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Gender and Collaboration

Effective collaboration involves two related challenges: maintaining the team as a productive, friendly working unit and accomplishing the task. Scholars of gender and collaboration see these two challenges as representing the feminine and the masculine perspectives.

This discussion should begin with a qualifier: in discussing gender, we are generalizing. The differences in behavior between two men or between two women are likely to be greater than the differences between men and women in general.

The differences in how the genders communicate and work in teams have been traced to every culture’s traditional family structure. Because women were traditionally the primary caregivers in American culture, they learned to value nurturing, connection, growth, and cooperation; because men were the primary breadwinners, they learned to value separateness, competition, debate, and even conflict (Karten, 2002). In collaborative teams, women appear to value consensus and relationships more than men do, to show more empathy, and to demonstrate superior listening skills. Women talk more about topics unrelated to the task (Duin, Jorn, & DeBower, 1991), but this talk is central to maintaining team coherence. Men appear to be more competitive than women and more likely to assume leadership roles. Scholars of gender recommend that all professionals strive to achieve an androgynous mix of the skills and aptitudes commonly associated with both women and men.