Chapter 2: Culture and Gender

What is culture?

• Background, traditions, religion, values, celebrations.

Culture (def): a system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another. It is learned through enculturation.

Not necessarily related to or based on our ethnicity (a mind's perception of his or herself), or nationality (an individual's status as a citizen of another country).

Society: a group of people who share a culture

• In-groups (people like you, tend to gravitate towards them, more commonalities) v. Out-groups (perceived as different from you):

  • Ethnocentrism: when you believe that your cultural practices are superior to other cultures, foreground of racism and prejudice.

• Enculturation: a process of acquiring culture, a method of learning.
  

Components of Culture:

•  Symbol: smth that represents an idea

  • What are common symbols of the US? Flag, bald eagle.

  • What are common symbols of other cultures? Religious symbols and statues, monuments.

• Language

  • What are the three most commonly spoken languages in the world? Chinese, English, Spanish

• Values: things people think are good, bad, right, wrong. Freedom, independence, fairness, respect (intensity/priority varies from culture to culture). Txtbk def: standards for judging how good, desirable, or beautiful something is.

• Norms: common customs (ex: meet someone new in the US, you shake their hand), how you take up space, direct v. indirect.Txtbk def: 

• 
  

Co-cultures:

• Groups of people who share values, customs, and norms related to mutual interests or characteristics besides their national citizenship.

• Regional identity/co-culture, 

• Sports

• Clubs and student org: interest groups

How Culture Affects Communication: Seven Aspects of Culture (there are gray areas in some cultures)

Gender:

At what point do we begin to differentiate people based on gender? Gender reveals

Why do we feel like doing that? How do raise, expectations put on them by others, figure out how to raise them

What we call gender is a function of:

• Gender roles: masculinity, femininity, and androgyny (culturally bound)

• Biological sex: biological female or biological male

• Sexual orientation: heterosexual, homosexual, and asexual

 Understanding gender and communication:

• Gender roles are culturally constructed norms for how men and women are expected to act.

  • Masculinity, femininity, and androgyny

  • Their expectations influence our perspective of them

• Biological sex is affected by:

  • Psychology

  • Genetics

  • Anatomy

• Sexual Orientation: who we are attracted to

How does gender affect communication?

• Expressive talk v. Instrumental talk (task-oriented): contextual, femininity is more expressive.

• Language and Power: Powerful (direct, assertive) v. less powerful (hedging, qualifiers, questioning self) 

Linguistic violence: degrading comments -> lot of it to women, bodies, and way of being

• Gendered linguistic styles: Who uses more "I" statements: men

 Nonverbals:

• Touch and body movement

• Emotional communication: how expressive are you based on expectations for gender

• Affectionate behavior: demonstrates closeness