Men and Women

Years ago, I used to listen to a set of wonderful workshop tapes a lady had made. How can I not remember her name or the name of her program when she and her program were really great? Alas, but I have forgotten.

The workshops were for women only.

The workshop leader on the tapes talked about how men and women tend to interpret things differently. Her conclusions were based on an objective psychological study that had been conducted at a major university.

The study began with the testers meeting each person one at a time. The subjects of the study thought they were being tested to see how fast they could put a jig saw puzzle together. Unbeknownst to the subjects, the puzzle they were given had extra pieces that wouldn’t fit, and pieces that would fit were missing. In other words, the puzzle was rigged, and no one could complete it. No one.

By and large, the women, in their final frustration, would say something like: “What’s wrong with me that I can’t do this. Well, I was never good at puzzles anyway.�?

The men in general, when they had to give up, would respond: “What’s wrong with this darn puzzle?�?

The next test the subjects were given was a simple puzzle that had all the pieces. As the women completed it, they tended to say: “This must have been a really easy puzzle.�?

The men tended to say, “I’ve always been good at puzzles.�?

But why would it be that a greater per cent of women over men blame things on themselves? Is this all from how we’re raised? Is it all conditioning? Really?

What the women mostly said are like quotes out of my mouth. I see myself in everything she said. She nailed me.

Does anyone know what I mean? Can it be that I am the only woman left on this planet who does this?!

Posted by Gloria on November 27th, 2007 under these topics
Purely Personal, Godwriting Journal

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2 Replies

Reply from Margaret on November 27, 2007

You are not alone. A friend who is a psychologist told me that on tests she administered the least confident men usually tested higher in self-confidence than the most self-confident women. I am wondering, though,if this isn’t changing, if women who have grown up, say, starting in the 80’s or 90’s aren’t more confident than women used to be, at least in our USA culture, which is all I know personally. I do think it is how we were raised, the cultural values around us when we were being formed, etc. I know that even in a good college in the late 50’s-early 60’s, women were even put down in some academic classes, even at a place that did at least have a few women on the faculty. Things like this change very slowly, I think, as do prejudices, like racism.

Reply from Jo on November 28, 2007

No, Gloria, you are not the only woman to think like this. I especially would have said that the puzzle must be easy and I know tons of other women who would have been uncomfortable with accepting any praise for doing the puzzle. I think that upbringing and culture have some bearing on this, but I also think it goes back to the Mars VS Venus gender make-up. For example, I wonder what kind of gender differences would have shown up if instead of putting a puzzle together, the challenge would have been comforting a tearful, distraught person or re-directing a couple of arguing children. Men are “engineered” to appear more forward and fierce for survival as hunters and protectors. Women are “engineered” to nurture and calm as the foundation for family unity. I’m not saying women can’t be forward or fierce or that men can’t be nurturing or calming, they definitely can be whatever they choose to be. However, there is something to nature’s engineering.

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