I noticed something interesting at my recent academic conference — by and large (although there are a few exceptions), women recognized me more quickly and embraced me more warmly and engaged me more deeply than men. If a man took 10 seconds for his brain to reboot and then was tentative and distant in the minutes after that reboot, women rebooted in 3-5 seconds and showed virtually no hesitation to talk about friends, the conference, or my presentation. I think they must feel a certain need, perhaps a hallmark of feminine culture, to compliment my presentation, and those comments were very much welcome.
I’m going to need to spend more time thinking about this, but it occurs to me that women have generally responded to me throughout this past year quite a bit differently from men. It may be as simple as a sense that someone has “left one side to go to the other,” and thus needs to be welcomed (for the women) and puzzled over (for the men). But it’s probably a lot more complex than that.
I suppose it’s not surprising that a major life change that involves sex and gender will engage sexed and gendered people in ways that class, race, and education (for example) might not.
As I process this question, I would certainly appreciate your observations, dear readers.
March 19, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Despite what I was told growing up, about how “catty” and competetive women are, I find that as I grow older, women tend to be more accepting in general than men (most of the time). I think the cattiness and competetive fighting is something we get over after our teen years. I find that no matter how weird and uncomfortable puberty was for me, nothing could prepare me for the identity crisis that was my 20′s. I think most women experience something like this. I think it has to do with finding our place somewhere in between the role society and media want us to play, the role that our feminist fore-mothers want us to play, the role that our family wants us to play, and the role that our genetics wants to play. All of a sudden life is so complicated and we are pulled in so many directions. I think men have something of this, too. However, I think that it is more common right now for women to transend and cross boundaries-social,physical, sexual and others-than men. I think that is why women tend to be more accepting of transgenders and homosexuals. We recognize that we are not so cut and dry, either, and we have learned to live with it. I don’t think men have learned to live with their lack of cut and dry as well as women, because in a way their roles have become more rigid. You probably remind the women of how they have become comfortable in their skin, and you probably remind the men that they are uncomfortable. Brava!