Mapstone has written that rarest of things, the psychology self-help
book that doesn’t compromise on academic integrity. Doubly gratifying
when that book is about, as we would have said in the ’80’s, ‘interpersonal
relations’.
War of Words looks at one manifestation of the battle of
the sexes: how arguments are recalled and internalised depending
on whether you are a man or a woman. and whether your opponent
is a man or a woman. To use the word ‘opponent’ already assumes
what Mapstone finds to be a generally masculine point of view,
seeing argument as a matter of dominance. Because while women
typically explain argument (in the workplace in particular) as
a means of solving a particular problem, it seems that men are
more likely to see it as an exercise in status warfare.
Hardly a new idea, you might say, but the conclusions she draws
from her extensive diary and interview studies are troubling in
this supposedly enlightened post-feminist era. Mapstone hypothesises
that this is due to the assumptions instilled in people from childhood
that were useful once, when the division of labour clearly set
out that women’s role was to be supportive and to take care of
relationships within the family group, and men’s role was to deal
with the outside world and to decide when aggressive action against
outsiders was appropriate. Now that these criteria for social
interaction are no longer relevant to the way we live and work
today, outmoded assumptions about gender roles prevent communication
and lead to a great deal of resentment and anger in a variety
of situations.
The problem is one of expectations. Traditionally, women were
supposed to bring their own special women-skills to the workplace.
As secretaries and receptionists, we are to carry out subordinate
tasks and make everyone around feel good. All well and good. But
this can no longer work when women are bosses, or leaders, or
hold any of the stations that used to be reserved for men. Then,
in adopting a different approach, a tone of decisive authority,
apparently we still run the risk of being seen as domineering,
aggressive and disagreeable, (whereas a man would be called tough,
strong, decisive).
This is depressing staff; what is a girl to do if she doesn’t
want to play the gender game and use the other woman-skill, her
sexuality, to get what she wants? What if you just want to be
forthright and direct, neither nurturing and sympathetic, nor
outright offensive? You could wait for society to discard old
fashioned expectations. (Presumably, the more men who read Mapstone’s
book the quicker this will happen, but then judging that the media
has reacted to her previous work with such distorting headlines
as ‘Why women always lose the argument’, it’s clear that those
who wield power don’t want to give it up).
The most optimistic advice Mapstone gives is not what she says,
so much as what she is. People naturally need role models; people
learn by copying, that’s how a culture is formed. You can say
what you want to say only within a discourse that is already established.
That’s why women executives lose out in the boardroom; they are
in a position of relative powerlessness, and only provisionally
tolerated. So when you have had your say, who do you look up to,
whose eyes do you meet? In the world of the committee, that cornerstone
of Western corporate and political power, they are usually male,
and if you are young there is a double bind, since chances are
your sexuality will be responded to before your ideas. Mapstone
offers different eyes to look up to, as it were. If we can’t immediately
change the unfair situations we find ourselves in, we can at least
recognise what’s going on. And understanding makes you feel better,
and means that you are more likely to be able to be in control
next time.
Reviewed by Cath Walsh
