Hi, I'm Lane and I'm an FTM transsexual. WOOT!
OK! So I've been told I'm "a confrontational person" in the past. Got me in tonnnnnns of trouble. I've minimised that behavior because I feel the best ideas are brought out in cooperative environments--I gave up on trying "not to get in trouble" because it never works. If it's not one thing it's your mother! (that's a joke folks)
But I'm wondering... do people think that confrontation is a "more acceptable" "male" behavior?
Hi, sweetie, it's been awhile since we've had a confrontation, Lane. :)
I'd have to say that confrontation is generally more socially acceptable and even expected from men than from women.
Nikki
Nikki you know you're my SHEro whether we agree or not. :icon_hug:
Don't worry--this won't be permission to hare off shouting at folks.
:) I have no fears, Lane. You have been doing eversomuch better that I, anyway, trust you to keep it lite and breezy. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
And thanks so much for the kind words as well.
:icon_hug:
Nikki
what Nikki said. a confrontational or in some cases merely assertive woman can be seen as threatening and bitchy while the exact same behaviour in a man escapes all notice.
Quote from: Nichole on October 15, 2008, 02:32:24 PM
:) I have no fears, Lane. You have been doing eversomuch better that I, anyway, trust you to keep it lite and breezy. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
And thanks so much for the kind words as well.
:icon_hug:
Nikki
Having been played a cosmic joke, I have to learn to laugh sometimes or it's the madhouse for me. They're coming to take me away, ha ha, ho ho, hee hee.... :)
I don't give kind words unless i mean them :D
The words Hunter and Gatherer come to mind when I saw your question Lane. According to Wikipedia confrontation is under the umbrella of conflict which then breaks dow in to more sub groups. Personal experience as a former Police Officer and years in Supervisory roles has reinforced my views on this.
Men as a general rule are more confrontational and prone to bravado. Woman on the other hand tend to seek solutions more unobtrusively. And after my gaff on the other thread, I think you handled it just like a guy would. >:-) Hugs
Wendy
Quote from: Wendy C on October 15, 2008, 04:11:04 PM
The words Hunter and Gatherer come to mind when I saw your question Lane. According to Wikipedia confrontation is under the umbrella of conflict which then breaks dow in to more sub groups. Personal experience as a former Police Officer and years in Supervisory roles has reinforced my views on this.
Men as a general rule are more confrontational and prone to bravado. Woman on the other hand tend to seek solutions more unobtrusively. And after my gaff on the other thread, I think you handled it just like a guy would. >:-) Hugs
Wendy
*grins* i love this board. I bring up a gender question and get my own validated. lolol Thanks Wendy :icon_hug:
Quote from: iFindMeHere on October 15, 2008, 04:24:02 PM
Quote from: Wendy C on October 15, 2008, 04:11:04 PM
The words Hunter and Gatherer come to mind when I saw your question Lane. According to Wikipedia confrontation is under the umbrella of conflict which then breaks dow in to more sub groups. Personal experience as a former Police Officer and years in Supervisory roles has reinforced my views on this.
Men as a general rule are more confrontational and prone to bravado. Woman on the other hand tend to seek solutions more unobtrusively. And after my gaff on the other thread, I think you handled it just like a guy would. >:-) Hugs
Wendy
*grins* i love this board. I bring up a gender question and get my own validated. lolol Thanks Wendy :icon_hug:
A peck on the cheek :-* Any time Dear, you are quite welcome.
I don't know about being confrontational, but I've always been a very blunt person, and it got me in a lot of trouble as a "girl." However, people seem to care just as much now that they see me as a guy... it simply depends upon the situation.
Confrontation may be a "male" thing socially...
However So was the Women's Lib
Burning Bras
DEMANDING A STOP TO DOMESTIC Violence and CHild abuse....
My point is :
confrontation is neccasary for progress/evolution...
Me I have an intersexed condition and grew up being hated evn by my own family...
So yes I will cuss/threaten someone in nansecond
as if I dont stand for our community I am inadvertantly dissing ya all
Understand???
