Monday, May 17, 2010
Initial Blog
Well, that's an experience! I'm not even on Facebook and I have a BLOG! Wow! I'm looking forward to the Gender and Communication class - I've had gender courses through Rider before and have enjoyed each, as well as learning a lot! This course (or a course similar) was recommended due for those in my profession (HR), so that I can learn various gendered practices and pitfalls in hiring but adding in a perspective of how each gender communicates should make it even more appropro. I'm hoping my decisions and recommendations can be looked at from a broader perspective. I like to think I am a very liberated thinker, but am hoping to broaden my viewpoints even further. There's always room for improvement!
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I can't wait to read your thoughts especially since you bring knowledge from other gender courses to this course. I think for many students it is their first gender course. Welcome!
ReplyDeleteWelcome Dawn! I think it is great that HR is requiring people to take gender courses. When I think about how things were 20 years ago you were just male, female, and heterosexual. If you were gay or if you were another gender you really kept it in the closet because you didn't want to be discriminated against. I also think of myself as being a liberal, but I catch myself being a hypocrit so I really need to watch that lol. Well welcome to the class!
ReplyDeleteMy Eureka moment actually occurred in the Fall semester. I took the Psychology of Gender class with Prof. Adlai-Gail - I would highly recommend it - what an eye opener. You really begin to look at how gender is pushed on us and we don't even know it. The media is a huge perpetrator of gender stereotypes! Perfect example was last night I had the tv on and saw a commercial that was actually pretty funny for Snickers candy bars. You've seen it ...right ... the football game and Betty White gets tackled. Funny commercial and Betty White is a hoot, BUT why did the guy who was playing less than adequately HAVE to be an OLD WOMAN? Why didn't they put an old MAN there? Why is it that the producers of that commerical thought it would be funnier to insinuate that he was playing like an old woman as opposed to an old man? Next time you are aimlessly watching tv, just pay attention to the underlying messages of commercials - gender stereotypes are blatant!
ReplyDeleteHi Tamica!
ReplyDeleteActually it was a friend who is in HR that recommended a seminar she took about communication as an HR Professional. One of the topics they breezed over but that caught her attention was on making sure you speak to your audience and being mindful that not everyone thinks the same and they gave examples of cultural differents, men v. women, slang. She caught on to the men/women example because for her the example was dead on. I can't recall the specific example but it came from the Men are from Mars book apparently. I took the Psychology of Gender Fall semester and LOVED it! I would recommend it and Prof. Adlai-Gail to anyone! We had one guy in the class of about 20 and he gave great perspective from a man's POV on situations. Between that and the seminar examples I thought the Gender and Communications would be a wonderful addition to my understanding of explanations and my public speaking arsenal. :-) Thanks for replying! I'm really looking forward to this course - I can only imagine if it were in class - it would be amazing!
Ashley,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great thought to give them a choice – my question would be then – why couldn’t you give them other things to color – prince and princesses only perpetuate the stereotypes – we don’t have royalty in our culture so it’s not like they are exposed to anything except in fairy tales and they aren’t real. The Social Learning Theory (Wood p. 50) states that “individuals learn to be masculine and feminine primarily by imitating others and getting responses from others to their behaviors.” Behaviors of princes is great – they get to be handsome and chivalrous but the behaviors of princesses are to be weak (since they are always needing to be rescued by the prince), beautiful which only causes women to subject their bodies to scrutiny, and enamored by their rescuer(s). Not such redeeming qualities if you believe women are equally strong willed, independent and self sufficient. To avoid the whole gender issue, why not give them pictures of frogs or turtles or scenery? Or if you want to address male/female pictures – how about a picture of a family where they get to color the entire picture? I think when we recognize something that is gender based, in order to correct it we have to remove as much gender stereotype as we can from the situation – not just make accommodations for it.
Thanks for bringing it up – who knew something so innocent could cause such a ruckus!
Dawn
It's so great that you mentioned that Snickers commercial in your Eureka moment, because I too wondered the same thing. Agreed, it is quite a funny commercial, but like you said..why an old woman?! I just wanted to comment on how I too noticed it and questioned why. I see that you took Gender Psychology (which is funny that you recommended it because I did too--) what a great class! It really made me aware of gender stereotypes and how blatant they truly are. I enjoyed that course so much that I wanted to take another gender course..so here I am now!
ReplyDeleteWeek 2 Eureka Moment!
