From the playground to the podium

From the playground to the podium
Interesting article this on Presentations.com. It talk about things that men and women can learn from each other. It starts with the old quote, "When a man gets up to speak, people listen, then look. When a woman gets up, people look; then, if they like what they see, they listen." (could help mentioning it here). Anyways it continues with some examples to suggest how gender sterotypes are not completely baseless. There is this to reference to a book by Judy Tengly, "GenderFlex :Men & women speaking each each others language" , which says presentors should customise their approaches to appeal more to the opposite gender in the presentions. (The book of course was controversial - am planning to look for it).

The article says men would be better if they emulate the inclusiveness of female interactions and the give and take of their politics. According to another author, women tend to be better at striking a dialogue and hence draw the audiences in to the presentation.

Men on the other hand have voices that work in their favour. The article refers to something I have seen so very often , the tendency of women to raise their voices into a little girl pitch, which lowrs their credibility.Male voices are definitely more authoritative than women. Men tend to use fewer words while women tend to qualify statements & digress. No wonder men are believed to be decisive. The article furthur talks about how a man tends to downplay his doubts (true true so very true ..) and a woman her certainity.

Last but not the last ...."Good planning separates the women from the girls, the strong from the weak, the confident from the fearful, and the men from the boys." (Phyllis Mindell, How to Say It for Women , Prentice Hall Press, 2001)