Love
Crista
Stand GEt up
Stand up for your rights
I've often wondered it myself. I feel I get into trouble if I'm just a little confrontational about something. It's like I can't be grumpy or upset, I have to submit to someone else.
And, say, if I'm online or with well trusted male friends, they treat me as male. And I find if I'm indulge in being blunt or making fun of someone like we often do to everyone, no one cares. However, if I'm around people who see me as female, I'm seen as a jerk.
I'm not sure 100% if that is the case, however I can see it being a reason. It's rather annoying.
Some men thrive on being confrontational.
It's only acceptable if you have some sort of reason for it. People who are always picking a fight, or who take a contrary position just to take it are not highly valued, as its seen to go against the team deal and the entire 'getting things done' deal. But if you are standing up for something that is right it tends to be seen as a good thing.
Quote from: tekla on October 18, 2008, 10:26:11 AM
It's only acceptable if you have some sort of reason for it. People who are always picking a fight, or who take a contrary position just to take it are not highly valued, as its seen to go against the team deal and the entire 'getting things done' deal. But if you are standing up for something that is right it tends to be seen as a good thing.
Huh. I've seen a lot of people who stand up for something that's right (or against something that's not right) get written off as "picking a fight" or "taking a contrary position" and "not being highly valued."
Hey, if you are going against the grain, and you have two brain cells that can hit each other, then you are aware going in that its not going to win you any popularity contests at the start - though perhaps a national holiday long after your dead is not out of order.
However.... confrontation for the sake of confrontation is just being a jerk.
On the other side, I saw (and directly experienced as the victim thereof) people being intentionally confrontational solely to cause problems for others and gaining approval or social standing for it. It was even a significant factor at a previous job. I could see nothing the person gained, only causing discord in the department. His actions and comments strongly lead me to believe he simply enjoyed doing so as he intentionally approached it in ways that would be the least productive. However, in spite of the trail of problems left in his wake, he was continually kept in that position of authority and his part in the delays and failures that resulted was simply ignored by management.
Although I was seen as male growing up, the parental view of me was that any confrontation in which I was involved (even if I didn't cause it) reflected negatively upon me. I cannot explain this attitude in light of the fact that the opposite position was taken for my male sibling.
Hey, I just send them home and never call them again for another gig, which is $300 (take home) per gig. If I wanted an argument, I'd go back to grad school.
This was full-time employment. He usually traded on having been in the industry longer than the rest of us combined, but had failed to keep current, which was regularly the source of conflict - the only project plan he would approve was one I could demonstrate was unworkable but that fact was ignored by him as well as management.
Quote from: DarphBobo on October 19, 2008, 07:35:18 PM
Although I was seen as male growing up, the parental view of me was that any confrontation in which I was involved (even if I didn't cause it) reflected negatively upon me. I cannot explain this attitude in light of the fact that the opposite position was taken for my male sibling.
I had this experience, except my sibling was female.
To a degree, I could care less about how much, or how little experience you have. You are in that position for a reason, and that's that. I work - and take direction from people who were in diapers when I did my first tour - if not just a candy bar in their daddy's back pocket - but, they are in charge. It's their show. We do it their way. If you want to argue, go into politics.
Had the attitude been that it was his show, I'd not have minded much. I approached it in the way of "what the boss says is what I do." The way I documented that it would not work was to follow the plan exactly, and keep careful documentation that my steps were what was required by the plan. Where it broke down was that person in question was always shielded from the consequences of his plans failing, with it instead falling on the rest of the department. Seeing this, he increased the frequency of conflict, enjoying causing problems for the rest of us (a fact he directly admitted.)
I'm not about conflict, and I think that is a very immature view of how things get done. The Golden Gate Bridge and Empire State Building were not built on argument, but on cooperation. By people working together, not apart.
Quote from: Leslie Ann on October 18, 2008, 05:06:51 AM
Some men thrive on being confrontational.
some women, too.
i am often seen as "blunt". i havnt really noticed as a gender thing, i jut thought i was like that. hmm... something to chew on i guess.
