Chapter 6: Gendered Nonverbal Communication
I. Nonverbal communication is all elements of communication other than words.
A. Scholars state that the majority (65 to 93%, depending on the scholar) of meaning
comes from nonverbal behaviors.
B. Like language, nonverbal communication is also related to culture and gender. First,
nonverbal communication conveys cultural meanings of gender. Second, men and
women use nonverbal communication to express themselves as gendered.
II. Functions of Nonverbal Communication
A. To supplement verbal communication by:
1. Repeating words (e.g., nodding head up and down while saying yes)
2. Contradicting a verbal message (e.g., smiling while saying “I’m sorry.”)
3. Complementing verbal statements (e.g., clapping hands and smiling while
declaring excitement)
4. Replacing language (e.g., rolling eyes to indicate disgust)
5. Accenting verbal message by emphasizing certain words
B. To regulate interaction through:
1. Eye contact, body posture, and vocal inflection cues others into when we want
to speak and when we want them to speak
2. Women tend to use cues to invite and encourage others into conversations.
Men tend to use more cues to maintain attention and discourage others from
speaking.
C. To establish the relationship level of meaning. Three primary dimensions of
relationship level meaning are responsiveness, liking, and power.
1. Responsiveness is interest in the interaction and involvement with others.
a. Nonverbal cues indicating responsiveness include inflection, eye
contact, and open body posture.
b. Women tend to be more responsive than men. They tend to
communicate with others more and respond to others’ emotions more.
c. Responsiveness differs by culture.
2. Liking, how much we seem to care for or like being around someone, is often
conveyed by nonverbals such as eye contact and closeness.
a. Girls and women tend to be socialized more strongly than boys and
men to communicate liking because they are socialized to be nice to
others and build relationships.
b. Dislike is communicated nonverbally as well.
3. Power or control is the extent to which people are seen as equal to, dominant
over, or deferential to others.
a. Three primary ways we communicate power are through voice, touch,
and use of space.
b. Men tend to talk louder and with more inflection than women. They
tend to take up more space and touch people more to communicate
their status. Women are more likely to give up their space than men.
III. Forms of Nonverbal Communication
A. Artifacts are personal objects that express our identity and how we view ourselves.
1. Colors and types of toys demonstrate appropriate behaviors and activities for
boys and girls (e.g., building set for boys, dolls for girls).
2. Clothing, another type of artifact, while less strict than in past generations,
still defines women and men differently.
a. Men’s clothing tends to be less colorful and allow for easy movement.
b. Women’s clothing calls attention to their bodies with form-fitting
styles and clinging materials.
3. Advertising emphasizes what artifacts men or women are supposed to use.
4. Some people use artifacts to challenge cultural prescriptions of masculinity
and femininity.
B. Proxemics and personal space refer to how people use distance and space.
1. Proxemics refers to how people use space, including the distance they keep
from each other.
a. Norms about proximity are culturally constructed.
b. Those with power are given more space.
2. Territoriality is personal space that we protect from “invasion” by others.
a. People with more power have more control over the use of space.
b. Women are more likely than men to give up their personal space.
C. Haptics is the use of touch.
1. Females are more likely to initiate touches to express support, affection and
comfort while men associate touch with control and power.
2. Men are more likely than women to use forceful touch, and many men are
unaware of how strong they are.
D. Kinesics are facial and body motions.
1. Western, Caucasian women tend to smile more than Western, Caucasian men.
For many women, smiling is a basic interactional behavior, whereas for many
men it is a signal of emotion.
2. Men are more likely than women to use aggressive kinesics.
3. Women tend to make more eye contact during conversation than men do. Men
tend to perceive sustained eye contact as aggressive and challenging.
E. Paralanguage refers to voice pitch, volume, inflection, and pauses.
1. Male and female physiology doesn’t fully explain differences in pitch.
a. Men tend to use lower pitch, higher volume, and less inflection to gain
and hold attention.
b. Women tend to use softer pitch, lower volume, and more inflection to
appear polite and caring.
2. These are socialized behaviors and not entirely the result of physiological
differences.
F. Physical appearance refers to how a person looks.
1. Both sexes may feel pressured to conform to a culturally defined ideal
appearance.
2. Some polls indicate men are generally satisfied with their appearance and are
less likely to connect appearance to their overall competence and value.
However, as our culture increasingly emphasizes men’s bodies, more men are
attempting to gain an idealized muscular masculinity through working out,
weight lifting, or steroid use. Gay men are more likely to attach physical
appearance to self-worth.
3. Girls and women are more likely to feel negatively about their appearance.
This dissatisfaction, particularly for Caucasian women, influences overall self–
esteem.
a. A Western cultural emphasis on extreme thinness is also dangerous
and may be a factor in girls and women’s increasing concern with
weight and eating disorders.
b. In general, Western Caucasian women are more likely to strive
towards unrealistic body ideas. African American women, particularly
those who strongly identify with their ethnic heritage, tend to be more
satisfied with their bodies and less prone to eating disorders.
IV. Differences exist between women and men’s skill for interpreting nonverbal behavior.
A. Generally, females are better able to decode nonverbal behaviors and more
accurately perceive others’ emotions. However, men are noticeably faster at
recognizing angry facial cues.
B. Various theories offer explanations for this strong ability to read feelings:
1. Biological theories posit that it is a result of sex-related brain differences.
2. Cognitive development and social learning theories state that females are
encouraged to be sensitive to others and to relationships from a very young
age.
3. Standpoint theory suggests women’s ability to decode results from their
standing as subordinate members of society.
