In short, stonewalling is an attempt to avoid discussing or doing something. We build walls to protect ourselves, and the purpose of stonewalling is to protect. Generally, stonewalling is not intended to hurt the other person but it can and would be when perceived to be disrespectful or contemptuous. Unless you’re dealing with something [...]

A common perception is that women have a positive association to relationship talk and men don’t—that women feel better connected through relationship talk, whereas men are distressed by it and tend to feel criticized. I think this is another myth perpetuated in the popular culture, based on stereotyping and misunderstanding of individual communication styles. I’ve [...]

I don’t like to promote (directly or indirectly) the stereotypes in the popular culture about how men and women communicate differently. I approach communication style differences based on the individual, not the sex. Because I have addressed this in other posts, I won’t get into it here, except to say that looking at the interpersonal/intrapersonal [...]

Each day, I receive news updates on issues relating to communication. Without fail there is at least one article that refers to the differences between females and males. The articles and blogs are written by people from all walks of life, lay people and professionals of many disciplines. Although I’ve found value in what has [...]

Like many, I’m drawn to reading research and opinions about the state of boys and girls in today’s world and which sex is struggling more. It’s a question I’m not going to answer both because I don’t think it’s a particularly helpful question and because I don’t think it can be answered. To see the [...]