that there is some difference generally between the way men and women talk, and that MtFs lots of people don't always fit into that general pattern.

FIFY

I'm not sure that its the 'way' men and women talk as much as its the topography of the conversation itself.  If, as has been noted many times, but mostly in Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, men will tend to 'solve' a problem, women are more content (seemingly) to just discuss it.

And, I'm not sure that is a gender deal, but more of a social one.  Men - or at least that world of work man thing - tends to be result orientated, and the nature of any conversation is to give information and to get information.  Men tend to 'solve the problem' because most of all the stuff that's ever asked of them is goal orientated, fact driven, i.e. there is a solution.

A woman's conversation (and men do have them, in large part academic/scholarly stuff is the man way of having that kind of talk) seems not as focused on getting or giving information, but more really like posting it. 

So when a 'guy' tries to 'fix the problem' he's doing what is pretty much the uber guy deal, Find the problem, fix the problem.  Most of men's socializing is constant reinforcement to that basic notion.  The Boy Scouts, Sports, School - find the problem, fix the problem - all reward the same base behavior, which is fixing problems.  So of course the guy - him somehow caring about this in some way - is going to do the real guy deal and step up for you and solve it.

That Woman's Speak is a lot like academic speak I think.  We're going to outline what the deal is, spend a long time talking in detail about the deal going down, all somehow commiserate around it - but we're not going to solve it.  (In academics the point, in the end, is always moot, so there is no solution.)  Or, (and this may well be true also) women don't actually care enough about the problem at that level (or see it differently) to bother to solve it.

It's like if we had old Sally in our circle of galpals - like Sex in the City or something.  And Sally is always having trouble with her BF, Ramone.  And Sally has always been having trouble with Ramone.  It's impossible to think anymore of Sally as someone other than the person who is having troubles with Ramone.  It seems like Sally has been having trouble with Ramone before she even met him (which is true in a way).  Now we never try to solve the Ramone issue - though kick him to the curb is the obvious choice.  Everyone accepts that Sally will be having issues with Ramone, but its not life and death.  Hell, skip it, come back next week, still more of the same.

The purpose (or reason if you will) for Sally to be in the group is because talking about her and Ramone is talking about all relationships.  Its the group shorthand to dealing with relationships.  There is no solution to the Sally thing specifically, because Sally's problems with Ramone are dealt with at far more of an abstract level.

I think women are very good at solving problems, otherwise they'd never be able to live without a man.  (And I know plenty of women who can live without a man, thank you very much.)  I think it is just the focus of the conversation that is different.  Two men standing, talking, will rarely face each other; two women will.  They've even videoed pre-school kids behaving this way.  The style of the conversation reflects that.

As for Sally, I don't know how many threads I've seen on this forum where someone will be agonizing about something.  Someone will suggest a solution.  The original person will latch onto some part of the reply that is irrelevant.  Someone else will suggest the same solution.  And so it goes.  When the problem is with ourselves we often are not ready to hear a solution.  (I, of course, am never guilty of this behavior. )  [That's sarcasm, in case anyone missed it.]

And, Tekla, I heartily agreee with your first statment in the last post: Many people don't fit into these patterns.  I would add that not everyone who does fit into the pattern fits into it all the time.

Isn't the variety of life fun?

- Kate

Quote from: tekla on September 19, 2009, 08:52:06 AM
And, I'm not sure that is a gender deal, but more of a social one.

Exactly, I could not agree more. Thank you.

Social conditioning starts from day one or before, and is so powerful that it's perfectly understandable to mistake it for inborn. Where my panties get in a knot is when we start to evaluate one's femaleness based on commonly observed criteria, because it's not an easy thing to unlearn.

However, I'm sure we can agree that whatever it's origin, biological or social, unlearning male conversation programming is one of the most validating and rewarding aspects of transition.

Well, for sure there are women who have the solution for everything - just ask her.  And guys who can't do it save their life.

Quote from: Becca on September 19, 2009, 06:54:02 PM
Exactly, I could not agree more. Thank you.

Social conditioning starts from day one or before, and is so powerful that it's perfectly understandable to mistake it for inborn. Where my panties get in a knot is when we start to evaluate one's femaleness based on commonly observed criteria, because it's not an easy thing to unlearn.

