Gender Incidents in Business: A Mars versus Venus Approach.
The workplace of today has changed. Previously, men served as the sole financial provider for the family and women typically took care of the home and children. As the world changed and evolved, so did the workplace. Women left their traditional roles and began to work outside of the home. The addition of women into the workplace changed the dynamics of how business was done. The transition has not been an easy one and over years, it has become important to develop ways to address and resolve gender issues in business. .
John Gray, Ph.D., has made a living providing men and women with the tools to create more effective communication and build better relationships. Gray has written a book, Mars and Venus in the Workplace, that addresses communication needs in the workplace. The principles defined in Mars and Venus in the Workplace will be used to evaluate three incidents the author of this paper has encountered where conflict has occurred due to gender differences and Gray's methods will be applied to the incidents to determine how each situation could have been better resolved. Finally, Gray's recommended method will be critiqued to determine if the solutions are actually valid and sound for today's workplace.
Incident I .
As a new bride, I was driving my husband's car to work one day and had car trouble. My husband had more than four thousand dollars worth of stereo equipment in this vehicle and we lived out in the county. As I sat on the side of the road, I pondered on what to do. The nearest house was more than a mile down the road and this was prior to cell phones. Finally, a neighbor stopped and asked if I needed a ride. I refused because I would not leave my husband's car on the side of the road unattended. I did ask the neighbor to call my husband and ask him to come and pick me up and for him to call my place of employment to let them know that I was going to be late.