Week 7 - Response to Celita

I thought N.O.M.A.S. has some nobel ideals. The thing I find interesting is that say that want to redefine what in means to be masculine. When you do a google search they come up with the header saying "Pro-feminist, gay affirmative." Thinking back to the project we did I was thinking is this something that most men would see and say "I want to find out more about this?"

week 7 - Career mistakes that women make

Had an interesting conversation with two female co-workers. They both attended a lunch and learn session on the 10 mistakes women make in business. How perfect is that, I would have attended if I knew beforehand I told them. They were somewhat shocked, they said "Tom there were only women in the room." I let that one go. I told them about my class and blogging and asked them if the could tell me about what was discussed.
We started to talk about some of the items that were identified. As we were going through them they seemed fairly universal to me. I asked them if they thought that the issues identified were specific to women or just good practices in general. They replied that they felt they were not specific to women.
I asked them if they could identify a few mistakes they think women make. Their response was inappropriate attire. I asked if it was dressing provocatively , they said that too. They said it is the little things too, like the shoes you wear. You would amost never see a man wear flip flops to work in a business environment during the summer but many women do, or wear sandals that aren't more than flip flops.
That was about all the time we had to talk before we had to get back to what we get paid to do. But it was an interesting conversation. All of the points made during the presentation applied to both men and women. What are the real mistakes only women make?

Reply to Jason - Week 6

Jason, I think you are making some huge generalizations in this post. Most of the parents I know are very involved in their children's lives. I am very involved in my children's lives. "Many parents both work leaving the child to be raised by 50 cent and Paris Hilton." Are you trying to imply that if both parents work they are uninvolved in raising their children or have made a selfish choice? My wife and I both work. Before we had children we discussed our goals, that our children would have more opportunities than we did. We moved to get into a better school district before we had kids. We opened 529s for the kids (we both paid our own way through school and know what a struggle that was). If you have young children you know that they have to have some type of socialization before they get to kindergarten. My sister is a stay at home mom and her sons go to daycare 2 days a week so they can be socialized. I think you have made a very bad assumption that parents don't think their roles as mothers and fathers are the most important aspects of their lives. If you are not willing to make it the most important role than you should not have children in the first place. There were conversations last week about people having children later in life. This is why they do. When you are ready to commit yourself to raising children that is when you have them. I agree some parents are uninvolved, but you have taken your view of the minority and extended it to the majority with the generalizations you have made here.

Reply to Charlene - Week 6

I think there are certain genres of music that very disrespectful to women and people in general. First and second graders certainly do not have the maturity to distinguish between reality and what is usually glorified life experiences or fantasies. I would guess that these first and second graders probably have older siblings that are exposing these children to this music. i think that their parents need to monitor what their children a seeing and hearing on television and in music. If they are going to allow their children to be exposed to this they also need to help the child understand the difference between reality and fantasy to minimize negative influence.

Reply to Ashleigh - Week 6

Absolutely guys with sisters treat women better. At least in my observations. I have one friend who has 5 brothers and 1 sister. He does not fit the mold probably because the female is so outnumbered. But when it is even I think it makes a big difference. I think the more you practice anything the better you get, so having the opportunity to interact with female siblings while growing up is definitely beneficial to males.

Hannah Montana Episode - Wk 6

watching Hannah Montana (with my daughters - LOL such a masciline disclaimer) Hannah's father asks her friends mother to dinner, the friends mother responds "it's a date." They go on their date (not shown). when they get back it is clear they had an aurgument. It is later revealed that the aurgument was because the friend's mother insisted on picking up half the check. Both insisted their opinion of how to pay was right. The father is called a caveman the mother is called uptight. It is never resolved during the show because the plot was focused the conflict between the daughters.

I was hoping for some kind of resolution during the show. The question is, was it really a date in the sense that is there a romatic interest? There are so many different ways this could be construed. If a woman allows a man to pay although she has no romantic interest is she sending the wrong signals? If a women asks a man on a date should she pay? What is the etiquette for a "man date" ? (Wood p216).

