Men, women and competition

Over on the Freakonomics blog, there's an interesting post on men, women and the nature of competition in society. I have to admit that I hate conversations that include declarations like "men are so" and "why are women so". This actually came up in a conversation recently when someone was talking about male and female personality characteristics. I kind of took offense; can we use some different words to describe that? Being in the female side of those comments, it can be so insulting. Mostly because they are frequently wrong and the context is generally used to whine about some kind of slight (from an "aggressive man" or a "catty woman"). I suspect that people speak in such absolutes because it helps them make sense of the universe. They know what to expect when dealing with a man or woman. What they don't know is that at any given time, I'd be more than happy to beat you in a game of, like, anything.

PS: I have to admit that much of my perspective can likely be attributed to the fact that I work in a heavily-female field and was raised without any strong gender stereotypes influence. That either reinforces the point of the blog post or not so much.

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2008
  I actually find in my generation, women are far, far more cut-throat and competitive than men.  It's almost like our generation of women feel they need to make up for centuries of oppression.  It might just be that most of the women I run with are professionals who I have met through school or work and most of the men I run with are family guys like I am.  But the most aggressive go-getters my age that I see by far and away are the women.  Blanket statement, I know, but true in general based on my observations.

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2008
  It's OK. I understand. I think for my generation (did we deicde that was a different generation than yours?) gender seemed trivial when it came to work. I don't know....my dad played catch with me a lot and I liked to roller skate and skate board and play in the dirt, so that may have had something to do with it. I guess what I find is that when people are complaining about it (I am not suggesting that you are, justmean in general) that it says as much about the complainer, if not more, than men or women in general. I probably don't accept much at face value. So it's my nature to question people that make those sweeping statements about men or women. Do you really think it was centiries of oppression that had the impact. I was thinking the feminist movement in the 70s, possibly the increase of women in the workforce in the 80s? Heck, I'm a gal and I am not sure I could point to what it is, but I doubt it's because of my grandparents generation. Maybe it is and I just don't realize it.

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2008
  I think we are both Gen-X'ers. What I meant by the "centuries of oppression" comment is that it's almost like the women who broke into the workplace just a generation or two ago had to be fighters just to make it in.  That attitude has been passed down to the female workers of today, whereas for men, we have always been in the workplace as a matter of course and so we don't feel that we have to battle to stay here (nor did my father or grandfathers or any earlier generation of men).  As more and more generations pass and women in the workplace becomes a "matter of course" thing, I suspect that fighter attitude will get watered down over time. Does that make sense?

• Anonymous
  February 07, 2008
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  February 13, 2008
  There are two kinds of people: Those who take generalizations personally and those who don't. I have learned to accept that from time to time women will say men are pigs because it's true even though I am a man with no porcine characteristics.

• Anonymous
  February 20, 2008
  The comment has been removed