d women are eager to learn what she has to say, for her speaking engagements reveal people who are delighted to have their previously unarticulated difficulties spelled out in such clear terms. At the same time, the gender tension between the sexes leads some people to resist such information. Again, the very misunderstandings engendered by Tannen's ideas indicates the inability or unwillingness of some people to even consider those ideas. Men, for example, will see such ideas coming from a woman as feminist propaganda:
Some men hear any statement about men and women, coming from a woman, as an accusation---a fancy way of throwing up her hands, as if to say, "You men!" They feel they are being objectified, if not slandered, by being talked about at all (14).
Women, on the other hand, "fear . . . that any observation of gender differences will be heard as implying that it is women who are different . . . from the standard, which is whatever men are" (14-15).
However, Tannen makes clear that her observations are not a threat to either men or women. This is the key to her book. Again---she does not aim in any way to change the basic styles of communication men and women use. She does believe, however, that both men and women need to understand their own and the others' communication styles and that they need to make adjustments in those styles. Writing of one example of misunderstanding between a husband and wife, she writes, "My analysis emphasized that the husband and wife . . . had different but equally valid styles" (15).
Tannen's sociolinguistic approach allows us to analyze the language men and women use, the word choices, and the interpretations of those words in ways which show us how men and women see language itself in different ways:
Taking a sociolinguistic approach to relationships makes it possible to explain [the] dissatisfactions [of relationships] without accusing anyone of being crazy or wrong. . . ....