Cover of the textbook Outcomes Advanced - Student's Book

The key answer of exercise 4

The key to exercise solutions in chapter 8 - Nurture not nature for the textbook Outcomes Advanced - Student's Book with authors Carol Nuttall and Amanda French from National Geographic Learning

Question

With your partner, use your notes to answer the questions. Then listen again and check your answers.

Answer

  1. Number of words spoken per day by women and men. Previously claimed to be 20,000 by women and 7,000 by men. 16,000 is in fact the average for both men and women with a maximum of 45,000 words per day.
  2. 16,000 & 45,000 are more reliable – they come from Science, a research journal. Brizendine couldn’t cite a source for the other figures.
  3. Hyde – men and women interrupt equally unless there’s a power dynamic (more powerful person interrupts more) Chambers – no real difference in the way sexes communicate
  4. It shows how different cultures may have different stereotypes of gender and communication. Evidence that language difference between men and women is not down to nature.
  5. Whether the jobs men and women do is based on the structure of the brain (nature) or on social power and cultural factors (nurture)
  6. Nurture is a stronger influence and stereotypes based on the ‘nature’ of gender are politically motivated / suppress women.