One of the ones that was eye opening for me were Deborah Tannin's books, which looked at general differences in communication style (with an emphasis on modern US) between men and women. She is a sociolinguist, and so didn't posit biological explanations (which is what annoyed me about Gray's books, since he had no formal background in the life sciences at all), and she emphasized the fact that girls and boys tend to grow up in different "worlds," even within the same household. She wrote other books about cultural and regional differences in communication style that were also eye opening for this person with a rather "east coast" style (in spite of living most of my life out west).
A big one that helped me and my future spouse was his understanding that I don't usually want him to jump in with a bunch of suggestions when I am venting about something that bothers me. Tannin called this "troubles talk," and statistically women are more inclined to use it as a way of blowing off steam and of eliciting empathy and caring, while men sometimes see it as a chance to prove their competence by jumping in to tell the woman how to fix the problem. Then the guy gets annoyed when the woman indicates that she's already considered his solution and it won't work/hasn't worked because, then she gets annoyed because he thinks she's so dumb she hasn't already thought of the solution he is offering anyway, and so on.
Sadly, there are still a lot of issues with men talking over women in both professional and social settings and with men holding women in low esteem for sometimes adopting a more conciliatory or consensus seeking conversational style, and there are no shortage of books advising women to speak and behave more like men if we want to be respected professionally. But all those "lean in" advice fails to acknowledge that women pay a huge price and still are often dismissed when we do emulate a male style of communication, because people tend to perceive women as talking more than a man in a conversation when in fact the woman and man spoke equal amounts.
But yeah, it does get tiresome that we still think of the male perspective as "normal," and men are the ones who need instruction manuals for how to relate to women. Honestly, the reason men have a harder time relating to women is because they are socialized still to think that women are less interesting and important, so boys and men are less interested in reading books, watching movies etc. about women's lives and experiences, outside of whether or not they look good in skimpy clothes.
My brain is no more or less fabulous than anyone else's, and my mind is no more or less complex or mysterious. And the inner workings of my mind are not remotely secret. I am very good (too good, many tell me) at letting people know exactly what I am thinking if they ask, or even if they don't.
