ABSTRACT
Gender is a social construct; it is a system of symbols and meaning and affects assorted processes at various levels of life (Deaux & LaFrance, 1998). Gender is a situationally situated phenomenon that is context dependent and subject to change given psychological, interactional, institutional, societal, and other influences (Deaux & Major, 1987). Because gender corresponds to social categories (i.e., male/female), it is an intergroup occurrence. Gender identity is a person’s sense of self as male or female (Halim & Ruble, 2010). Gender plays a substantive role in social processes. The emphasis of this chapter is how gender and communication are related. Gender and the extent to which one identifies with a gender group can have communicative consequences. The chapter focuses on the intergroup, or more specifically the inter-gender, dynamics of communication. The chapter is distinct because it focuses on literatures with relatively infrequent links to gender and communication. Specifically, the significance and magnitude of gender in social aspects of life are demonstrated, which leads to a discussion of two general manifestations of gender-based communication. Next, the intergroup nature of gender-based communication is explained with self-categorization theory providing a central explanatory mechanism (see Chapters 2 & 10, this volume). Finally, issues emerging from this conceptualization are detailed and three primary propositions are put forth to encapsulate meaningful aspects of the relationship between gender and communication.
