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Conference turris::womannotes-v1

Title:ARCHIVE-- Topics of Interest to Women, Volume 1 --ARCHIVE
Notice:V1 is closed. TURRIS::WOMANNOTES-V5 is open.
Moderator:REGENT::BROOMHEAD
Created:Thu Jan 30 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 30 1995
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:873
Total number of notes:22329

176.0. "Two faces of . . ." by SCOTCH::GLICK (You can't teach a dead dog new tricks) Sat Jan 24 1987 16:25

My group hired a bright, intelligent woman. (Go ahead, smile Kel, I know
you're reading this)  In a conversation the other day she said she's
noticed that some of the guys in the group use a different persona when
addressing her.  I've seen people do this before, especially when Mark
Prine (white), Antonio Jones (black) and me (white) were best friends in a
Mississipi highschool (despite Forsythe Co. Georgia, racism isn't all there
is to the south).  I've read about American Indians saying they could tell
whether a white was talking to another white or to an indian just by the
persona they used no matter how polite or correct. 

We all react to different individuals differently.  This is something else
though, where one person has a manner (different from their usual manner)
that they adopt (consciously or unconsciously) around an individual of a
particular type.  Hmmm, that all seems a bit vague.  Help, Kelly, time for
you to become an active participant in this conference.

Aside from the obviously threatening/patronizing mask have folks
experienced/observed this?   How do you react to it?  Is there a graceful
way to show the person what they're doing?
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176.1I've noticed that tooMEWVAX::AUGUSTINEMon Jan 26 1987 09:2010
    I've noticed this phenomenon in a few men that I end up dealing
    with. They treat everything I say, no matter how mundane, as the
    most fascinating, most brilliant thing they've ever heard. I just 
    thought they were weird until my husband said that these same people
    treat HIM like a normal human being. Now I feel that their behavior
    is patronizing in a very sneaky way.  I still deal with them, but
    my respect for them has fallen several notches.
    
    Liz
    
176.2When is it bad?ULTRA::ZURKOSecurity is not prettyMon Jan 26 1987 10:0020
I was just thinking about something *like* this the other day. But not
along the lines of cross-gender communication. It's cross-culture
communication. I have two friends from hometown USA who are gay (and
relatively open about it). When I'm with them, I fall into learning
about and enjoying and commiserating with their culture/lifestyle.
Sometimes, I get sillier than usual (leaning towards the camp?). And
sometimes I make massive blunders, because I still don't know all they
know about their culture.

So, it isn't always bad to react differently to different people [insert
long platitude about all of us being different and reacting to each
other, etc.]. And, I never had any problems separating sharing a culture
from interacting professionally with a person. Is that the real worry?

From the other side, I have no problems sharing my culture (liberated-type
female, for lack of a similarly brief and better label) with folks back
home, or males up here. Well, not *no* problem, but I see that they
are reacting differently (less?) because they're on unfamliar ground,
and they're absorbing.
	Mez