{"id":1380,"date":"2009-02-10T00:38:17","date_gmt":"2009-02-10T04:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/?p=1380"},"modified":"2009-02-09T22:06:37","modified_gmt":"2009-02-10T02:06:37","slug":"it%e2%80%99s-a-gender-thing-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/archives\/1380","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a gender thing (maybe)"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a recent conversation I was asking for help in clarifying a misunderstanding from a colleague. She began our conversation by saying, \u201cIt\u2019s probably a gender thing.\u201d I\u2019ve never found that a helpful way to start a conversation. My thought was that in my experience, \u201cIt\u2019s only a gender thing if you make<\/em> it a gender thing.\u201d <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say that we do not need to appreciate that males and females process emotions and cognition differently. There are legitimate reasons for allowing that gender perspectives are different and are influenced by both biology and enculturation. But to make gender the<\/em> issue runs the risk of missing the issue. <\/p>\n

It seems to me that to make everything a \u201cgender thing\u201d as a point of reference is to begin from a pseudo self stance. Taking that stance makes it too easy to focus on \u201cthe other.\u201d It leaves persons who don\u2019t want to do the hard work of understanding one another, or who don\u2019t want to take responsibility for self, with the excuse of saying, \u201cWell, he\u2019s a man so he can\u2019t understand,\u201d or, \u201cWell, she\u2019s a woman so she just doesn\u2019t get it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Conversely, it runs the risk of facilitating irresponsibility: “Well, I’m a guy so you’ll just have to deal with it. I can’t change who I am.” Or, “I’m a women, I can’t help feeling and thinking this way. You need to accept my feelings.” <\/p>\n

Mature and self-differentiated persons have the capacity of allowing others to own their perspectives, and will strive to appreciate the others\u2019 perspectives even if they can\u2019t understand it. Whether or not one can ultimately understand another person\u2019s perspective does not change the fact that at the end of the day each person needs to find the way to agree on what the issue is and how it needs to be resolved. And the issues that most of us deal with tend to be more about functioning and less about \u201ca gender thing.\u201d To overfocus on gender runs the risk of creating an impasse that leaves no common ground for communication or understanding. It puts \u201cthe other\u201d in the pose of a pseudo-self who lacks the capacity to function beyond their biology. It judges the other not on their character, accomplishments, being or potential but solely on a secondary dimension of self. <\/p>\n

Yes, biology, and gender, mediates a lot, but I don’t think it’s helpful to make it the starting point and end all of everything. <\/p>\n

galindoconsultants.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During a recent conversation I was asking for help in clarifying a misunderstanding from a colleague. She began our conversation by saying, \u201cIt\u2019s probably a gender thing.\u201d I\u2019ve never found that a helpful way to start a conversation. My thought … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,40,27,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bowen-family-systems-theory","category-development-theory","category-personal-growth","category-world-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1380"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1382,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1380\/revisions\/1382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/grace-ed.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}