However, I'm sure we can agree that whatever it's origin, biological or social, unlearning male conversation programming is one of the most validating and rewarding aspects of transition.

This.
I'd like to add though, that many TGs/TS seem to see gendered type behaviors as black and white absolutes. I think there's a great deal of exaggerating going on. Women are not always thoughtful and men aren't always thoughtless.

These last two posts, by Nero and Heather, make me think: What are we really trying to do here?  Are we trying to fool the world into thinking we are women or men even though our bodies were born differently?  Are we trying to convice ourselves that we are really the gender we want to be?

Or are we just trying to be ourselves, finally, after years of trying to be who society expected us to be?

I speak to my male friends more or less the same as I used to.  They speak to me more or less as they used to.  I speak to my GG friends as a woman.  They speak to me as they would another woman.  I love it and am finding it pretty easy once I relaxed and gave myself permission to do it.  I'm still discovering who I am, and perhaps my friends are still discovering who I am, too.  Through the years I've learned to speak with many people from different backgrounds.  I will speak a little differently with each but will still be the same person.  I'm just me, not a chameleon or someone behind a mask.

(Gawd, I'm cranky this morning. )

- Kate

Quote from: K8 on September 20, 2009, 07:23:22 AM
What are we really trying to do here?  Are we trying to fool the world into thinking we are women or men even though our bodies were born differently?  Are we trying to convice ourselves that we are really the gender we want to be?

Or are we just trying to be ourselves, finally, after years of trying to be who society expected us to be?

- Kate

What I see is as we try to blend in and be just like every other man or woman we run into obstacles/challenges they don't have.  We have been socialized in our birth gender but we try to fight the person we "became" before transitioning.  We don't 'automatically' act like GGs or GMs.  We have to think about it first.  At the same time we're checking to see if we succeed in our efforts.  GGs and GMs don't even think about it.

So our thoughts can be filled with things non-TGs never think about and that takes additional effort.  At some point I just got tired of trying and wondering and I just decided to be, just as I did before transitioning.  Sure, I have the voice thing going all the time but I'm even accepting that and not trying so hard.  What I do know, is it makes it a lot easier to get through the day.

If we go back to the life 'before', I think most of will find we never gave a second thought about throwing on some clothes and going out to the grocery store to how do they gender me, things like that.  That's what I'm working towards.  And that success will only be realized when it's resolved in the space between my ears.

Julie

Hmmm..... This topic has wandered through various areas, including whether the trait is inborn or learned and now whether or not to project that trait is somehow false. What does that matter?
If falseness is your big concern, then walk around in your male clothes exhibiting your male body language and voice with no makeup, tucking, breast or bum padding and just tell people that actually you are female!   

To restate Sammy's original point with a couple of words bolded by me:-

QuoteThe listening skills exhibited by MTFs are characteristic more of "male" behavior than "female", which I would imagine might throw others off. This doesn't bother me really, the point is, I think in transitioning to a woman, it would be important to learn active listening skills exhibited by many females, so they seem more "natural"

The reality is that convincing presentation as female involves a lot of subtle nuances as well as the obvious things.
The first thing that a competent voice coach will tell you is that pitch is largely irrelevant as long as one adjusts resonance and stays above a certain critical frequency below which one will always be perceived as male - there are very many women with surprisingly deep voices but no-one would ever mistake them for male.
The difference is in the speech-pattern, inflection, intonation and word-choice, but it also includes several other areas including a greater focus on feelings rather than actions and a difference in the WAY women listen.
....... which was Sammy's original and I think quite valid point.   

Quote from: tekla on September 19, 2009, 08:52:06 AMIt's like if we had old Sally in our circle of galpals - like Sex in the City or something.  And Sally is always having trouble with her BF, Ramone.  And Sally has always been having trouble with Ramone.  It's impossible to think anymore of Sally as someone other than the person who is having troubles with Ramone.  It seems like Sally has been having trouble with Ramone before she even met him (which is true in a way).  Now we never try to solve the Ramone issue - though kick him to the curb is the obvious choice.  Everyone accepts that Sally will be having issues with Ramone, but its not life and death.  Hell, skip it, come back next week, still more of the same.

