FREE ESSAY ON BODY LANGUAGE

BODY LANGUAGE

Women are more noticeably shy then men. Non-verbally, their body language seems to
communicate feelings of great uncertainty and self-consciousness. For example, I observed
a woman in a train en route to Yankee Stadium. Her and a young man sitting directly
across from her were engaged in what was apparently a mutual flirt. But the man seemed
much more confident and cocky than did the female. For one thing, he was calm and
relaxed. The woman, however, kept her arms folded over a purse that she clung to her body
rather tightly. Moreover, the female had a strong tendency to look down more often than
the male and although her admiration for him was obvious, she seemed to be trying
especially hard to conceal it.Further evidence of greater communicative differences
exists between males and females in various other social settings as well. Consider, for
example, those individual employed in customer service-related capacities. While in
Shoprite, I noticed that female customer service representatives were more inclined to
offer immediately friendly assistance than were the male attendants whom I observed on
another occasion. Males are not as cocky nor as confident in this sort of situation;
their eyes tend to dart around the area while the eyes of a woman remain focused upon the
eyes of the customer. The man seems to communicate with fewer smiles--apparently they
have to get past a certain ice-breaking point before they will feel comfortable with a
genuine look of happiness.Verbally, the actual process of speech is also quite different
between males and females. The former usually tends to have a more base-orientated voice
and a faster rate of speech while the latter is more calm and soft-spoken. Men seem to
speak more nasally and women seem to have a better control over the English language.
Over the course of a few days, I noticed hearing significantly fewer ums and errs from
women than I did from men. This did not necessarily indicate that they presented
themselves more confidently, just with greater fluency.Men have a tendency to use their
hands more often while speaking than do their female counterparts. In one observed
instance, several men and women had gathered in a local pizzeria and the amount of hand
motions and gesture that the guys were using seemed to be infinite. One guy practically
drew out an entire picture of his car in the air while describing it to the group of
friends. Meanwhile, the girls' hands remained on their food or their drink or on the
table. Girls nodded much more than boys, but made no other gesture with as much
frequency.Finally, it can be inferred from my observations that certain cultural models
causes the witnessed patterns of speaking and communication. Girls are taught to be shy
and inferior, and this is evidenced in their non verbal modestywhile speaking in a
one-to-one situations with males. But men are taught that over happiness is queer and so
smiles are not nearly as common on the male's face as they are on the female's face. Both
sexes certainly seem to enjoytalking, but each is more comfortable in their own different
scenario.