I have a couple of thoughts:

1. Regardless of how much people would like the subject of the differences between male and female would just go away, it’s NOT going to happen. There ARE differences between us and they DO lean toward several tendencies from the time we’re born! At least that is my opinion

I’ll give you an examples from my own experience:

I have always been sort of a rebel when it comes to how to raise kids. I have one boy and one girl. I was determined to NOT fall into the trap of “boys play with trucks and guns and girls play with dolls and makeup.” So I consciously made the effort to be more balanced with what they were exposed to. Now I know there were other influences, but I’ll be darned if they didn’t gravitate toward those things anyway. It was really hard with my daughter because here I was trying to show her that makeup, clothes and sexy bodlies were all superficial and what really mattered was what was under it all, but she insisted on all of that! GRRRR!

In regards to this point, I think what you were saying is that the above example, just because it is my experience and has skewed my perceptions, doesn’t prove a theory. Therefor I cannot say with authority that all girls grow up choosing dolls and makeup over guns and trucks. Which would be correct.

However, what really matters to a person is their experience in raising their own children and the conclusions they derived from that. That becomes their truth. In my case, I didn’t want to believe it, but my experience taught me otherwise.

In Rachel’s experience, the research that she did proved to her that women are more emotionally attached than men. At least she didn’t base that conclusion on just two experiences like I did above, but 3000. Now maybe according to the statistical guru’s the conclusion she drew was incorrect, but in my opinion, she has more experience and credibility on that particular subject because of her survey than a bunch of other people who were on her butt for saying it.

2. Another thought was what good are surveys and polls if you can’t draw conclusions from them? I’m not a degreed statistician, so If I were to run a survey and want to draw a conclusion from it , who are the conclusion Gods and do I have to hire them to bless the results?

Which brings me to your most interesting point above and the one that excites me the most! But as with anything in life, can be used in a positive way or a negetive way…

3. ANYBODY now has the ability to say what they want to on their own blog. ANYBODY can now have their voice heard as a result of the internet and web 2.0 capabilities. That is HUGE for women, minorities, underdogs, repressed societies AND the human race in general.

While most of us (notice I didn’t say all of us don’t want the horrible things and scarey people who are promoting ugliness and violence on the internet, it’s really up to us to make this new world one in which we want to participate. Do we really want it to be a world in which we all agree to agree?

Obviously not. Otherwise why would CONTROVERSY gain so much attention?

So in conclusion, I say let’s ADMIT there ARE differences in the way men and women think and act in all kinds of ways. Some are based on hormones and brain functions. Some are based on cultures and societies. Regardless, let’s stop trying to put our heads in the sand and CELEBRATE the differences that are good and positive and POSITIVELY CHANGE the differences that cause pain and suffering.

“Stick that in your pipe and smoke it ladies and gentlemen”

“Sometimes we need to change our strategy. If we always do what

we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten.

And remember too, sometimes it’s not WHAT we say, it’s HOW we say it!! ”

Making General statements about pregnant females for example only upsets a section of market or prospective customers and make you have to work twice as hard. We all have to take into consideration that a large portion of our clients do at times come by word of mouth so if we upset a fraction of the market it is greatly possible that that information is also going around. Remember our reputation is at times all we have as business people and we have to fight hard to keep it.

Thanks again for having me ……

Maybe “rich” to women means inclusive of material and emotional “wealth,” so “rich” alone cannot define the entire spectrum of what rich means. The English language, doesn’t have words for many subtle emotions that other languages do. For example, Greek words for love: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_words_for_love which differentiates between types/purposes of love. Linguistics can certainly add to misunderstandings.

As regards statistics, my fave quote is from Mark Twain, “There’s lies, damn lies and statistics. (the biggest lies of them all)” If you’ve ever done any number crunching, you understand how to skew the math, as in “does anyone know a creative accountant?” So maybe we should understand that many such polls have inherent flaws and the numbers don’t tell the whole truth.

The women were far more likely to apply their underlying nature of nurturer… to give of themselves emotionally as well as in other ways to the nurture, support, and growing of the enterprise and/or customers. These professional women were more likely to treat the workplace as “family.” I often said that many executive men failed to realize the tremendous asset they had in the (few) professional women in the organization, who would make personal sacrifices to help “heal” the organization and/or thrust it forward.

Face it. We were created as “mothers,” as “nurturers.’ So why should it come as a surprise if we manifest that aspect of our innate character in the corporation of entrepreneurial endeavor?

That’s not to say that individual men and women might not exhibit a little of multiple drives and characteristics. These are just some predominant ones, a shifting of the balance, that was observed among many professionals.

As for pregnancy, that statement is utter chauvinistic hogwash. Even the CEO of a billion-dollar organization was astounded at what I accomplished as a 35-year-old pregnant executive – completing legislative proposals for the Governor, conducting all-day audio/video presentation event for hundreds of officers as well as having my own speech, while simultaneously completing the regulatory applications to acquire 4 banks (I had taken that responsibility back from the law firm). He didn’t know any man who could have done it all in that time frame, much less a very pregnant woman!

Its very easy to use words like “ALL THE” when referring to any group and it will spark conversation but its worth is minimal.

Just my thoughts anyway..

K. L.
http://www.KLthewriter.com

Great post! I completely agree with what you had to say about generalisation. It’s a technique we learn as a child to be able to ‘organize’ the world around us, but it is far more dangerous than people think it is. In this case, it’s rather innocent – and like you say – probably used to create some sort of controversy, but when you take a look at the world, you see entire social groups being hated & discriminated, and even worse…

The experiment you mention only proves that it’s not chromosomes that are responsible for what one feels, thinks or does, but that the values you get as a child (from your parents, school,…) are much more determining.
It’s a proven fact that in most cases girls are taught different values than boys. Boys are often stimulated to build a career, earn money, become a leader, while most people expect girls to be kind, respectful, caring.

Experiments show that teachers praise their male pupils/students because they get good grades, while with girls they will emphasize things like beautiful handwriting.

We’ve come a long way since the 1950′s, but this difference is still significant in today’s society – people aren’t even aware they’re doing it…