Communication and Culture 1

This essay will discuss how key issues such as gender, religion, and dress affect
communication and culture.

Gender issue in Communication and Culture – Human communication is profoundly

affected by gender and many social issues are raised by it. We may wonder how our
everyday conversation is affected by gender. Does our being male or a female affect our
communication? Is our communication with other dependent on the gender of our
listener? (Allison, (n. d)
They say that the way we communicate is because of the way our brain is made or
designed. The brain of a female is expert in verbal tasks and that of male is good at
mathematical, visual-spatial tasks. Where woman likes talking, men would prefer to act.
Men and women have their own pattern of communication because of the way their
brains are structured. Their have their own distinctive way to communicate and each of
them assume that the other gender understands and acts the same way as they do. This is
exactly the area because of which misunderstanding in communication arises as each one
of them has their own pattern of communication and understanding a message. It is
therefore advisable that men and women should cease to judge and instead understand
the difference in the pattern of communication. If they accept the difference in the
linguistic styles, skills and abilities it can help them work with each other and grow as a
team. (Kabeer, N. (n. d)

Culture shapes the expectation about the behaviour and attributes of male and female. In
a Culture, identities and relations between genders is a crucial factor as it gives shape to
the way life is lived in family or at workplace. There is a cultural meaning associated to
being male and female in any society. We even see that work is divided between the two
genders based on the gender more than any other factor. A man’s work and a woman’s
work is clearly defined in most of the societies and culture. Even in today’s progressive
world, women are expected to do and is responsible for household work, as a carer,
nurse, raising up kids, etc and men is responsible for earning livelihood for the entire
family. In any society, one would find women with less authority, decision making power
and limited resources as compared to men. These are the developmental and human
rights issues resulting out of pattens of disparity. (Kabeer, N. (n. d)

Clothing and Culture and Communication – whether we recognize this fact or not, but
culture has a tremendous impact on one’s clothing. If we bifurcate the culture country
wise, we would notice men and women in those countries have typical style of dressing
up. Example would be, traditionally Chinese women wore pants of pajama-type and men
had been wearing robes. They also had this in their culture that wearing white for
wedding was considered appropriate and black for mourning on deaths of friends and
relatives. (Hidden Aspects of Communication)
In Muslim countries, one would find women wearing hijab or burka, covering her
completely from head till toe. Whereas we see women in Western countries wearing
short skirts, hot pants and that’s completely civilized as per their culture. In India one
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would see culture of different states affecting the dressing our men and women. People of
villages of most of the states prefer to wear more sober clothing than men and women in
cities. In India sari is traditional dress for women and kurta chudidar for men. Clothing
speaks a lot about culture of a place. A man from western country visiting Middle East
country would find himself in a little awkward position as the way he would be looked
upon because of his dressing. (Culture, Clothing and Modesty)

Clothing is basically used to provide protection from weather, other people, or any
element, although the style of clothing varies from culture to culture. People throughout
the world have different perception about modesty. People of Western countries are more
open minded about their dressing than most of the part of the world. Also, there are
clothing that are worn to provide supernatural protection against evil, like wearing a
symbol of God around one’s neck. Wearing your lucky T-shirt to collect your report card,
etc. Most importantly, clothing in all culture is a sign of one’s status, purpose or
occasion, age, gender, profession, intentions, etc. When you see a man wearing tight
ironed blazer, shirt, pant and tie, with an expensive wrist watch and a branded pen in his
pocket, it immediately communicates that this man is ready for an important office
meeting and holds a high position with the company. Woman wearing a white frock with
a tight scarf on her hear and stocking would communicate that she is a nurse. This type of
clothing might not be accepted if worn for a wedding occasion or for a meeting. People
belonging to Royal families again have a typical style of clothing, which communicates
their status and class as much superior to that of a normal man of the same region. Thus,
it is obvious that clothing itself communicates a lot about a person’s class, purpose and
intentions, occasion, profession, etc. (Hidden Aspects of Communication)

Effects of Religion on Culture and Communication – Different religion have different

interpretations of God, life, values, etc. It is a system based on certain beliefs which is
expected to be followed by the people belonging to that section. Culture is again a set of
values, beliefs, customs, behavior, etc which is followed by people of a particular society
and is transmitted to the next generation through learning. A Culture is molded on the
teachings of the religion. It is Middle East culture where women do on come in front of
unknown men, not allowed to interact with them, wear a hijab or burka when going out
of the house, to remain in parda system, etc. the culture is such because of the teaching of
Islam which is quite strict for women. In India, it is the culture to welcome guest with lot
of compassion and warmth, because of the religion that teaches guests are form of God
and hence to be treated with lot of warmth and love. In West, the religion teaches that the
God help those who help themselves. Hence we see in Western culture people follow
individualism. They prefer to work on their own and generally do not like to take help.
(Religion and Culture)

Through this essay it is clear that there are many key issues like religion, clothing,
gender, etc that affects communication and culture. These are inseparable elements that
form a society and hence have an effect on it. It is important to understand them and
accept their differences to live cordially.
 Communication and Culture 3

Reference:

Kabeer, N. (n. d). Culture. In Culture, Gender Equality and Development Cooperation.
Retrived September, 22, 2010, from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/9/1896320.pdf

Allison, (n. d). The effects of Culture on gender identity. Retrived September, 21, 2010,
from http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/final.paper.pub/_pwfsfp/000000a8.htm

Culture, Clothing and Modesty, (n. d). Retrived September 21, 2010, from
http://veiledglory.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/culture-clothing-and-modesty/

Hidden Aspects of Communication, (n. d). Retrived September 21, 2010, from
http://anthro.palomar.edu/language/language_6.htm

Religion and Culture, (n. d). Retrived September 22, 2010, from
http://www.cultureandreligion.com/