The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.

Communication is a continual balancing act, juggling the conflicting needs for intimacy and independence. To survive in the world, we have to act in concert with others, but to survive as ourselves, rather than simply as cogs in a wheel, we have to act alone.

The one who decides who goes ahead has the upper hand, regardless of who gets to go. This is why many women do not feel empowered by such privileges as having doors held open for them. The advantage of going first through the door is less salient to them than the disadvantage of being granted the right to walk through a door by someone who is framed, by his magnanimous gesture, as the arbiter of the right-of-way.

Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument - as in having a fight.

All communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking.

For most women, the language of conversation is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships.

All conversation, in addition to whatever else it does, displays, and asks for recognition of, our competence.