ReplyDeleteIt's early in the week and I've had my Eureka moment for the week right off the bat! I was finally sitting down after a long day and wanted to watch mindless entertaining tv so I put on Dancing with the Stars finale. So while I was enjoying the athleticism I saw the Erin/Max freestyle. Obviously the dance was about a couple fighting but talk about nonverbal communication! WOW! Did anyone else but me see Erin's face during the dance? Max was taking the upper hand in the fight - he even flung her onto the mat that was made to look like a bed! Literally, it looked like he was supposed to have flung her across the bed and she got up and clung onto him! Max was pushing Erin off, turning his back, taking control and standing tall for most of the dance - Erin was chasing after him, looking desparate while attempting to I guess make amends, clinging onto him...I doubt anyone who hasn't had a gender class would have noticed - but WOW what an eye opener! Then what happens, I got through the rest of the show and the opening of the Bachelorette was on...I was booting up my laptop to Eureka about DWTS and saw one of the male contestants, who described himself as an Outdoorsman and said he needed a woman, he actually told his dog that he was going to bring Ali home to TAKE CARE OF THEM!!!!! So, now we've addressed verbal communication (Chapter 5!). Seriously, I have no idea what Ali does for a living but I doubt her resume would have included taking care of a self professed mountain man!!!!!!!! I'm not sure how this show works but I hope that guy gets voted off or ushered out or something that sends him packing for his mountain and his dog...if that's what he thinks about a beautiful young professional woman! It's amazing that in the course of an hour, without even trying, I've seen two huge examples, one verbal and one nonverbal, that screams of gender communication issues! I'm afraid to watch tv anymore...
Anyone else having their relaxing tv watching infiltrated by examples of gendered behavior?
Hey Dana!
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't be so hard on him. Think back to the old Western movies, where the hero cowboy used terminology like lady or miss as a sign of respect to a woman. He might be thinking it's nicer to say ...pretty lady or ...sexy miss than a boring old "morning" or "hiii". He probably thinks of those as terms of endearment. I've called my husband Hon or Honey for 99% of our married life (over 20 years). Its funny he knows if I call him by his first name, that I'm not happy ;-) In contrast, he has never called me any 'pet' names - it's always been my first name. Sometimes I'd love for him to call me a 'pet' name but it's not his personality. I can see why being called 'shorty' would bother you - I don't understand why it's acceptable for people to use nicknames like that - ones that isolate a physical feature and think it's cute to call attention to it. I doubt if you called him a name related to a physical attribute of his that he would find it a loving comment! For example: unibrow or green giant aren't so cute as nicknames are they? I've had a gender class before, and boy do these classes make you AWARE - especially if you are a woman! You begin to notice even the smalled little thing and after a while it can infuriate you! I can see how the woman's movement of the 60s aand 70s gained momentum so quickly with women. Once your eyes are opened to gender issues (even a little bit) they become WIDE OPEN! Gender classes are a dangerous, wonderful thing! I LOVE THEM! As for your boyfriend, I don't think the "hiii pretty lady" is so bad - as long as he treats you respectfully (and you reciprocate with equally respect), why not enjoy his attempt to make you smile first thing in the morning? There are plenty of women out there that would love to wake up to messages like his. BTW - I wouldn't be so self conscious about being 5'2" - the average woman in the US is 5'3" tall!
reply to Prof. M.
ReplyDeleteWell, let see, my husband and I are married over 20 years and we are both at or near 50 years old. While you would think that we would have many traditional gender roles in our marriage, we actually don't. Early in our marriage when our kids were little I had the primary caregiver role, especially early when I was a stay at home mom. We both made that decision, I had a great job in HR with a very large consumer product company that was located in Princeton at the time. I gave up my job to stay home until our daughter was ready for kindergarten (in our township that's 4 years old). It was the logical choice - he earned more money than I did, had the healthcare benefits too, and had the ability to work overtime which I didn't. Besides that, I always loved being a mom (still do) and completely enjoyed my time with my kids. He worked overtime to support the family and I took care of everything else. I went back to work in our local school district as a secretary and was able to enjoy being a working mom that was fortunate to be able to be there for school plays and Mothers Day tea's and room parent and field trips. Neither of us wanted our kids to have to do without having parents around to enjoy things with just so they could have things. Now both our kids are grown - our son (my son from a previous marriage) is 26 and in the Air Force and our daughter 20 is a Junior majoring in Biology at a University in Lancaster, PA. As our kids grew up, so did we... My husband loves to cook and he's much better at it than I am. He gets home from work before I do and usually has dinner going when I get home. After dinner, I clean up - its only fair that way. We both keep the laundry going and feed or clean up after the dog. I was raised to do my part inside or outside the house and he was raised in a very large family where everyone had to pitch in, so it works. After a while we transcended 90% of the gender roles, now we just take care of business. I say 90% because I still have the tendency to clean up faster than he does...he would do it eventually but not fast enough for me. :-) Maybe my generation was fortunate to be raised and appreciate having traditionally gender roled parents but also the benefit of both working. We learned to appreciate both and try to balance it in our lives. I hope we raised our kids to balance the roles (family/work) without too much of the gender role game playing involved. Only time and fingers crossed will tell...but I think we were successful!
Here's another one! I just went to retrieve my work mail. What do I find? A seminar brochure entitled...get this..."Communication Skills for Women" and the works for Women were italicized for emphasis! It professes to "help you communicate more confidently and persuasively. It reflects the attitude, style and professionalism of today's most powerful women. You'll learn how to get better results with all the people in your life." And what are "we" supposed to learn from this? How to influence people to how stay cool even when you've reached your boiling point how to come across more powerfully in meetings and presentations and how to handle difficult people and situations. What do they think WE are ????? I really would like to call the company and ask if they have a Communication Skills FOR MEN seminar - my guess would be NO, because obviously they want US to emulate the skills men are perceived to have built into their genes! WOW this burned me up !!!!! had to vent!
ReplyDelete