Friday, May 15, 2009
Gender Communication - Summer 2009 GND311 OL
Welcome to Gender and Communication. I am looking forward to reading your posts each week. We will be using this blog each week in our course to make the connection from our course studies to the "real world:". We will be posting each week our "Eureka Moments". Those moments that we realize a new perspective, recognize a gender issue is occurring in our life. This could be as simple as recognizing your language in a conversation at work to noticing something in a movie or reading something in the newspaper. It could be something that you recognize based on our class reading. Any time that you can create a link to your Eureka Moment to another web site or news site or dress up the blog with an embedded image would be great. If you aren't a technology wizard, that's okay too. Find the right words to create an image or feeling that other student readers can relate to when they read your post. So, I have created a sample of a post. We will use the class blog to post this week. Go to the bottom of this blog and you will find the word comments. Click on it and it will bring up a comment box. Share your Eureka moment. Then, click post. I want this blog to start you to be a more in each moment or more aware to pay attention to all the gender issues that are in our life each and every day that before now have gone unnoticed. Take the opportunity in this blog to start paying more attention to gender communication in all it's forms in our world today.
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7 comments:
So, something that has been very interesting to me and something that has given me my Eureka moment has to deal with my experience in the corporate world. I am 21 years old and last April I took a job with a company and this was my first real job. My supervisor was a 50+/- year old woman, who looked very professional and pleasant when she hired me. Well once I gotten into the department and got to know my co-workers they had told me how horrible of a supervisor she was. She was very authoritative and liked to have the power to control. She wanted everything done her way and was in everyone's business. to me this moment gave me a realization that when woman are given supervisory positions all the power goes to there heads and they become horrible at the position. After 6 months of being on the job I transferred to a different job in the company where I was now with a 40+/- year old male supervisor. This than gave me the chance to see maybe it's just the way people are in the corporate world. Well I discovered that a male supervisor is a lot more laid back than a woman is. My supervisor now who I have had for about 6 months now has been awesome. As long as I get my work done and do it right he does not cause any problems. He does not take advantage of the power he has and does not care how the job gets done just as long as it is right. Talking to a lot of people in the company I work for it seems more people would rather work for a man rather than a woman. I can still remember sitting in a meeting with a few woman manager and supervisors and they are gossiping about how someone from IT was with this woman from Auto and he is just using her as a beard to cover us that he is gay! These gender roles that the male and females have played in my career at my job have played some sort of impact on my interpretation of how woman are in jobs where they are given power. It's not so much that they abuse it, I think it's more of the fact that they finally have it and they want to show that woman can take on a mans job. Every since I have left her department she is very different towards me too. I think woman take things more personally than men do. For our culture now a days is not unusual to see a woman in these positions, but it's just the way they act that makes me think now that it's easier to work for a man than it is a woman. No wonder why when I started only 2 out of the 13 of us in my department were men!!!
So after reading chapter one and two of the text I realized I am dealing with a major gender issue under my nose. My twin toddlers!! I have 3 year old toddlers a boy and a girl which are basically like a blank canvas. They have no idea how they are "supposed" to act according to their gender roles. They only really know what I teach them or by their surroundings especially since they are not enrolled in preschool. Just the other day I was putting nail polish on and the twins wanted me to paint there nails. I painted my daughters nails without hesitation but then my son starting crying because he wanted his nails painted. How do I explain to a 3 year old boy that it is not socially acceptable for the male gender to wear nail polish? And not to mention my husband felt like I was destroying my son's masculine side in some sense. Well I could not see tears in his eyes over nail polish so I painted his nails and said screw society! :)
In response to Chris P's comment: I appreciate that you are thinking critically about your supervisors, and trying to learn about gender through your daily experiences. Though not all experiences, nor people, will determine or best represent other people. In your case, the female supervisor perhaps was a bit of a tyrant, because that was her personality. Not because she was female, or because she was trying to prove herself. For example, my mother is a business owner. I have seen her interact with her employees on more than one occasion and she was been encouraging, yet firm, intelligent and articulate, though never abrasive. However, what is interesting is that if she has to call someone on their ill behavior, or if she stands for something that no one else believes in, she is immediately labeled as a, you know what! I digress, there just isn't really a common way that men and women act on the job as character comes more into play rather then sexual identity.