I suspect opinions will vary widely.

response to Dorit - week 5

Dorit,I think the fact that many women having children later in life has a lot to with people getting married later in life. My parents were 21 and 18 when they married. It was a failry common age to get married back in their days. I hear a lot of youger couples also saying they don't want to have children until they have a house. So therefore the economy also has an impact on the age that women choose to have goals. I think most people know whether they want children or not at an early age. I think people set criteria for when they will have children which takes longer to achieve now than it may have many years ago.

response to Alex - week 5

Alex,I have noticed that we are seeing more and more incidents of females fighting. I like all of the statistics you have also, they really provide a good foundation for discussion. I think the media also puts more attention on the female fights also. It is out of normal expectations that many people have that boys are the ones that typically fight. Some of the biggest rivalries I remember from high school were some of the fights females had. They were just as violent as the ones that the males had. The drew a bit more attention as well. My opinion initially would have been that it just gets more attention now from the media. But clearly your post indicates that it is on the rise. Good job.

week 5 - Bad Example

With the US Open this week there is a lot of focus on golf in the United States. One senior director of the USGA said the great thing about golf is that with the handicapping system and two golfers can compete against each on a equal basis.
I play in a golf league that uses handicaps. The league is made up of 14 two player teams. Each player has an established average which he or she plays against. In a match the lower average person from each team play each other and the two players with the higher averages play each other (remember in golf the lower you score the better). the winner is determined by who did better against their average.
My partner (male) and I played a womens team this week. What bothered me is on the second hole my opponent approached me and asked if I would let her win this week. This is an experience that I have never had with a man in all my years of playing. I found it odd that she would even ask me that question. As we got to the fourth tee, my partner and I were on the men's tee away from the ladies and he asked me if we should let them win. He was approach by his opponent and asked the same question. So obviously it was a strategy the ladies had. After a brief discussion we agreed that we would not let them win.
My partner and I won the match ( I shot a 45, even with my average, my opponent shot a 64, 3 shots above her average). So even though I shot 19 strokes better than her I only won by 3 strokes. If she had shot a 60, 1 stroke better than her average, she would have won.
There was a bit of razzing afterward that we beat two women. That's the beauty of the game though, we were able to compete on an equal basis because we were playing against our averages.
I thought it was unfair for the women to use the femininity to minimize our victory. I thought it was unfair of the women to ask us to throw the match. When woman portray themselves as the weaker sex to try and influence men would you agree that it is anti feminist?

Response to Tiffany week 4

I think being friends with an ex is a mistake. Perhaps many people make the mistake of saying we can stiill be friends because they think it will soften the blow. If somehow you do remain friends with an ex, it complicates future relationships. It is not the norm. If I was dating a girl and she introduced me to her friends Bob and Mike, then mentions that she used to date Bob for a while, I would be concerned about Bob. I think women would react the same way when the situation is reversed.

Response to John's Blog - Wk 4

John,I think that many people make judgements too quickly in general on things that are obvious such as age, race, class and gender. I think that people make snap judgements on things that are not so obvious as well. For a long time I struggled with jumping to conclusions about certain people because of more subtle traits based on my experiences with similar individuals. An example, if a man wore an abstract tie or had a beard I assumed that we probably were not going to get along. You generally don't see men who mix ties, i.e. abstract one day symmetrical the next, so I take that as a message about their personality. I only wear ties that have symmetrical patterns and I have no facial hair, therefore I sensed that they were wired differently than me. Past experiences with men in abstract ties with beards have not been good. I still struggle with this stereotype from time to time. I have had some good expereriences recently dealing with men who fit this description so that has helped. I have tried to suppress my pre-concieved notions and reserve judgement, when that didn't work I tried to be "bilingual". I am sure some others have some similiar prejudices that are obscure like mine

Week 4 Post - The tennis bracelet debate

Many years ago the group of friends I hung out with was a mix of males and females. We went out did stuff together all strictly plutonic. One of the most memorable traditions was watching Friends on Thursday nights at my apartment. The women would cook dinner and me and my roommate would provide snacks and alcohol.
During this time I started dating a woman that lived 70 miles away. My friends knew about her but had never met her in person. By the time her birthday came around we had been dating for 7 weeks. I bought her a diamond and ruby tennis bracelet as a gift.
On the Thursday night before her birthday my friends asked what I bought her for her birthday. I got very gender biased reactions. The guys reaction mostly was very generic such as “cool”, “nice” and “how much did that set you back?” The women reacted much differently. “We need to talk”, “We need to meet this woman” was the general reaction. Their collective feeling was that a woman would view a gift like this as a message that this is a serious relationship. It was not my intent to send a message and I didn’t think that the gift would send a message, I just wanted to get her something nice.
There was much debate over the next two day between the men and women. The men generally felt that there was no message being sent, it’s just a nice gift. The women urged me to reconsider. Although I appreciated the women’s perspective I ultimately gave her the tennis bracelet.
I viewed the reaction of the women as being stereotypical by assuming that a woman would look for a deeper meaning whether one existed or not. I viewed the men’s reaction as stereotypical also by strictly looking at things for their face value. Neither the men nor the women questioned me on the seriousness of the relationship.
I am curious to hear how members of the class would have reacted if they had a friend in a similar situation. What advice, if any, would you have given your friend?

