INSIGHTS Friday, May 22, 1992 - North Shore News — a room of one’s own Women-only: The book on the gender communication gap in the 1990s WHEN OUR mothers were our age, they probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. A group of women getting together once a month to talk about a book and eat a little dessert. Hey, what a great idea. Sure as heck beats watching most weeknight television. But this is 1992, and pro- gressive, 30-plus women like us are sensitive (or at least we’re supposed to be) to exclusion based on sex. How could we form a women-only book club and not expect men, and perhaps other women, to mutter: ‘‘Pretty darn sexist if you ask me.” : In an era when women are stil] trying to gain entry into men-cnly business bastions, how could we blatantly bar the hairier half of humanity? Well, we did, and I wish I could say it was with much fretting and wringing of hands. Of course, we did think for a few minutes about our decision to exclude men, but we all had an overwhelming gut feeling a women-only policy was the right one. Call us sexist, but we decided that our book club would be ir- revocably different with men — not necessarily worse (say, in terms of the calibre of the discus- sion), just different. Despite all the valiant attempts of one sex to figure out what makes the other sex tick and (forgive me for this) ‘*connect,”’ we're still as different and baffling to each other as ever. It's proba- bly a sign of maturity to accept this fact and admit frankly that sometimes you just want to be with your own kind. This doesn’t mean that you despise or degrade the other gender, it just means that some- times you want to shoot the breeze with someone who will be keenly interested in everything from your new semi-permanent hair color to the troubles you’re having with a male boss. if you have any doubts about how differently men and women still communicate, understand, act and react, you should read You Just Don’t Understand, by Amer- Catherine JUST ADD WATER ican linguist, Dr. Deborah Tan- nen. One of the main thoughts that Tannen offers her readers is that for men, communication involves establishing status, whereas for women it involves establishing rapport. The author uses the classic go- ing-to-the-dinner-party scenario to illustrate her point. You know the one. Call our main characters Fred and Betty. They're invited to a dinner party and have never been to their hosts’ home before. After waiting patiently while Fred tries different streets, Betty realizes they’re almost half an hour late for the dinner party. She suggests, in a casual, unaggressive way to Fred, that they stop and ask someone for directions. No way Fred is going to ask anyone for directions. It’s com- pletely unnecessary since he knows they’re almost at the house. The truth is, Fred would rather walk over burning coals than ask someone for directions, since that somd put him in an infe:' er pasi- tion. For mea, as Taanen points out, ialk is primarily a way of preserv- ing independence and maintaining their status in a hierarchical social order. Men keep this status by showing knowledge and skill and by ‘‘performing”’ publicly through jokes and imparting information. For women, talk is a way of reaching out and matching experi- ences. Have you ever noticed how much effort a lot of women will put into exploring feelings with other women? To many men, this seems like a big fat waste of time; but to a woman, it can be a way of giving and receiving valuable emotional support. To put it simply, for men, talk is information. For women, talk is interaction. As Tanren notes, this is the reason why thousands of North American women munch their morning cereal in frustration every day. Again, you know the scene. Bert has his head buried in the newspaper, assuming Edna has no information to pass on to him. Edna doesn't want to report the biooming Dow Jones index to Beri, she wants to talk to him about feelings, issues, ideas! When she tells him this, he looks at her Sike his breakfast didn't agree with him. The exploration of feelings and ideas isn’t just a need of women -— it’s also a source of great en- joyment. How could any men we might jet into our book club appreciate Gur musings and speculations about Madame Bovary’s self- destructive rush to the ruin of her own and her family’s life? I can just hear some male say- ing of the bored 19th century French beauty: ‘J think a little part-time work could have straightened her out and helped the family budget.”’ in her book, Tannen offers a Shooting left helpless feeling Open letter to West Vancouver Police: I just wanted to voice my concern for the shooting of North Vancouver citizen Danny Possee. It’s not that I knew Danny Possee that well (I went to high schoo! with him), but what happened really hits home. The broadcast on the news keeps replaying over and over in my mind and makes me wonder if these feelings will ever go away. My friends and I came up with 20 or more ways this could have been handled dif- ferently. Here are just a few: Police must change ‘shoot Dear Editor: On May 12, a friend of mine, Daniel Possee, was shot and killed by a member of the West Van- couver Police. They said it was a ‘‘soft drug taid.’” If it was a ‘‘soft’’ raid, why He could have been warned that they were going to enter (for a seizure of a little bit of marijuana, I just can’t under- stand why they had to burst through the door). If he really needed to use a gun (which | know in my heart they didn’t, not just in this case but in any situation like this), the police officer could have shot him in the knee, or in the foot, or in the arm just to warn him or stun him. To shoot somebody in the chest — I know that there was intent not just to stun him but kill him, and this makes me so angry. upon entering were their guns cocked and ready to fire? If they were so fearful of the alleged criminals inside, why didn’t they send a trained dog in- side first? Or why didn’t they shoot to maiin, not kill? Something has to be done about And what about the new stun spray? Our government spends millions of dollars on testing a device to stun people and yet incidents like this are still happening. © Danny Possee does not deserve to be dead. Why wasn’t his history looked into first? From that information you would then know that your staff would not have been in danger. I also think that there shouldn’t just be an inquiry within the police department, but a public inquiry. Trisha Soper North Vancouver first’ policy the ‘‘shoot first, ask questions later’? scenario that is prevailing recently. We, his friends, are upset by what is happening in our com- munity. Allison Creelman North Vancouver compelling reason fer an all- female book club. Research shows that in a mixed group, women make more ad- justments. Even in their body postures. Studies of mixed groups reveal that men assume the same body posiure that they do when they're in an all-male group — they sprawl out into a‘room, taking up a fair amount of space. Women, however, draw themselves in, assuring - “ladylike”’ postures when men are present; in an all-female group, women are sprawled out and relaxed. Research also shows that male-female conversations are more like men’s conversations than like women’s. in other words, women make more adjustments in a mixed group. This is more a matter of style than substance — that is, the conversation probably won’t slide into talk about the Canucks or somebody’s golf handicap, but it will be more ‘“‘report-oriented"’ than “‘rapport-oriented.”’ Maybe that’s why we haven't allowed men in our club. Fun- damentally, we don’t want some- body to report on a book — we want to establish and nurture a rapport with each other. I expect that for a lot of men, that seems like a thoroughly ex- hausting proposition. Where is outrage demanding inquiry? Dear Editor: What has happened to us, the people of the North Shore? Last Tuesday a young 22- year-old North Shore man was shot to death in his own living room by a police officer on a drug taid. Where are the outraged press, the civil libertarians, human rights people and our community * leaders demanding an inquiry into his police action? I thank the good Lord that the young man in question was not a visible minority or we could all be cleaning up the mess now. A few weeks ago we sat and watched and discussed} the actions of the people of Los Angeles in response to a jury verdict, then the police shooting of an armed fugitive in Toronto followed by riots and looting and a call for an indepen- dent inquiry into police and -race relations. 1 did not know this unfortunate young man or the Possee family, but I do have a family of my own and I do not think that this family in their time of grief should have to bear the responsibility and costs of seeing that justice is done. I call on the civic leaders of our three municipalities and the people of North and West Vancouver to show their support for this family and our outrage that this could happen to any one of us in our own home. Michael J. Edwards North Vancouver News Mailbox requirements LETTERS TO the editor must iu- clude your name, written legibly, your full address and telephone number, Due to space constraints the North Shore News cannot publish ali letters. Published letters may be edited for brevity, clarity, ac- curacy, legality and taste. Letters can be faxed to 985-3227.