The University of Tuzla

Faculty of Philosophy
Department of English Language and Literature

Essay:
Complex relations between gender and politeness

Admir Husi

April 19th, 2012

Being an English person takes a specific place in the world according to Kate Foxs
book Watching the English. She provides many sorts of relations, not only between gender
and politeness, but other things such as national identity. It seems that she has given more
respect to women than men but their interrelations as well. This essay critically assesses not
only relations between males and females but also between their own behaviour.
Gender as an important issue has been expressed throughout the book and Kate
presents a clear image between men and women. Starting from meeting, every conversation
starts out with asking about name and then talking about weather. These two items show us
that the conversation has the same beginning and it does not matter whether a man or a
woman is speaking. Although there are many differences between nations and people of one
country themselves, Kate argues that we are all members of the same species. This means we
are all human beings who have feelings, the same body look and we all have some positive
and negative characteristics. But English society cannot be perfect, no one can be of course.
The problems of all nations are racism and nationalism. There are always exceptions when it
comes to these two issues. Humans mentality is not the same in each part of one society.
Some people tend to do something good, which would be useful for the society and for people
themselves as well. But some of these people try to do evil things which can really destroy the
harmony of the society.
Politeness has been reflected through different classes of the society. For example, a person
from a lower class has a different approach to people from higher class and vice versa. This
can be expressed through some jokes as well and this is the case in English society as it has
been provided in Kates book. It could be said that the gossips are one of the main features of
conversation. Many conversations start out with some kind of gossips, not only between
English people but all nations as well. These gossips usually take some less important things
about someone which then have been spread out amongst people. This is a good indicator for
the relations between men and women. Women talk about gossips more than men and this
issue make a big gender difference. But, when it comes to politeness, it depends on the culture
of one society. People have different approaches to each other worldwide because of the
differences in culture.
Taboo topics are always avoided in any conversation, especially, when the conversation is
developed between male and female. But today, taboo has become the main theme in some
less developed countries where there are many non-educated people. Culture, the territory of
one country in the world and religion; all these items influence on the behaviour of citizens of

one country and their interrelations and all of them make one country specific which,
therefore, show its national identity. Such as Kate gives an example of traffic rules of Poland,
each country has different rules and laws. She has figured out that all people are similar to
each other in general, but they are only different in their behaviour towards others.
All these relations between gender and politeness make English society different from
other societies although there are a few similarities between them. It has been provided that
men are more polite to women in England when it is compared with other British countries.
According to Kate, women tend to be equal to men; to have the same rights such as men have
and the same position in the society. She shows us in this book that women can be equal to
women and she has provided hard evidence about the rules of society in general.

REFERENCES
1. Watching the English by Kate Fox