From: jean@cs.cornell.edu (Jean M. Petrosino)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Working with Women vs. Working with Men
Date: 22 Dec 92 20:51:14 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853


        You might call me a bit of a misogynist.  When I'm working with
        a man, I expect the man to reach answers using the same approach
        thatI do.  I cannot *stand* when a man pulls the womanly
        "hurry up to the answer and then sit and whine about it for
        several hours because it isn't (fair, equitable, whatever)."

        When I have to work with women,I always find myself counting
        to ten at least three times an hour, because while I
        accept that there are a vast number of women who are equally
        competent/qualified as I, as well as a bunch who are smarter,
        quicker, slicker, brighter--whatever--than I am--I cannot
        *stand* the way most women approach a problem.  It always seems
        to me that women are >crippled< in some way, since they seem
        unable to get straight through the problem solving process--
        heck, they often seem unable to even properly target the problem.

Having a different approach to something does not constitute being crippled.
You need to watch the words you choose.

        So when I work with a man, I expect (and 99% of the time get)
        a mind that works in the same fashion as mine--that is,
        a mind I consider rational.  I prefer working with men
        because it is very difficult to get good results when working
        with a woman--if you're working on a theory on a joint project,
        and you're working with a man, he will often work rather hard
        to invalidate or rip up your reasoning--which is very important
        when that's *precisely* what the teacher is going to be doing.
        When you work with a woman it almost seems that, while they
        are *able* to do so, they choose not to--even if that is the
        express reason to work together.  Even when they *do* find flaws
        they will withhold mention until they've figured out a way to
        patch the theory to solve them, sometimes holding them back
        forever.

Did you ever think YOU make it difficult for these women to critique your work?
Men are taught to critique ( in positive as well as negative ways), women are
told that critiquing = nagging.

        Needless to say, this makes the work a lot less effective.  I
        *personally* can't work that way on purely technical goals,
        and try to avoid working with women that act this way (not
        all do--just most in my experiance).  OTOH, when the objective
        is a convincing argument or paper, I generally like to work
        with a woman--once I've *already solved the problem* because they
        give good feedback.

Because it is safe.  They are not refuting your solution, they are HELPING you
improve it.

        To give a parallel, imagine that you have a friend who's
        learning sign language and you two are supposed to write a paper, and
        throughout the session this friend insists on trying to talk
        to you in sign language.  It will not only irritate you,
        it will quickly make you angry ("Quit acting like a damn idiot
        and get to work on the PROBLEM") because you are expecting them
        to deal with you as you deal with them. For me, this is what
        it is like (often) to work with a woman--or a man who acts like
        one.

I don't even know where to begin on this one.

        The other thing is, women will never shut up and get to work.
        They're so busy giving greetings and catching up with you
        that they can't just put that aside until later.  It's even
        worse if you're in a library--christ, it seems like they can't
        just nod or wave or wink and _have_ to get an entire conversation
        out of the way with every friend, teacher or even acquaintance
        that walks by.

This is about power.  You want to be there to get your business done.  You want
this person's UNDIVIDED attention.  When you don't get what you expect, you
get annoyed.  Maybe she's annoyed with you because you're so serious.  


        I prefer to be around women socially, because I get a little
        tired of the constant conflict (or implied conflict involved
        in any disagreement) that is omnipresent in a group of men.


I don't know how you expect to get along with women if you can't accept their 
thought processes.  How can you hold a conversation?  


        I would like to end this by pointing out that I am aware that
        the woman's approach to problem solving *works*.  I am also
        aware that women have no problem solving problems, writing
        papers orwhipping my pants off grad-wise.  I am merely trying
        to explain why I find men-who-reason-like-women frustrating
        to work with.  I've heard many of the complaints I've given above
        voiced by other men, and I've *also* heard a large number of
        similiar-but-opposite complaints given by women ("men are
        too conflictive"  "men can't work together, they're always
        trying to tear each other's work apart"  "men always try
        to dominate a discussion).

        <getting out the armor>


No armor needed.  You need to realize that this is a power issue.  Working with
other people is stressful, especially if someone doesn't have the same work-
habits that you have.  Taking control, or demanding things be done your way is
the easy way out.  I hope someday you can see that the male and female
approaches can be COMPLIMENTARY rather than CONFLICTUAL.
Newsgroups: alt.feminism