Women and Men and Societal Conditioning

[Stravo]

I have a good friend who speaks candidly to me about what her professional life is like all the time and it gives me a nice insight on the professional women and their trials and tribulations. As a father of two daughters this has become an interest of mine. She mentioned something to me that stuck with me for a long time. She lamented the fact that when you put a group of women together on a case, deal, what have you, it inevitably leads to sniping and infighting. On the other hand, when you have a team of men, even if a few of the guys actively hate each other on a personal level, they will tend to team up and support each other to get something done or achieve a goal.

She wished women could work together instead of actively working against each other.

I've noticed this tendency too. I've seen guys "bond" and do what needed to be done. Sure, you'll call him a cock sucker and an asshole but as soon as the shit hits the fan you put your head down, divy up the work and get it done, even if it is just to get away from the asshole.

When I mentioned my friend's observation of women in the professional work place to my best friend (also female) she immediately agreed and put it this way "Men are conditioned to work together and women are conditioned to compete with each other." I never put it that way in my head but the more I mulled it over it made some sense to me.

What are people's thoughts, observations, criticisms of this notion that men are conditioned by society and culture to be team players while women are taught to view another woman as competition?

[tezunegari]

Though I have no real education on the field of social science beyond High School stuff I'll try to give my two cents:

During the early days of mankind there has been a distinct distribution of work.

Males were the food gatherers and Females the "stay-home-moms".

For Males this meant they were required to work together to secure a food source especially by hunting in groups.
If they had been unable work together regardless of their thoughts about each other there would have been no food.
So males who could work together like that had a better chance to get food and a mate to survive and spread their genetics.

Females on the other hand were vying for standing in the group: access to better food, a better mate or just protection.
So, instead of being forced to act as a group females were more focused on their own gain.
If memory serves me right the early hunter tribes gave the best hunter the most/best part of the prey.
So being cozy with this hunters would be an advantage.


I'm sleep deprived right now so please be gentle when you rip me to shreds like piranhas in a murderous frenzy.

tez, RTB... returning to bed.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Humans do seem to follow the chimpanzee pattern of males naturally forming themselves into gangs, and females not (as opposed to the pattern of our other closest relative the bonobo, whose females also form gangs). Human males naturally work together; for females, it's something they have to learn. Just look at spontaneous organizations like street gangs; they are almost exclusively male, with females just hangers-on. There's a theory, which I agree with, that this is the real reason men have usually been in charge. In any conflict between the genders it's usually boiled down to many men against one woman, or one large man against one small woman; almost never many woman against one man. To get back to chimpanzees versus bonobos; among chimps, the males overwhelm females with their greater strength; among bonobos, a male who tries that gets stomped by a gang of females. Women do form groups naturally; but they are to socialize, not to go forth and accomplish things.

So, in my opinion the conditioning here is the fact that women work together at all. Womens' rights came about because of the rise of female pressure groups; because enough women collectively learned to get together and push for better treatment. Women might not have the male instinct to form organizations, but that doesn't mean they can't learn to do so, and they have.

During the early days of mankind there has been a distinct distribution of work.

Males were the food gatherers and Females the "stay-home-moms".

For Males this meant they were required to work together to secure a food source especially by hunting in groups.
If they had been unable work together regardless of their thoughts about each other there would have been no food.
So males who could work together like that had a better chance to get food and a mate to survive and spread their genetics.

Females on the other hand were vying for standing in the group: access to better food, a better mate or just protection.
So, instead of being forced to act as a group females were more focused on their own gain.
If memory serves me right the early hunter tribes gave the best hunter the most/best part of the prey.
So being cozy with this hunters would be an advantage.

Fairly close to my understanding. Like chimps, males hunted as a group, females gathered as individuals; as opposed to bonobos, where the males hunt as a group and the females gather in a group. The difference between the two apparently having to do with the fact that chimps unlike bonobos are in competition with gorillas for plants. Our late pre-human ancestors appear to have been quite inflexible on the matter as I understand; males hunted and females gathered, period; with the males not even bringing meat back to camp except for bones that had to be cracked in a fire.

As for hunting and males, big game hunting appears to be mostly about male competition and interests; when measured it turns out that except for whales it's actually a less efficient means of getting meat compared to small game hunting. With hunting big game, the men get to show one each up, show off their prowess. And in fact the very best cuts of meat tend to end up being given to a woman that a hunter is trying to impress.

[adam_grif]

Whenever talk of social conditioning of gender roles, I have to wonder when exactly this comes about. I mean, in schools and shit there's absolutely no additional pressure on men to form groups and work together. It's not like the curriculum treats them any differently. Neither does popular fiction necessarily have a double standard in this regard. I mean, you'll have a 5 man band with 3 males and 2 females, but then there's the fiction specifically targeted at girls. And all that power of friendship and pro teamwork messages that are enough to make you fucking sick.

[Feil]

Maybe men work better in groups. Maybe they don't. But the available literature that this interested layman has seen indicates that a feminine proclivity towards competition greater than that of men is assuredly not the cause. Because it doesn't exist.

Some journal articles that you may find interesting.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs ... 122.3.1067

http://www.umt.edu/sociology/faculty_st ... om_s10.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 8bfe6e08e7

Assuming that your data is accurate and men really do work better than women in groups, across a wide and varied selection set, normalized for their qualifications, a more nuanced hypothesis is required to explain the phenomenon.

