In my Psychology of Gender Differences class I have learned many of the differences between men and women. One big difference in their behavior is in the way men and women communicate. Women, for instance, engage in more positive social behavior (agreement) and men engage in more task orientated behavior and negative behavior (disagreeing). Men's language also tends to be more direct, succinct, and instrumental. Women's language on the other hand is more indirect, elaborative, and affective. I was interested to see how the way men and women's ways of communicating would affect certain occupations in our law system. I found an extremely interesting article on men and women's communication styles amongst lawyers. Here is what I found:
Although the gender inequality in professions in the law system seems to be becoming less prevalent, women still might struggle to be as effective communicators and negotiators as men. This article explains that women need to understand one thing, that men and women are different and have different ways of communicating, and therefore negotiating. Like a sports team, you must use your own team's strengths to win. Women and men must recognize their strengths and weaknesses and then build ways to negotiate properly with people.
"Studies have shown that when men are negotiating against women, they tend to play hardball or tend to be more aggressive and concede less than they would if they were negotiating against a man. I think it is important to keep that in mind so that you understand before you go into a negotiation what the ground rules are."
Women also tend to have a want to be liked by the person she is negotiating with. This could possibly limit them to less aggressive styles of negotiating. She may be afraid as being seen as too aggressive if she were more direct. Women must instead use their strengths instead. Women ask more questions, and work to get to know the person better. This in turn could help this person self-disclose more and then the negotiator could learn to deal with their personality better.
Do you think women can use these strengths to be great negotiators? Or do you think men will always be more aggressive in nature, and therefore better at negotiating with people?
This is a difficult subject to approach. It's great to see more equality in our world, but I would have to say that certain professions are better suited due to biology. Before I continue, however, I need to say there are ALWAYS exceptions from the norm. I've seen EXTREMELY aggressive, cold, women and passive, compassionate, men for example. In the case of law, I would have to say it all depends whether you are a prosecutor or a defense attorney. I would imagine, in this case, a male would make a better prosecutor and a female would make a better defense attorney. In this case, the male would be aggressive in attempting to drive the plaintiff’s case while the defendant is, in a sense, "being cared for" by their attorney. The defense attorney would have more empathy for their client and could sway the emotion of the jury in their favor. In my eyes, I believe that many cases would have been in favor of the defendant if they had more of a "human" feel to them. IE, I have seen some cases where male attorneys just argued over the facts as if no lives were impacted by the decision. Granted, if it were a male prosecutor against a female defense attorney, the prosecutor would probably "play hardball", but in that case, the prosecutor won't be able to continue that forever, and they'll start slipping up one way or another. The female attorney would just have to keep their composure and wait them out.
I found this article very interesting. As of right now, I intend on going to law school and becoming an attorney. While I'm not planning on going into criminal law and spending much time in the courtroom, every lawyer must at sometime or another negotiate for a client. Whether this is trying to prove innocence or changing the details of a business contract, it's all the same principle.
Personally, I'm not the most aggressive and outspoken person. I think there's so much more to being an excellent lawyer than the ability to talk. (Which is admittedly VERY important!) You must be able to actually SAY SOMETHING when you're talking.
I definitely think that men have the tendency to be more aggressive and assertive than women. And, like you said, there are exceptions to every assumption. Much like most things in life, I think it's important to recognize your strengths at an individual level and work to use them to the best of your advantage. To say that one personality type is better than another means nothing if the said personality lacks other essential qualities, such as intelligence.
I do think that some men are under the assumption that they can bully women better than they can other men. However, in the college setting, I have also noticed that women tends to be much more assertive than men in group situations. I think this might have to do with a changing society becoming more accepting of intelligent, independent women. Many times it seems as though it's the women who are volunteering to do extra work, go the extra mile.
Overall, I thought this article brought up some very interesting point with a great micro-based look at the legal profession. While good lawyers have certain personality traits that may aid them in their job, it's also impossible to decide what traits are desirable for such a varied occupation in the legal area. So many skills are needed that require a variety of skills, intelligence, time, and personalities.