Speaking Center News
"Wake Up and Smell the Coffee": Gender Differences in Communication May Account for Gender Differences in Workplace Credibility
While most fields continue to see an influx of women in professional careers, the second half of the picture shows an outflux of women in these same fields. A sad trend is that women are leaving their jobs dispirited and undecorated. But why?
Research in the hospitality industry confirms many a womanist's worst nightmare: because women find it difficult to gain credibility in male-dominated environments, they are leaving the industry at a much higher rate than men.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
In her article "Communicating with Credibility, the Gender Gap," Judi Brownell, Ph.D., explores how differences in communication approaches between the genders may be responsible for the lack of credibility women battle in their chosen fields. Brownell provides some distinctions in the communication styles of women and men in an effort to make women more aware of the relationship between speaking and status.
Although men and women with comparable credentials may communicate the same message in group settings at work, "both men and women give greater credence to men," an unfortunate truth that many well-spoken Scotties may help ameliorate upon entering the workforce. Brownell notes that the image of confidence is mostly responsible for an employee's perceived credibility, and that such confidence is developed "almost exclusively through communication behavior."
There are some general, and presumably harmless, differences between male and female speaking styles. For instance, the content of men's communication tends to be more informal and impersonal, while women personalize their messages and highlight emotional content. Nonetheless, certain attributes of a common female style are likely to threaten a woman's perceived credibility, especially in a majority-male workplace.
Some of the speech characteristics typical to a female style are easily associated with powerlessness in a high-stakes work setting. According to Brownell, women are much more likely to use qualifying phrases, such as "I think," or "It seems to me." Additionally, women tend to add tag questions to the ends of sentences, essentially transforming what could have been an assertive statement into a tentative question: "I think the three-day-weekend package is the way to market that event, don't you?"
When speaking with the upward inflection common to the female voice (which is already generally higher and softer than male voices), women are forced to deal with men who can easily speak over them with a much more convincing downward inflection. Women may make brilliant points, but as research in the hospitality industry suggests, their raw messages must be fashioned in a way that positions them as competitive and convincing.
While we should be able to appreciate gender difference in speaking styles, we must be mindful of how certain aspects of those styles can jeopardize success in a multi-gendered work environment.
Women must improve their self-monitoring ability, particularly when assessing how their speaking style can impact their credibility. By being more aware of how a speaking style may affect their credibility for the worse, perhaps we can learn to speak more forcefully and directly for the better.
Ashley Mengwasser is a senior at Agnes Scott College and a tutor at the Speaking Center.