I am skeptical that such a phenomenon exists in the first place.

[Lancer]

Whenever talk of social conditioning of gender roles, I have to wonder when exactly this comes about. I mean, in schools and shit there's absolutely no additional pressure on men to form groups and work together. It's not like the curriculum treats them any differently. Neither does popular fiction necessarily have a double standard in this regard. I mean, you'll have a 5 man band with 3 males and 2 females, but then there's the fiction specifically targeted at girls. And all that power of friendship and pro teamwork messages that are enough to make you fucking sick.

Social conditioning probably isn't the right word for it, the topic under discussion is more like behavioral patterns that were shaped as a part of the evolution of our species.

[aieeegrunt]

Maybe men work better in groups. Maybe they don't. But the available literature that this interested layman has seen indicates that a feminine proclivity towards competition greater than that of men is assuredly not the cause. Because it doesn't exist.

Some journal articles that you may find interesting.

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs ... 122.3.1067

http://www.umt.edu/sociology/faculty_st ... om_s10.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 8bfe6e08e7

Assuming that your data is accurate and men really do work better than women in groups, across a wide and varied selection set, normalized for their qualifications, a more nuanced hypothesis is required to explain the phenomenon.

I am skeptical that such a phenomenon exists in the first place.

I've seen this phenomenon first hand both in every single job I've had, and every single living situation I've had.

[Spoonist]

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs ... 122.3.1067

http://www.umt.edu/sociology/faculty_st ... om_s10.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... 8bfe6e08e7

I think that you are misenterpreting the competition thingie. Social competition in a group is quite different than competition in a game/sports/achievement situation.

Lets look at the articles;
1) Not related to the topic at all. Does not even tangent on whether or not females/males compete more with eachother in a group setting. Thus irrelevant as a counter argument. However it provides another little insight, men like competition style activities, females usually do not.
2) Again a dud. Male lockerroom talk is anti-female? What has that got to do with the OP? Instead it shows that males adapt and bond by trying to tough talk.
3) This one though seems to agree with the OP. Females perform worse under peer pressure than males/androgyne.

So I think that you should read the OP again and think about what phenomenon he is talking about.

[madd0ct0r]

huh? reading only the abstract, I took 3) to be an indicator not for pressure as such, but that female's were more affected by criticism and praise then the male or androgenic.

I suppose in the OP's case you might have a vicious circle of criticism provoking poor performance that doesn't really get started in a male group?

dunno, I always found the constant jostling of a hierarchy of males as tiring as the similar jostling of females.

[Korto]

Anecdote Alert!

When I was talking to my wife once, and the subject of the sign-out book at work came up, I told her how if someone left early they would write down the time they should be leaving, but leave a few empty spaces above so those who leave earlier than that officially can write in their times. However, if someone forgot to leave the spaces and effectively "cut you off", you would instead write down a later time for yourself than normal, after his time, so not to drop him in it. Even if you had no idea who the bloke is. She was a little shocked at this, and said that if it was women, they would write in the correct time, to "teach the other woman a lesson".

And something maybe not quite as on-topic
My mother, who at the time was working as a barmaid, observed that if you had a staff of all women, eventually it would degenerate into a toxic, bitchy environment. Just one or two men on the staff, however, seemed to defuse the bitchiness before it even began.

[aieeegrunt]

My girlfriend had to attend a meeting last night to try and solve an increasing number of personal issues, disputes, vendettas and feuds at her workplace. You guessed it, the employees are all women.

[PaperJack]

This also reflects with children.
Boys will usually play team games such as football, handegg or the likes, where the thing that matters the most is skill;
whereas girls play with dolls and other games that involve purely materialistic things and often devolve in "My doll's hair looks better than yours!".

[ArmorPierce]

Maybe men work better in groups. Maybe they don't. But the available literature that this interested layman has seen indicates that a feminine proclivity towards competition greater than that of men is assuredly not the cause. Because it doesn't exist.

Competition between the individuals in the group is not the direct cause for this phenomenon. Competition does have to do with it though, difference is how it is handled. Women tend try to avoid direct disagreements even if she disagrees. This results in instead of it being brought up directly there is a lot of talking behind peoples back. Men are capable of doing this too, but it tends to be more prevalent in women.

The other reason has to with how women handle direct disagreements and arguments. They tend to take things more personally. I recall one member on sdnet talked to his female friend like how he would talk to his male friends and when she made a statement he called her out on it and told her that's a idiotic idea. She started ignoring him after that. Men tend to be more competitive and direct with each other but men are better able at letting it role off their backs and not taking charged arguments personally.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I have seen this work as well. I went to an all-male school, and me and my mates got on fine. But when a couple of them brought their girlfriends along on a cinema trip, things got real ugly.

It is, in my experience, true that men will work better under pressure as a group and women dont tend to. As someone said above, men tend to play team games, where the important factor is skill. Interestingly, men will also accept a group memeber based on effort rather than achievement, as in, they'll let you keep playing even if you're not very good, because you try.

Girls don't do that. If you do anything team based at all, you succeed or you're out, no middle ground