Contrast male and female strategies of communication

Contrast male and female strategies of communication, humor, and metaphor in American English.

Feminists and some linguists argue that English does not treat women and men equally in professional titles, i.e. chef – cook, medic – nurse.  Typically, male come straight to the point in a conversation, which seems abrupt and even rude to some women.  Men, usually, do not engage in small talk. Women spend more time talking. There is even a joke that two women sat in the same cell in jail and after they left the jail and once they were on the outside, had a small chat. 
Typical metaphors for males deal with their virility or “animal magnetism”: built like a horse, hungry as a wolf, he is a stud.  The world of male metaphor deals with “manly” things cars and sports.  The world of American feminine metaphor deals with things associate with beauty: “she is a wallflower”, “she is gentle as a rose”, “her lips are like cherries”.  As women gained more equality in society metaphors like “she is a fox” began to emerge.
The male philosophers, such as Schopenhauer, argued that women have no humor.  In American society, women’s humor is just more subtle than men’s and less crude and aggressive as a remnant of inherited British culture.  In British culture a woman swearing or speaking too crudely was viewed as a hussy and this carried over to our culture.  The typical subject of conversation jokes for males are sexist ones:  virgins, mothers in law, talkative women, and cuckolded males.  A typical feminine joke would have a much more subtle punch line:  “A Navajo woman hitchhiker gets a ride from a female professor traveling on the interstate.  The professor, noticing that her bottle of wine is placed inconveniently, moves the bottle to the back of the car while saying, “I got it for my husband”.  Upon arriving at her destination, the Navajo woman solemnly replies, “Good trade”.


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