Respone to Tiffany's Blog - Wk 3

Good question. I think it is just an attention grabber. It would certainly stand out in the self help section of the book store and I suspect people would be a least a bit more curious and pick it up to at least see what it's about, but I doubt anyone would prouly walk to the register with it. I doubt they selected this title witout some input from a focus group or advice from a marketing consultant. Focus groups are interesting if you ever get asked to participate in one. I have been in several and it was intersting to see how reactions to various advertising approaches vary. It was cool one year when a focus group i was in one winter selected a few ads for the jersey shore and I saw the smae pictures on a few billboards as we were headed to the shore. My point is that they probably didn't just selected a potentially offensive title without doing some research beforehand, no one takes a risk like that without being certain.

Response to John's Blog - Wk 3

I think it is fairly obvious why males athletics dominate the media, just look at the audience. I think males watch far more sports programming, buy far more sports magazines, read the sports section far more than females do. I am an avid sports fan. There are some female events I will watch such as tennis, soccer and golf. I will not watch the WNBA, I find it boring in comparison to the NBA, for me it is the equivalent of watching minor league baseball.There have been a few occasions where female golfers have been invited to play in a tournament on the male tour. In both instances the female golfers, who were among the best on the female tour (Anika Sorenstam, Michele Wie)didn't make the cut in the men's tournament. (Tounaments are usually four days, after the second day players not within 10 shots of the lead are cut). I am not trying to be controversial; I am just providing my perspective as a frequent viewer of sports. I was surfing SI.Com the other day and they had two headlines about the Indy 500. Primary headline was something like Indy 500 full of crashes, secondary was Danica (Patrick, a female driver) finishes 22nd. Do you think if John Doe finished 22nd there would be a headline? So it is evident that the media does make an effort to highlight the performance of women.

Week 3 - Gender observations K-8

My daughters received their school year book this week. The question that they asked each student was what they want to be when they grow up. What a perfect opportunity to look at a large population of students and see if there are any gender influences I thought. There are just over 200 students in the school which is from Kindergarten to eighth grade.
The first occupation I looked at was teacher. This is my daughters first year at this school and they are in kindergarten. One thing I noticed through the course of the year is that all of the teachers at the school are females, as is the entire staff. My hypothesis prior to counting was that there would be an overwhelmingly high percentage of females versus males that would want to be teachers simply based on the fact that all of the teachers are females. About 10% of the students answered teacher, 80% of them are females.
My suspicion is that this is a result of not having any male role models who are teachers. What would be interesting to see is how students at another school with a mixture of male and female teachers would respond. Only then would I be able to validate if my hypothesis is accurate.
The second group of occupations I looked at was professional athlete. The school offers athletic programs for boys and girls including basketball, soccer and track. All three are sports I felt get a fair amount of exposure for males and females as opposed to football and baseball. About 20% of students answered that they want to be professional athletes, 80% are males. My hypothesis was that this would be a bit more even based on the programs offered at the school. It is clear that the outside influences impact the students gender expectations more so than what they are exposed to at school.
The third grouping I looked at were doctors and lawyers (excluding veterinarian, far too many, if they all come through all of our pets will be well cared for). About 7% of all students answered doctor or lawyer, 66% are females. I thought we might get more of a 50-50 mix here. I suppose that this may be impacted by so many males having selected professional athlete as first choice. It would have been a bit more interesting if the students were instructed to select something other than professional athlete.
There are many more ways we could look at these results, far too many for this blog. There were quite a few that were better representations of reality than others. There where four specific ones I thought were interesting, two girls who identified an occupation and added mother, and two males who added dad.

