Why Women Can be Easier to Work With Than Men

ByShaun Snapp

Executive Summary

  • Why I Often Prefer Working With Women
  • Listening Skills
  • Mental Strengths
  • Lessons From History
  • The Illusion

Why I Often Prefer Working With Women

I was reflecting recently on why I have been getting along so well with a lot of women at work. It got me thinking about the differences between how men and women apply information, and I also thought of how men from different cultures behave and how this provides an extra lens onto the topic.

Listening Skills

I think one reason I work well with women is that I listen to women the same way I listen to men, I am really just looking for the content, the sex or sexual appeal of the person is secondary. I can say that the majority of men don’t operate in this way. They find women who they would like to have sex with far more interesting than those that they don’t. This is true for evaluating statements by women that they will never have sex with. There is no more clear evidence of this than Sarah Palin. Conservatives men have really demonstrated their idiocy by tolerating and even praising statements of a woman who is a complete moron. However, because many unattractive and overweight conservative men would like to have sex with Sarah Palin, they think she is grand. She could blow bubbles and conservative men would consider her the reincarnation of Betsy Ross (with a hotter body).

Mental Strengths

There is a big difference between how men and women process information and their strengths. The best detail people in the world are women and this applies from everything from accounting to proofreading. I have been helped on numerous occasions by women in proofreading my writing, which is a capability that I will never seem attain. On the other hand understanding the bigger picture and integrating concepts as well as deep technical knowledge seems to be the province of men. However, while I used to think this more wholeheartedly, I think there is an important distinction. Men are more willing to make a contention based upon limited information or say something that is later proven false and not have that previous failure affect the future, or have it affect their confidence in future statements. Wall Street brokers and all finance types fall into this category.

Another interesting example is found from a different culture. Because I work within IT, I work with a lot of Indians. Indians have a more sexist culture than the US (which in my view is still pretty sexist, but it’s all relative). I have noticed that almost every Indian I have met proposes that they either know or are an expert on everything. If they have consulted with a few previous clients they say “most companies do things this way,” when in fact their sample size is just three. Like many American men, I have never seen an Indian man say that they were wrong about anything, they just move on to make the next prognostication with the same degree of confidence that they made the last one that turned out to be false. I think a lot of women actually feel bad when they guess wrong, and that causes them to be more cautious the next time they make a proposal.

Lessons From History

There are simply an amazing number of false quotes from men through history. Here are a few from one interesting part of American history:

“The war in the Philippines has been conducted by the American Army with scrupulous regard for the rules of civilized warfare, with self restraint, and with humanity never surpassed.”

This was by the Secretary of War Elihu Root in response to documented atrocities against the Filipinos in the war of 1901

“We will not renounce our part in the mission or our race – trustee under god, of the civilizations of the world. The Philippines give us a base at the door of all the East.”

This was by Albert J Beveridge, US Senator from Indiana during the US-Philippines War (Misnamed the Spanish-American War). I have learned that the use of the word “god” in any context in any quote reduces the likelihood of that quote being true to somewhere between 0 and 5 percent.

“Our fighting spirit was up, and we all wanted to kill niggers. This shooting human beings beats rabbits hunting to all pieces.”

US Soldier during the US-Philippines War in a letter home to his wife. It was common during the time to call Filipinos “niggers,” but the soldier was not speaking of Africans or African Americans.

Since we on the topic of the Philippines its instrumental to compare the most idiotic and false statements made by a woman either from or about the Philippines. From my limited knowledge, no woman can compete with Imelda Marcos. She was the Sarah Palin of her day.

A corrupt clown with a sub-90 IQ in the mold of Paris Hilton (notice the dog who’s outfit matches Imelda’s), Imelda was responsible for some of the greatest statements of idiocy made by any women in the 20th century.

Here are a few of her worst quotes:

  • “They call me corrupt, frivolous. I am not at all privileged. Maybe the only privileged thing is my face. And corrupt? God! I would not look like this if I am corrupt. Some ugliness would settle down on my system.”
  • “Doesn’t the fight for survival also justify swindle and theft? In self defence, anything goes.”
  • “Filipinos want beauty. I have to look beautiful so that the poor Filipinos will have a star to look at from their slums.”
  • “I get so tired listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars there, it’s so petty.”
  • “I have a different way of thinking. I think synergistically. I’m not linear in thinking, I’m not very logical.”
  • “I hate ugliness. You know I’m allergic to ugliness.”
  • “I was no Marie Antoinette. I was not born to nobility, but I had a human right to nobility.”
  • “If you know how rich you are, you are not rich. But me, I am not aware of the extent of my wealth. That’s how rich we are.”
  • “I’m like Robin Hood. I rob the rich to make these projects come alive… not really rob. It’s done with a smile.”
  • “It is terribly important to do certain things, such as wear overembroidered dresses. After all, the mass follows class. Class never follows mass.”
  • “The Philippines is in a strategic position. It is both East and West, right and left, rich and poor. We are neither here nor there.”
  • “We practically own everything in the Philippines.”

That is certainly a whole lot of stupid but does not match the male statements because while Imelda was deluded, she was not predicting anything and it does not seem match the statements made by the men.

The Illusion

What I have recently concluded from my interaction with Indian men, is that men, in general, are much more likely to make contentions and appear very confident in their assertions without having the supporting data than are women. This is one reason that women can have problems competing with men, it is difficult to manage their data free bravado. Indian men take it the next level up, and most likely, the more sexist the society, the more baseless bravado will be exhibited by men vs. women. So women should take heart, check the track record of men and bring it up. A lot of time we are just making things up.

References

https://www.thewilyfilipino.com/imelda.htm