WP2201C Assignment 1

In chapter 5 of “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” (1992), John Gray proclaims that both genders use different languages when communicating the same issue. He explains that the main reason lies in the fact that men communicate by expressing information whereas women communicate by expressing feelings, and this divergence resulted in the miscommunication. The chapter is made up of assumptions by Gray that couple faces conflicts in their relationship because of the lack of understanding in their spouse’s language. This became the main attraction of the book because it manages to identify with the traits of the audience who were facing problems in their relationship.

In the chapter, Gray listed some common phrases used in the cases of women speech and men speech and explained how they come across with different meaning to the other gender, which he then offered solutions on how to rephrase their words so as to express the meaning that they intended. I feel that Gray is taking the essentialist’s point of view when writing the book as he did not acknowledge for social development between genders and simply stereotype women as emotional creatures and men as egoistic creatures. He also took an authoritative approach when giving solutions to the problems stated in the book. In it, he proposed alternative usage of words but failed to account for other factors that may be hindering communication.

The book was written in a slightly informal tone as Gray uses the examples of himself and his wife as a way to communicate with the audience, even categorizing men’s behaviour as being caveman-like. In doing so, he achieved the purpose of reaching out and connecting to an audience who were seeking reassurance with the problems they were facing. However, due to the nature of the intended audience, Gray left out the power dynamics played by couples of the same gender and how these miscommunications affect the social structural of gender.

Given the glaring title of the book, Gray was able to attract attention from audience who were baffled by the way they failed to communicate with the opposite sex. He took an essentialist stand and made a stereotype of gender differences. This way, he was able to come up with simple and practical solutions as opposed to a constructivist stand, which he then has to address social issues and bored the readers. This book might not be suitable for academic purposes but i felt that Gray achieved his purpose of writing a book that was based on gender differences, which eventually became a bestseller.