despitefully talking with her, she still

communicated softly.

Leaving the restaurant, I think that the conversational differences between the male and

the female server possibly are based on different purposes at Mikuni restaurant. I made a guess

that the male server only focused on his job, so he was only smiling and being active in part of

his works. However, the female server liked to have good relations with customers, so she kept

smiling at customers and talking softly as habits. After I contrasted with first observation, the

first one shows differently that the male server who aims to avoid talking with other people

because he is probably a shy person, but the female server who likes to talk with customers

because she is outgoing. Generally, two observing spots illustrate that people act differently at

different places, and it does not depend on different genders.

Overall, I believed that there is no argument about men and women being physically

different, yet there has been much debate involving the intangible differences between the two

(Quintanilla, K. M., & Wahl, S. T., 2017). Over the centuries, some sweeping stereotypes of

men's and women's intangible aspects have appeared, and these stereotypes have influenced our

society so much because it affects how people think about and treat a person. For example, some

people always like to ask men to do superior works and distribute women to work at inferior

positions, but it is possible that some women are better than men. Additionally, even though man

and women have different conversational patterns because of various purposes, we cannot

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confirm that all of the women are sociable and like to make a connection with others more than

the man because different people may also be affected by personalities, environments, and

situations. Consequently, it is important for us to overlook the stereotyping of the two genders

and focus on each and respect their individualities, whether they demonstrate more masculinity,

femininity, or either, which may or may not fit their gender stereotyping.

Thank you for listening, my dear friends, and this is a personal perspective about male

and female conversational differences based on a simple observation by myself at Arden Fair, so

I cannot make a significant conclusion about this controversial issue. You probably agree with

me or want to refute me, but I hope you get some attractive points you want to argue with and

share with your friends about this interesting topic.

Babin, B. J., & Boles, J. S. (1998). Employee Behavior in a Service Environment: A Model and

Test of Potential Differences between Men and Women. Journal of Marketing, 62(2), 77.

doi:10.2307/1252162. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1252162?seq=1#pag

e_scan_tab_contents

Carnes, D. (2015, May 17). Do Men & Women Use Nonverbal Communication Differently?

Retrieved from: http://www.livestrong.com/article/172581-do-men-women-use-nonverbal-

communication-differently/

Quintanilla, K. M., & Wahl, S. T. (2017). Business and professional communication: keys for

workplace excellence. Los Angeles: SAGE.

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