Yeah, I don't think being confrontational or blunt is a gender thing.
I think that society is all about socializing us that those are gender things, though.
I tend to be both Timid and Confrontational. I'll ignore or not say something at first, but eventually I break and Confront them sometimes rather fiercely. I'm also very defensive too, somewhat overly defensive might say.
Though the thing I really hate that I do is I'm afraid of hurting someone, yet can't avoid being blunt. So I apologize all the time too, even though I'm not sorry for saying something I feel sorry that it may have hurt them. I'm to soft lol.
Ive always been a fairly even tempered individual unless really provoked and then I see red and have a hard time controlling my temper but once calmed down its over and I rarely harbor a grudge. On the other side of the coin It seems I'm alway apologizing for the dumbest things. You could bump into something and I'd probably tell you I was sorry. Drives me to distraction.
One thing I have found out in the last several months after going on a daily regimen of anti depressants is that my anxiety level was causing a lot of the confrontational issues and I have since seemed to calm down and handle things better even at work. Hugs
Wendy
Quote from: tekla on October 19, 2008, 10:43:03 PM
I'm not about conflict, and I think that is a very immature view of how things get done. The Golden Gate Bridge and Empire State Building were not built on argument, but on cooperation. By people working together, not apart.
I have not said you are. What I have been saying is only from my experience of operations at a prior employer where conflict was standard operating procedure. The fact that the process in that department was so oppositional and a person trusted by management refused to work cooperatively was the very reason projects were routinely late and, not infrequently, outright failures. In spite of the seriously negative effects that person caused, management's view of him remained positive, likely in part for their stated view that competition, not cooperation, was the better approach on the micro scale. The projects in question were far smaller than the grand structures you mention, in fact many were small enough only one person would be assigned, but not being assigned to that project did not stop the co-worker in question. Had we been trying to do something along that scale I don't think it an exaggeration to say we'd be lucky to have yet broken ground with how the interference was left unmanaged.
Cooperation is a wonderfull thing in and of itself and does cause many great feats to become acomplished however its only one side of a coin that requires 2 sides to maintain balance. Properly stuctured confrontation brings about change and refreshes new ideas if everyone jsut stayed with the old norm then nothing would change and you would have stagnation and decay. Beside its not in human nature for everyone to always get along perfect on every issue our viewpoints and opinions are what makes us unique as individuals and sometimes we feel the need to express these viewpoints to others for various reasons. Confrontation just for the sake of argument is generaly negative and unproductive however debates can be fun if structured right and both sides are enjoying the mental stimulation. The most unproductive and worst kind of confrontation though is definatly when things devolve into violence.
It's really a very complex thing. In my experience, both cooperation and competition can produce important advances when used properly, but if used improperly, they can effectively waste time and money, and generate no small amount of ill will. There are many points about what is proper and improper. The major one at issue in my experience there was when each was appropriate. I generally feel that in the planning phase debate/argument is acceptable, the earlier in it the better. Some arguments can probably be made for early parts of the implementation phase, but when it's months in and now days or hours before the deadline is simply too late for debate to begin. The person in question would only raise objections at that eleventh-hour.
The objection raised was invariably that we were doing things differently, and it seemed that no advance was worth the change, so, by arguing more of the usual, that person was guaranteed to win. The resulting overrun and/or failure was simply seen as proof of the wisdom of staying with the tried and true.
The mood among my non-managerial coworkers definitely changed once that person quit. Our manger hated that we never sat down in a conference room and formally debated things after that point (to his view, we weren't debating at all) but it really wasn't necessary. Most of us were very interested in what was happening in our industry and how we could improve by using what had become available. In the computing field, there was a great deal of this, too, but it also meant change was regularly forced. This was also the most common reason for the failure after those objections - they'd demand we do things exactly as they had been for years but the software no longer worked that way so it wasn't possible (although that fact was never a strong enough counter-argument.)