Monday 8 September 2008

Gender Stereotypes

Gender Stereotypes
The theory of the sexual dynamic of the psyche in Jung is conformable to the theory of male and female patterns of conversation in Deborah Tannen's best selling book You Just Don't Understand. Tannen, as a result of her own research, contends that men use conversation to establish status, or for "information," while women use conversation to establish closeness. This contrast seems to display the logos/eros functions, since information is rational while closeness is emotional. When a woman talks to a man about a problem she is having, they may speak at cross purposes. She may basically just want to be comforted and encouraged, while the man may think that she is seeking a solution that he can give to her quickly and then move on. Something similar is described by the pop psychologist John Gray in the popular Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus: When they have a problem, men go into a "cave," retreating from contact, to work things out. Women, on the other hand, seek contact. If men and women are aware that the other has a problem and, as Confucius says [note], use their own feelings as a guide, they will tend to treat the other in exactly the opposite way they want to be treated. Men with a problem will not want to be bothered; and, if they are bothered, it can only be because a succinct "solution" is being offered to their problem. But women will tend to bother them without a "solution," which the man will find very irritating. Similarly, a man may avoid a woman with a problem, thinking she would like to be left alone. If she then seeks contact, he may respond by abruptly telling her how to fix it and then going away again. Both Tannen and Gray, like Jung, expect that as each sex learns what the other seeks, they will, at the least, not insensibly work at cross-purposes.
from

http://www.friesian.com/gender.htm

Comment:
Personality Type theory does not seem to divide rational and emotional in quite the same way. Only the Guardians (SJ) seem to be clear cut in this way.

2 comments:

Perseus said...

Gender Narcissism

Perseus said...

Gender Narcissism http://www.narth.com/docs/1996papers/schoenwolf.html