Chapter 7: MY GENDER PORTFOLIO: Applying Object-Based Reflection in Teaching Communication and Gender

In the field of communication, much of the research on gender in relation to communicative acts tends to focus on how men and women differ in their communication styles (Tannen, 2007,, 2011). While these bodies of work offer valuable insight into the interpersonal communication dimensions of gender, they do not necessarily examine “the variety of ways in which communication of and about gender enables and constrains people’s identities” (DeFrancisco, Palczewski, & McGeough, 2013, p. xvi). As such, they may perpetuate rather than disrupt the traditional gender binary. By reinforcing categories of difference, this approach fails to provide the language, both verbal and visual, that individuals may need to represent their actual lived experiences in relation to gender identity. A Communication and Gender course can address a university’s commitment to inclusive community by encouraging students to be reflective about their choices of and responses to various gender representations. Taught from a critical point of view, such a course motivates students to think about how their communication functions to constitute gender.