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How do they put up with us?

10/12/2012

1 Comment

 
The book, Women's Ways of Knowing, by Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger & Tarule describes a feminine learning style that fits well with women's conversational style. Example: When women hear a new or different idea, they set their doubts and disbelief aside and tune in carefully to what the person is saying; they try to see it from the other person's view point. Women try to understand the other person's opinion as completely and deeply as possible; they cognitively "go with them," wanting to hear the person's views and understand why they think this way. Women seek to make sense of the new idea, to grasp how it can be seen as accurate and useful. This is certainly a "way of knowing" and could be called the "believing approach ." It involves empathizing with the speaker to cooperatively assimilate the truth together, i.e. cooperating. Women effectively use this same listening style when someone has a personal problem.

I am a man and a counselor and I cringe when I see the clash between how men do this and how women do this.

Sometimes I ask myself, "How do they put up with us?"

All the best,
Don

1 Comment
Lucy
10/13/2012 04:31:52 am

This reminds me of some stuff I read many many years ago by Carol Tavris and Carol Gilligan (authors of separate pieces of writing). I have no idea how accurate my memory is, but this is what I remember learning:

1B. When two boys have a fight, they duke it out (perhaps only verbally) and then resume playing after they're done pounding their chests and finding their place in the pecking order.
1G. When two girls fight, one of them will pick up their toys and go home. Then there will be a long dance to reconnect.


2B. Boys/males view the world in a hierarchical structure in which they need to find their place.
2G. Girls view the world as a web of interrelated relationships in which they need to find their place.

And then there's my friend's observation of the soccer game she watched of little girls. One girl (on Team A) fell down and hurt herself. Another girl (on Team B) stopped following the ball and checked to see if the girl on Team A was okay. It was a very kind thing to do, but not something generally seen at a boy's game until the ref blows the whistle to check things out. The boys trust the system (refs will call when an injury requires stopping the game) while girls feel more personal responsibility to attend. (Do boys more naturally compartmentalize?)

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    Don Boice
    Don Boice, LCSW-R, specializes in gender communication with couples in conflict.  

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