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

Critiquing relieves you of the responsibility of doing integrative thinking.

Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you're a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman.

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 argument culture urges us to approach the world-and the people in it-in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: Conflict and opposition are as necessary as cooperation and agreement, but the scale is off balance, with conflict and opposition over-weighted.

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

When people realize that in the long run you may be turning off the audiences more, even though they will look temporarily--in the end they turn away, we really need to develop other metaphors and not talk about two sides, but talk about all sides.