Summary

This fascinating and helpful book exploded into public consciousness the insight that conversations between women and men are like cross-cultural communication. Tannen shows that men use language to preserve their independence and negotiate status while women use language to preserve connections and reinforce intimacy, a difference that results in misunderstanding and mutual blame. Tannen takes a no-fault approach, revealing the logic of both women's and men's equally valid styles.

Drawing lively examples from everyday life, Tannen writes with the humor and flare of a novelist and the clarity of an expert. A ground-breaking and transformative book, You Just Don't Understand is a classic in the field of interpersonal relations that is as relevant today as when it revolutionized our thinking about male-female relationships.