You Just Don't Understand

What Hacker News says

1. randusernameMar 2026
   I guess it all depends on your perspective, I found the findings to be anti-red pill. Women with attractive faces lost their grade advantage in remote learning and men with attractive faces did not.

   It suggests to me that good-looking men are socially valued for several reasons that are robust to distance education, but good-looking women are socially valued for their bodies if they are in proximity, the same way we value objects. Very limiting and frustrating.

   If anyone in the red pill camp is looking to reexamine their perspectives in good-faith, "You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation" (Tannen) is a good start.

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2. rgoulterDec 2023
   Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Just_Don%27t_Understand

   Key idea in the book is that a lot of argument and disagreement arises from mismatched social attitudes/communication between men & women, similar to how cross-cultural assumptions can cause offense.

   Presents a model that (typically) men socialise with a focus more on competition, independence, and status, whereas (typically) woman socialise with a focus on cooperation, inter-dependence, and intimacy.

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3. rgoulterMay 2023
   "You Just Don't Understand" by Deborah Tannen.

   The author discusses that often when conflict in communication arises between men/women, it resembles the same tensions in cross-cultural communication.

   The author discusses that some communication styles are competitive (with a heavy lens around status and confrontation), other styles are cooperative (with a heavy emphasis on belonging, relatedness, similarities).

   The author discusses example of such conflicts. -- One example was, when someone's complaining about a problem, a competitive-oriented mindset typically tries suggest a solution, whereas a related-orient mindset typically shows empathy. Crossing the wires: suggesting a solution might come across an uncaring, and expressing empathy might come across as unhelpful.

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4. jvvwOct 2022
   Deborah Tannen talks about this type of thing in her book 'You Just Don't Understand'. There's a whole chapter about interrupting. There is a difference between overlapping and trying to dominate and it talks about successful and unsuccessful 'co-operative overlapping'. It talks about culture too.

   Also this article: https://sambleckley.com/writing/church-of-interruption.html

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5. rgoulterAug 2022
   Different cultural styles sometimes conflict.

   I liked Deborah Tannen's "You Just Don't Understand".

   She describes this pro-interruption style as "competitive", whereas pro-taking-turns is "collaborative".

   Of course, if you have some people whose ruleset is "compete/joust", and some whose ruleset is "collaborate/defer", there'll be tension.

   Overall, Tannen reckoned that those who get the short end of the stick would benefit from different cultural styles being acknowledged, and why it might lead to conflict.

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6. rgoulterFeb 2022
   I liked Deborah Tannen's remarks in the afterword of a reprint of "You Just Don't Understand".

   The book is about her observations that some conflict between men & women resembles inter-cultural conflict; i.e. men would talk with a different set of cultural attitudes than women.

   She said that people asked her how much that came down to nature vs culture. If nature, then the differences are what they are, and culture doesn't need to (and cannot fundamentally) change. If cultural, then inequality would reduce by ironing out the differences.

   As I understand it, worry about gendered-for-girls toys comes from the latter view. (Differences lead to inequality).

   (FWIW, Tannen's suggested solution is that differences as they are now should be recognised and worked-with).

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