The purpose (or reason if you will) for Sally to be in the group is because talking about her and Ramone is talking about all relationships.  Its the group shorthand to dealing with relationships.  There is no solution to the Sally thing specifically, because Sally's problems with Ramone are dealt with at far more of an abstract level.

omg my (gg lesbian) roommate is exactly like that. I've known her for years through several of her relationships and it's always the same drama, same problems, same issues, day in and bloody day out. I learned long ago that there is no "fixing" it, because this IS the way she deals with these issues. The best thing I can do is listen and offer support and suggestions, which seems to be all she wants as she works these things out on her own. Sure it gets tiresome, but she doesn't need or want some "man" to come in and "fix it" for her.

There is social conditioning but there is also our natural way of being as Kate mentioned. I never gave a damn for the social conventions of how men are supposed to conversate, which is probably why people were always pegging me as gay. Little nuances perhaps, but once I began in earnest to let go of the old and just be my natural myself, it really wasn't something I had to intellectualize and ponder over endlessly. So I'm saying while a good deal of it might indeed be social conditioning, there is also a natural aspect to it and I think everyone is going to have that to one side of the spectrum or the other. Maybe it's just all in our definitions of what's male and female.

I'm sorry.   I was tired and cranky.  Please ignore my previous post.

Julie is absolutely right - we obsess about all this because due to our socializaiton it doesn't come automatically.  When I can finally not think about it and just be a woman then I will feel like I've pretty much transitioned.  I have a long way to go even though I too often think that I don't.

And you are right, Steffi.  It is not just the pitch but the intonation and word-choice and resonance.  Yesterday I was chatting in the coffee shop with a GG friend when a college-age girl turned and gave me The Look.  She had heard my voice.  I'm not sure what exactly cued her, but I know that if I have a long conversation my pitch drops and much of the resonance returns as I relax.

And yes, I still think Sammy's original point was valid.

- The not quite so cranky Kate 

Hi--this is my first post on this site, recently joined.
Just to throw in this view [I'm a transitioning  m to f and I actually listened to your post]:
I deal with a wide cross section of people on a daily basis and honestly I don't see significant differences in listening skills across biological genders. One person replied to you saying "Research shows..." [that women are better listeners than men] but I see no sources given or what studies referenced.  People also think that women talk more than men, but a recent peer-reviewed study on this shows that the men in this survey on average actually said a few more words/day than the women. 
      I realize that this detail could seem to confirm your point. ['Exactly! They listen less because they talk more!'] But my actual point here is that gender stereotypes may be driving this. These play into our perceptions, in incredibl6y subtle ways. Our perceptions seem to be confirmed--but by selective, rather than scientific, recall of 'examples.'
admittedly I provided the above example of talking without a source--not having time to track it down, but it hardly matters for my point: to get some purchase on these kinds of issues, look at research in social psychology.  There are tons of studies on all sorts of things and they often run counter to what everyone 'knows' is the case

It's funny. . .I can listen quite well, and empathy has always come naturally to me.

But I have great difficulty in talking and contributing unless the conversation has a tangible focus (TV, video games, etc.) or concerns a person or idea about which I'm passionate. Essentially, I'm unable to maintain idle, unimportant chit-chat. You know, the kind of thing that makes up a large majority of social interactions and, most importantly, facilitates the creation of relationships with new people. 

In those instances,  I tend to attempt to pass the active role back by asking questions or making quick observational comments. Or I just smirk, giggle, or chuckle while hoping the other party recognizes my desire to flee and allows me to do so.

I never had this problem during my childhood until I reached junior high. . .

MissAshley ...... I could have almost written that same comment      It's tough going sometimes

demoiselle65 Yes, your comments about the unreliability of "the common wisdom" are very valid.
When you say that you deal with a wide cross-section of people though, are you talking about when they are focused on a specific goal/target?
I think that male and female conversational styles will necessarily converge if one is talking about something practical, like planning the layout of a new kitchen or similar.

Although Sammy's original point didn't specify the topic etc, I assumed that he was talking about more general chatter.

Like - (my own nutshell observation) - as soon as you start talking about feelings men switch off and only start paying attention again when there is something more tangible, something that they can "do"   ? ? ?