The Myth of Mars and Venus
The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do men and women really speak different languages? is a 2007 book by Professor Deborah Cameron, published by Oxford University Press.
Cameron argues that "what linguistic differences there are between men and women are driven by the need to construct and project personal meaning and identity." She challenges "the idea that sex-differences might have biological rather than social causes" as being more motivated by a reaction to politically correct attitudes than being derived from basic research.
The book argues that there is as much similarity and variation within each gender as between men and women. Cameron concludes that we have an urgent need to think about gender in more complex ways than the prevailing myths and stereotypes allow.[1][2]
Deborah Cameron is Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at Oxford University and author of several leading texts in the field of language and gender studies.[1][2]
Quotations from the publisher
- "Popular notions about gender and communication – famously summed up in the influential 1992 bestseller Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus – are challenged in this book."[1][2]
- Cameron "draws on over 30 years of scientific research to explain what we really know and to demonstrate how this is often very different from the accounts we are familiar with from recent popular writing."[3]