Orientation

Inside out.  Outside in.  These are the two terms that have been coined about the language that represents the two sexes.  Women, supposedly, speak of matters on the personal level.  The talk of what happens in terms of feelings, the inside of a person.  Once that area has been satisfied, then the conversation can take a turn to the larger environment, or what is happening around the person.  Men, supposedly, speak of matters in the environment.  The talk is of what happens around the person, such as politics, news events, sports, religion, or the weather.  Once that area has been explored, then the conversation can take a turn to the more personal.  Women, therefore, have language habits reflecting inside out, men outside in.

Of course, none of the features has to be that way.  They are the result of the socialization process.  They help men and women to make themselves distinct from the other sex.  They definitely are not genetic.  Some women who are not socialized as other women seem to have characteristics attributed to men.  The same is true of men.  Androgynous people, for example, speak of the pressure they feel from other men or other women to be like them.  Homosexuals also speak of the same pressure.  Socialization creates an atmosphere of ostracism, sometimes, if a particular unwritten behavior isn't heeded by a person.  Thus, women are pressured to speak like other women, men like other men.

That's the formula for misinterpretation.  Women began speaking on the personal level to men.  Men begin by speaking on the exterior level to women.  Women then say men don't seem to care about them.  Men say women don't show interest in their conversations or that their interests are so very different from their own.  So the war between the sexes rages on.  We should blame ourselves, however.  The sexes are not born to miscommunicate; they are trained to miscommunicate.

Our loss.