PONDER GENDER AND MASTER IT

Have you thought about the power of your words? The followings are a workshop designed to have participants monitor the impact of the words used in verbal communications. Domestic violence is a big issue concerning a family member, who is supposed to be a provider of nurturing care committing crimes against weak defenseless individuals, such as children and women. However, such violent environment can be also analyzed by the words spoken at the time when violence or abuse occurred to individuals. Sometimes, the problems may be avoided by simply using some words or not using the words. For example, recall the abusive moments which lead you to feel depressed, worried, agitated. We can analyze what happened during the conversation and how the words have given impact. In the following exercise, you may write down all words and phrases spoken during the course of what you felt as the hurtful moment.

Exercise #1: Mark all the sentences with the adjectives below. For example, “Do what I say,!” can be marked as “domineering” “authoritative” etc. On the other hand, “May I come in?” can be “submissive” and “cooperative”

Men / Women

Domineering / Submitting

Authoritative / Submissive

Directive / Suggestive

Agreeable / Disagreeable

Collective / Individual

Cooperative / Aggressive

e.g. Label a sentence below with one adjective. There is no concrete definition for what words represent which adjectives because adjectives are produced by one's subjective feelings on things or objects.

Amy: “Let’s try writing down all the expenditure so that we may not face any situations that we lack money for the next month rent. If that happens again that would be embarrassing.”

David: “Lack money? What is that supposed to mean? If you want it write the expenditure, fine. But I will not accept you using such words with me. I think you should be more careful in your choice of words, or you will insult a powerful man like me!”

The conversation above can be broken down as below.

Amy: “Let’s try writing down all the expenditure so that we may not face any situations that we lack money for the next month rent---Collective

We really embarrassed us in front of the landlord.----Directive

David: “Lack money? What is that supposed to mean? If you want it write the

expenditure, fine. But I will not accept you using such words with me---Aggressive

I think you should be more careful in your choice of words, or you will insult a powerful man like me!---Authoritative

The above exercise will give an objective glance of what had happened. David is aggressive and authoritative while Amy is collective and directive. Now you can see some trouble in the conversation.

Exercise #2: This time, remove comments and paragraph that may have invited abusive words into more acceptable, mature, responsible words. The communication can be analyzed by questioning “what has been said and how did it affect me?” “What can be said and how could have the damage been avoided?”

Amy: “Let’s try writing down all the expenditure so that we may always have somemoney available especially for the next month rent--Collective.

Let us remind ourselveswhat happened last month?---Collective

David: “Lack money? I did not know that there were situations like that. Let me seethe financial report---Cooperative.

But I have been consciously economizing, I think you canfind out what was so costly through the report---Directive

Through this exercise, we may train our mind to detect “triggering words” that stepping over the listeners’ pride or unnecessarily pressuring the listeners. For this particular example, Amy has corrected her speech to be more “collective” approach instead of “direct” approach to blame her listener, however, this approach helped David to also deal with financial problems sincerely instead of feeling offended by Amy. It is a matter of choice of one or two words, and the outcome can be dramatically different. Remember, the goal is to get what you want. It is in fact not realistic to try to change others--especially men. So let’s work on it!