Reply to Linda's Blog - Wk 2

Linda, I thought this post was interesting, and good question at the end. I don't have any official sources but my opinion is that men would generally have a tougher time accepting that their son was gay, as oppossed to their daughter. I think attitudes about homosexuality are changing. In fact a few years ago when John Kerry kept talking about Dick Cheyney's daughter who is a lesbian I found it odd that Kerry would have even brought it up.I noticed a show the other day where a bisexual attress is doing a show like the Bachelor but she has men and women to choose from. I am wondering now if people are more accepting of a bisexual woman than of a bisexual man. I wonder if this is the start of a transitional phase where we will soon see a bachelor that is select from a pool of bachelors? Or a woman with just females to choose from?
I remember a kid from high school who sounded a lot like John. He got picked on frequently because most people assumed he was gay. At my last reunion he was married with 3 kids.

The Evolution of Negotiations - Week 2 post

As I was doing the readings this week, specifically feminine speech vs. masculine speech, I couldn’t help but reflect back on some of the negotiation trainings I have been through. There are 3 that stand out in my mind where I thought the principle messages could be classified as being consistent with either feminine speech or masculine speech. All of these courses were developed and delivered by some very credible authors, even though I do not remember them all I remember some of the more recent ones. I will take you through them chronologically and perhaps you will also see the same evolution I have.

The first course I took was called “Negotiate to Win”, which I took mid 90’s or so. You may not need much of an explanation from me on what type of speech this is based on the title. I still have the mug somewhere but the 10 key points have long since worn off. From what I remember though, some of the key thoughts were never give something without getting something in return, splitting the difference is never an acceptable compromise and withhold any information which may give your counterpart an advantage.

The second one I remember was called “Creating and Claiming value in Negotiations.” I took this in 2003. The key takeaway from this course was the further exploration of the term win-win in negotiations. So the objective at a high level was to reach preliminary agreement then identify opportunities to increase the overall value of the deal for both parties, but also to increase the value to you more so than your counterpart. Another key take away from this course was game theory, developing strategies to understand the rules and boundaries of negotiation so that you can become a game master. This course was developed and delivered by a professor from the Harvard School of Business.

The third course that stood out was called “High Performance Negotiation Skills” and I took this in 2006. The content of this course was developed and delivered by a Professor from the Kellogg School of Management. This course incorporated many of the concepts from the previous courses but added a layer of skills on top of them. Some of the key topics included building trust and relationships, navigating the tension between cooperation and competition and improving your creative thinking. (I still have the book, The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, Leigh L. Thompson). What I learned from this is that if you express a genuine concern for understanding your counterpart’s point of view they will be more open to considering yours as well. That’s when you start building trust and moving from competitive to truly cooperative communications.

I utilize many of the techniques I have learned from all of these courses today. I find them to be equally effective regardless of gender. They are also equally effective in business and social situations.

Does anyone see the same evolution I did?

Reply to Celita's Blog Week 2

Celita,I had a similar thought on a different car commercial. It said that the majority of women select a car based on the cupholders. I thought this was totally preposterous. Although convenience features may be one criteria I would tend to think that women are also concerned with the reputation, reliability and especially now gas mileage. Men on the other hand may have more of a tendency to dive into the details such as horsepower, engine size, etc. Of course I am making some stereotypical assumptions here but I thought the statement that women buy a car based on the number of cupholders was rather insulting.

A woman held a door for me….and I walked through

One of my responsibilities at work is training incoming interns. We have approximately a dozen new interns that come in every six months. About two years ago I decided to include a segment on business etiquette and found a course in our company library called “Everyday Business Etiquette.” I did not review the content because it was a 3 hour course, instead I had two interns volunteer to take the course and present the key messages to the group.
I met with the interns beforehand to review their content. For the most part it was what I expected it to be. What I found most interesting was the section on chivalry in the work place. The message was that there is no such thing as chivalry in the workplace. For example holding the door, the rule is whoever gets to the door first holds it open for the other person. This is so different from the way I was raised. The first experience I had was that same afternoon when one of the female interns who was in the training class held the door open for me. This was not too awkward for me since we both had just been through the same training we both understood the proper etiquette. Since then there have been many occasions where a woman has held a door for me at the office. At the office I graciously accept however in public, I insist that the woman go before me.
I am curious to know how others treat this situation and what your expectations are at work and in public for door holding.

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