Gender Interaction

This week's lesson was very interesting
as it is rather pertainant to what my group is looking at for our project
gender issues have always been an interesting topic to discuss
to learn more about social constructs
and the difficulties women face in fighting for gender equality

it is funny to see how for animals, there are so many different terms to describe
the young female, young male, adult female, adult male
makes me wonder if all these were even neccessary
why did the creator of these words have to go down to the very specifics
does it thrill him or her to come up with more words:)
is there a need to differentiate the young of a goat, female and male, while they are almost the same anyway.

one interesting thing that we discussed quite a lot in class was the issue about the Miss, Mrs and Ms
it really keeps me thinking
should I support this by addressing myself in terms of Ms in future:D
but if I do so, will people connotate it as me being of an elder age
I guess in singapore, it is slowly becoming prevalent to use Ms
but it still takes a bit of getting use to

lastly, we had a lot of discussion about the way men and women interact during conversations
I thought that was very insigthful
as we realize how men respond very differently when they talk to women
it is quite amusing to see how they change their tone, their degree of imposition just to come across differently in a mix gender conversation
but I guess sometimes we should not overread into things
as perhaps in a modern society, it is just manners to accomadate the other party in a conversation
similarly if there is majority of men in a group conversation and only one woman
maybe she too will adapt to the rest by interrupting more and having stronger opinions
well.
we shall see:)

Components and representation

learning about the 4 different Hofstede’s dimensions has been very insightful indeed
- power distance
- individualism versus collectivism
- uncertainty accepting versus uncertainty avoidance
- masculinity versus femininity
these are things that I have heard a lot about
learnt in various classes in business school
learn about it in organizational behaviour
but I can always takeaway new lessons each time

I must say there are always certain systems that I would prefer as an individual
that I would see as ideal
due to my gender, my personality, and career
but of coz,
different societies and cultures are more geared to certain dimensions
a challenge at times
but tt is wht makes them unique as they are:)

Power distance has always been something that I am not quite for
In singapore, power distance is quite prevalent, and it actually hinders communication, openness and mutual respect among people
by playing this ' I am your boss' or 'I am your father' thing
it doesnt always work out as the person will end up disrespecting you even more
when you play hierachy

RISK
singaporeans are very very risk averse
afraid of failure
weary of their movements and actions
and afraid to face the repercussions of their mistakes
but I guess being more risk taking actually does encourage creativity, to be
unafraid of changes
and open to deviant ways and approaches
sometimes taking risk will eventually reward you immensely
therefore people should be unafraid to take risks.:)
you may fail a few times
but wil eventually reap immensly

I guess every society prides itself in different things
some countries try to steer away from what it use to be
but culture is something that is very fundamental to society,
and in order to change mindest and behaviours, it takes getting use to.

Written Discourse

Some takeaways from class is that letters written by people from different cultures can be extremely different
just writing a simple letter requesting for something can be a totally different approach across cultures
just like the assignment we did
where the way a chinese writes a request is
- introduce self
- show interest in the group they are writing to
- explain their situation
- give the request
- show gratefulness and apologize for the trouble caused

but in the case of a westerner
they are more direct and straight forward
which is clear, but may sound impolite as well
so there needs to be a balance:)

another interesting thing we discussed in class was the one about the indian essay on Dowry
we can see how inductive and deductive forms of argument is so different
to us locals, it may seem like the writer of the essay did not seem to have a clear statement or point of view
but perhaps it is just the style of writing from people in theat culture
so just because we are taught a certain way
does not mean another form of argument is neccessarily bad
therefore it was quite insightful
these were my general takeaway
group discussions are indeed a great way to learn more:)