As for my own eureka moment, I found Chapter 1's explanation of how gender defines communication relevant in a recent conversation I had with a male friend. Being a woman, or perhaps just conscientious, I believe that I should wait until a person is fully done speaking their mind before I speak my opinions. I also hesitate to share my experiences until I fully understand where the other person is coming from, therefore I may ask questions that show the other person that I am interested in what they have to say. I also like to make eye contact. In a recent situation, I was exasperated talking to a male friend of mine. Before I was finished talking, my friend would chime in his opinion over mine, seeming to have not heard what I said. Also, when I would finish my point, he would abruptly nod his head and sit blankly for a few seconds, then proceed to talk about something that did not pertain to the topic I mentioned. Thus ignoring my ideas. This was frustrating, as Wood describes the "relationship level of meaning" was that he did not value my opinion. Wood includes an example similar to mine in the book on page 34. Though his poor listening may not be correlated to his gender, but more to what is acceptable when it comes to male genders: men are usually allowed to be more opinionated, and run conversations, while women who do this are usually seen as pushy or obnoxious. Perhaps it does not need to be one or the other but a more egalitarian approach where both opinions are valued, and no one is undermined as being unimportant.
Chris - I have been in the corporate world for 27 years and I would have to agree with Maria that the character of person and their management skills (or the lack thereof) are what makes someone easy to work with, not their gender. Some of the best managers I have ever worked for have been women. Trust me when I tell you I didn't always think this way. My first job on Wall Street was in 1985 - and I reported to a woman - and I couldn't stand it. I thought she had it out for me, because at that time, I didn't treat women with much respect. But what she didn't like was the fact that I was always late...
Neeru - now that was truly a Eureka moment!!! I love it! It will be challenging though to transition your son into understanding society's view on his role as male and that is sad. I wish you could just let kids be and let them figure it out.
Ok gang - now for my Eureka moment: I CAN BE A FEMINIST WITHOUT BEING FEMININE!!! Being the father of three daughters who are all women now, I have always felt a passion to stand up for Women’s rights and make sure my daughters are not judged on their gender, but on their education and character. But I always thought you had to first truly understand women, something I must sadly report has not yet happened after living with four women for the past 20 years! After reading the introduction of Gendered Lives, I realized than Feminism is a position, not a lifestyle and definitely not “man bashing”. So I am here to shout – I AM A FEMINIST and will do anything I can to make sure my daughters are afforded the same opportunities as any of our sons.
Hi Chris,
Interesting post, I have run into similar situations. I am currently working for a female manager who is very authoritative and high strong. Many of us feel she has something to prove because her expectations are very high and demanding. I wonder if she feels like she is trying to prove something to the male managers in the area. I wonder if female managers in general feel like they are trying to break the corporate norm.
In just reading the first two chapters I find myself analyzing television shows and my interactions with others. I have become more observant about gender issues in the workplace, media/entertainment and in my personal life.
I was watching a re-run of the Bernie Mack show today. In this episode Bernie is the primary care giver to his nieces and nephew while his wife Wanda works. Bernie went to a dinner with Wanda at her boss’s house and while she was chatting with her boss and another male guest; he was chatting with the wives about children’s issues. His whole conversation was about the kids and you could tell that he felt out of place and wanted so desperately to be talking with the men. This was a great episode that showed gendered roles in reverse.
Although this was a television show there are a few men that are homemakers but because men have the higher paying jobs it is more common for a women to be the homemaker. However, with the economy the way it is today most parents work versus stay at home with the kids. I think society as a whole still questions when a man stays at home to tend to the kids but over the years it has become more acceptable There are many studies about women being at home for the first few years of a child’s development but I would be curious to see the states for stay at home dads. Since this is such a new prospective I don’t think we will see hard data for years to come.
Response Chris P & Neeru
It’s a shame that you had a negative experience working with women. You can’t characterize all women managers based on this experience. I believe the behavior you see in her is based on her having poor management skills not because she is a woman who is abusing her power. Depending on the industry and job function some women feel as though they have to act like the men in order to be accepted. I think this has to do mostly with the culture of that organization. The organizational cultures in organizations are tuff and can change a person drastically.
I have always reported directly into women and I am a manager myself. My philosophy is that it’s all about people. A manager has to be able to motivate, coach develop, and mentor their employees. It’s much easier to meet the companies objectives when you collaborate with your employees versus dictate and not empower them to think out of the box, be creative and innovative. I have worked with a man who was a manager even though I didn’t report into him he was horrible. A real tyrant; it was his way or no way! His employees literally feared him. If I allowed my experience with him to view all men in the workplace this way I would be doing a disservice to myself and the men I have to work with. You have to look at people as individuals and base your judgment on that.
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