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> I enter into conversations with unsuspecting men sitting next to me on airplanes, on the subway and in coffee shops and give them a chance to share their inne
by Udo 16y ago
> I enter into conversations with unsuspecting men sitting next to me on airplanes, on the subway and in coffee shops and give them a chance to share their innermost thoughts anonymously.
This sounds like a wildlife researcher entering protected habitats to observe a rare species under natural conditions. It also betrays the underlying assumption that men and women are two completely different species that live in completely separate worlds. Throughout the article that assumption is never challenged.
> The male brain has the enviable ability to essentially switch off emotions when desired — in part because it’s hard for a man to think clearly in the face of emotion.
Big news: everybody does that, no matter what gender they are. It's called compartmentalization, without it people would not be able to function. Emotional reactions and analysis are pushed off to a future point in time whenever more pressing concerns are at hand. That's a basic mental triage technique and everybody can do it. There are also many people who _never_ do it, and in my experience there was no significant gender difference to that behavior.
> When men see a worker taking criticism personally, seeming to push too hard for his or her ideas, or having a personality conflict, they automatically view that worker as less business-savvy and less experienced, or as someone who operates on emotion, not logic.
Paragraphs like this make excellent statements for people who like evolutionary psychology, but they're simply not rooted in fact. In my experience, most "Type A" personalities who do like to dish out harsh personal criticism like it's a bodily function simply cannot take the same when it is directed at them. Likewise, the perception of business-savvyness is probably always linked to the perception of sameness: successful businesspeople attribute superior skills to people whom they perceive as similar to their own personality. And again, I observed no significant difference between sexes here. Regarding the unspoken assumption of public displays of male toughness: I've seen tough jock-types sitting under their desks crying just because someone had looked at them funny.
> The science is clear, for example, that although the female brain isn’t designed to compartmentalize personal feelings the same way a man’s brain does, a woman can — if she chooses — force a calm demeanor when she is starting to feel defensive.
That's a lie. This statement has nothing to do with science.
All in all this article is a standard set of misleading statements, "obvious" assumptions and outright lies. It's designed to be popular on the net while providing less than no value for readers interested in team dynamics.
- CodeMage 16y ago> The science is clear, for example, that although the female brain isn’t designed to compartmentalize personal feelings the same way a man’s brain does, a woman can — if she chooses — force a calm demeanor when she is starting to feel defensive. That's a lie. This statement has nothing to do with science. Can you point in the direction of something that proves or disproves that statement? I've witnessed a lot of anecdotal evidence that women don't do as well at compartmentalization as men. I didn't make much of it until I also read a book that points it out ("Viva La Diferencia" by Pilar Sordo) as one of the differences between typical male and typical female behavior. All in all, it seems that the typical behavioral patterns are different enough between males and females, so I'm interested in evidence both for and against it. Your categorical statement makes it look like you can produce some of that evidence.
- Udo 16y ago> I've witnessed a lot of anecdotal evidence that women don't do as well at compartmentalization as men. I didn't make much of it until I also read a book that points it out ("Viva La Diferencia" by Pilar Sordo) as one of the differences between typical male and typical female behavior. Like I said, that's a _very_ popular opinion and it sells a lot of books. It's also something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. > The science is clear, for example, that although the female brain isn’t designed to compartmentalize personal feelings the same way a man’s brain does You ask me to prove my assertion that this is not based science, and of course I can mostly point to the fact that the supposed science the article is talking about was itself not cited anywhere. So I have to prove a negative, but the article gets a pass with disguising a blanket statement as science just because it resonates better with popular world views? There is no actual biological or medical evidence supporting the article's claims. Pop psychology studies of this matter are hampered by the simple fact that they're unable to distinguish cultural from biological mechanisms. Evolutionary psychology is also considered a pseudoscience because it's based on starting with equating popular assumptions to self-evident truths and then going out to find evidence to support these arbitrary claims, while ignoring everything else.
- CodeMage 16y ago