How are men and mascara alike?

A woman’s answer to the question above might be that both men and mascara run when tears appear. I was at a conference for mediators recently and heard one person speak briefly about the differences he had observed between men and women in conflict.  He reckoned women talk more, faster, and yet more succinctly. Women can be comfortable thinking out loud whereas men tend to accumulate data, rolling it around inside their heads and digesting it before speaking. These are gross generalistations of course, but do you think there might be a grain of truth there?  In my own work helping separated parents to figure out how much time their children will have with Mum and Dad, I have noticed that Dads sometimes want to argue that fathers have rights, while mothers generally feel that what both parents have are responsibilities.

At the same conference a counsellor told us that men will sometimes reveal they have always been told what to do by their mothers and girlfriends, and how this can make them go inwards as they don’t have friends, they only have mates, so they don’t talk about this stuff, instead they go further and further in…… until they burst out with violence, or become workaholics. If they are going to open up to other men, they tend to do this when they are standing alongside each other, with no eye contact; whereas women tend to open up face-to-face.

What we – both men and women – do tend to do is assume we know quite a lot about a person just based on one or two things we observe, perhaps their gender, age, hair, tattoos, clothes or ethnicity. Contrary to the old cliché, we generally do believe we can judge a book by its cover. Another speaker had a quote about this: “stereotypes are the devices that save biased people from having to listen.”

If you are trying to have a conversation with someone you think is biased, you might try asking, very nicely: “Are you really listening, or just waiting to talk?”. Meanwhile, below is a link to a great website where you can explore your own biases and learn how they influence you unconsciously:

Understanding Prejudice

If nothing else, the “Implicit Association Test” on this site is worth doing – it works best if you go fast and while you might not be surprised at the bias it reveals you have, you might be surprised at how strong it is!

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