Deborah Cameron - The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages?

Reviews for The Myth of Mars and Venus

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Cameron blows through the fog of pop-psych gender research like Afrin through swollen sinuses, shrinking the claims of sound-bite science on contact

Jan Freeman, The Boston Globe

a brilliant and timely book Katharine Viner, The Guardian

In this vigorously argued book, [Cameron] also combats the clich by example, writing in an enjoyable mode of

pugnacious sarcasm Steven Poole, The Guardian

this immensely readable book Romy Clark, Red Pepper magazine

This short and enjoyable read is very welcome

Sarah Ensor, Socialist Review

Camerons wry, measured dismemberment of these stereotypes makes for enjoyable reading

Ceri Radford, The Daily Telegraph

Think again, says Deborah Cameron. Her new book unpicks what she calls the Myth of Mars and Venus

Kenan Malik, The Sunday Telegraph

this delightfully spiky book

Susannah Herbert, The Sunday Times, Culture Magazine

interesting convincing acute observation

Ed Caesar, The Sunday Times, News Review

Online

terrific, myth-busting Stephanie West Allen, Brains on Purpose Fascinating, insightful, comprehensive youll just have to read it for yourself Contemporary UK Feminism

Cameron does a great job Feminist Philosophers

wonderfully refreshing Feminist Review

I can highly recommend the book Elizabeth Kelan, Lady Geek thought-provoking ideas on just about every page

Roy Johnson, Mantex

a real revelation and fascinating Brian Clegg, Popular Science Cameron cites a lot of literature, makes her points lucidly, and distinguishes nicely between scientific consensus and cultural assumption. Shes also bitingly funny

Read for Pleasure

Deborah Cameron

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Deborah Cameron 2007, 2008

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First published 2007
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ISBN 978-0-19-955099-9

The Myth of Mars and Venus has two related goals. One is to dispel some of the myths that currently surround the subject of malefemale differences in language and communication. The other is to put something in place of those myths, by making the relevant linguistic research accessible to a wider audience. Some of the research I have drawn on is my own, but much of it is the work of other language and gender scholars. Although they should not be held responsible for the views expressed in this book, it could not have been written without them, and I acknowledge my debt to them with thanks. I am particularly grateful to Penelope Eckert, Susan Ehrlich, Janet Holmes, Don Kulick, Fiona McAlinden, Sally McConnell-Ginet, Miriam Meyerhoff, Kathy OLeary, Momoko Nakamura, and Sylvia Shaw. I also thank Meryl Altman, Joan Scanlon, and Jane Taubman for their comments, suggestions, and general encouragement, and my editor Ben Harris for his patience.

Do men and women speak the same language? Can they ever really communicate? These questions are not new, but since the early 1990s there has been a new surge of interest in them. Countless self-help and popular psychology books have been written portraying men and women as alien beings, and conversation between them as a catalogue of misunderstandings. The most successful exponents of this formula, writers like Deborah Tannen and John Gray, have topped the best-seller lists on both sides of the Atlantic. Advice on how to bridge the communication gulf between the sexes has grown into a flourishing multimedia industry. John Grays official website, for instance, promotes not only his various Mars and Venus books, but also seminars, residential retreats, a telephone helpline, and a dating service.

Readers who prefer something a little harder-edged can turn to a genre of popular science books with titles like Brain Sex, Sex on the Brain, The Essential Difference, and Why Men Dont This literature explains that the gulf between men and women is a product of nature, not nurture. The sexes communicate differently (and women do it better) because of the way their brains are wired. The female brain excels in verbal tasks whereas the male brain is better adapted to visual-spatial and mathematical tasks. Women like to talk, but men prefer action to words.

Writers in this vein are fond of presenting themselves as latter-day Galileos, braving the wrath of the political correctness lobby by daring to challenge the feminist orthodoxy which denies that men and women are by nature profoundly different. Simon Baron-Cohen, the author of The Essential Difference, explains in his introduction that he put the book aside for several years because the topic was just too politically sensitive. Both writers stress that they have no political axe to grind: they are simply following the evidence where it leads, and trying to put scientific facts in place of politically correct dogma.

Yet before we applaud, we should perhaps pause to ask ourselves: since when has silence reigned about the differences between men and women? Certainly not since the early 1990s, when the previous steady trickle of books began to develop into a raging torrent. By now, a writer who announces that sex-differences are natural is not saying the unsayable, he or she is stating the obvious. The proposition that men and women communicate differently is particularly uncontroversial, with clichs like men never listen and women find it easier to talk about their feelings referenced constantly in everything from womens magazines to humorous greeting cards. A few years ago, a British Telecom advertisement informed us that men like to conduct phone calls standing up, whereas women prefer to sit down. Even if this were a proven fact (which I doubt it is), the obvious response would be so what? But today we seem willing to treat even the most implausible and trivial claims as worthy of serious attention.