C. Cultural values associated with nonverbal communication
1. Women’s nonverbal behaviors tend to emphasize community and men’s
emphasize agency. Research suggests that women are expected to act more
dependent and men to act more independent.
2. Western society has a bias towards favoring masculine qualities.
3. Cultural beliefs are changeable. They may be altered as we recognize
differences in a nonjudgmental manner and resist restrictive nonverbal gender
prescriptions.
D. Respecting gendered styles of nonverbal behavior
1. Make an effort to understand, respect, and appreciate others’ nonverbal
communication on their own terms.
2. By recognizing and attempting to understand others’ patterns of nonverbal
behaviors, we may increase appreciation for individual differences and less
rigidly restrict expectations for nonverbal behaviors. This may also provide a
greater range of communicative options.
Journal Entries
1. Violate a gender prescription for nonverbal communication and analyze the
consequences in terms of how others responded to you and how you felt. How do these
reactions challenge or reinforce cultural prescriptions for gender?
2. Think about society’s standards for beauty and physical attractiveness. Choose and
respond to one of the following questions: (1) How do we learn what the standards are for
beauty in our society? Are there different messages for women than for men? (2) Are you
or someone you know currently suffering from an eating disorder? Explain how gendered
messages work to encourage and influence eating disorders.
3. Reflect on some of the messages you received about nonverbal behaviors when you were a
child. For example, did parents, teachers, or friends comment on your attractiveness or
weight? If you were raised a boy, were you admonished to act tough and/or not to cry? If
you were raised a girl, were you told to be “lady–like”? What kinds of artifacts were you
given; here, reflect on toys and clothing. Reflect on your feelings about the messages you
received both then and now. Do the messages you received as a child continue to
discipline you to enact certain behaviors today?
InfoTrac Activities
1. Choose the Advanced Search option using InfoTrac College Edition. Select keyword and
type “gender and body image.” Scroll down your screen until you see a link entitled, Body
image dissatisfaction: gender differences in eating attitudes, self-esteem, and reasons for
exercise, by Adrian Furnham; Nicola Badmin; Ian Sneade. Are the gendered differences
noted by the researchers reflective of gendered communication expectations? If so, how?
2. Choose the Advanced Search option using InfoTrac College Edition. Select title and type
“Tied hands will silence Lakota men” by Tim Giago. After reading Giago’s essay, reflect
on your own nonverbal communication. How is it linked to your gender, ethnicity, culture,
etc.?
Suggested Activities
1. Masculine and Feminine Posture: At the beginning of your first day on nonverbal
communication, you may want to try the exercise that follows. This exercise is useful for
demonstrating some ways women are more constrained than men by norms of nonverbal
behavior. Though male students may find the requests humorous, female students more
than likely will recognize these rules as taken-for-granted assumptions about their posture
Note: This exercise is taken and slightly modified from page 305 of Eakins, B. W., & Eakins, R.
G. (1991). Sex differences in nonverbal communication. In L. A. Samovar & R. E. Porter
(Eds.), Intercultural communication: A reader. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
2. Performing Masculinity and Femininity with Nonverbal Behaviors: Show all or
segments of the video Boys Don’t Cry to your class. This film is particularly effective
because it is based upon a true story. Because this film includes a graphic rape scene along
with other acts of violence, some students may become disturbed while watching the film.
Therefore, talk to your students before viewing the film and create a safe space for
3. Communicating Masculinity, Femininity, and Sexuality: Show part or all of the video
In & Out to your class. One of the most pedagogically rich scenes occurs when Kevin
Kline decides to play an audiotape titled “Be a Man: Exploring Your Masculinity” in order
to ascertain if he is gay or not (at approximately 42.30 minutes, DVD chapter “Exploring
your Masculinity”). Encourage students to pay attention to the nonverbal and verbal
communication lessons that Kevin Kline is being taught. After the clip is shown,
brainstorm on the board “what we learned was masculine.” Add questions to the scene
such as: “What are masculine instruments? Masculine sports? Masculine eating habits?”
Then, ask them to brainstorm how one communicates femininity. Push them past simply
stating “doing the opposite of what is masculine.” Ask them to act out feminine versus
masculine ways of sitting, drinking, etc.
One way to push this conversation further is to ask students to consider why one’s
gendered communication styles leads others to assume one’s sexuality. How does
homophobia become a tool for reinforcing rigid gender roles? If you show the entire film,
4. Observing Nonverbal Behaviors: Allow students to leave the classroom for a portion of
the class period (30 minutes works well) and go to a populated area of campus. Have them
watch the people they see, looking for examples of gendered nonverbal communication,
both those mentioned in the text and new ones they may identify. Remind them that men
may engage in feminine nonverbal communication and women in masculine nonverbals.
Afterwards, have them return to class to share their findings. Did men and women tend to
follow traditional expectations for nonverbal communication? Did they notice any other
patterns in their observations? Did anyone violate a nonverbal expectation? What was the
response?
5. Changing Norms of Attractiveness Obtain copies of popular magazines such as Life,
Cosmopolitan, or Better Homes and Garden from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s,
and 2000s. (Public and university libraries often have collections of old magazines that can
be checked out.) Put students into groups; divide the magazines between the groups
depending on the size of the class and the variety of magazines you are able to access.
Instruct each group to peruse the magazine looking for messages about fashion, beauty, and
attractiveness for both women and men. Ask students to attend to race; body size; hair
color and styles; body posture; the color, fit, and cut of clothing; the apparent age of
models, etc. Also, have student consider the kinds of products targeted to women and/or
men. Have groups report their findings to the class, showing images from the magazines to
support their claims. What do the differences suggest about changing nonverbal norms for
women and men?