Here are the links. You can start with Heather Heying, taking the scientific angle. Then Alastair's Adversaria, which is the oldest, I think the longest, and perhaps the most carefully expressed. Next, Mary Harrington, less on politics and more on society. Then Richard Hanania, not out to make friends of any sex. A couple of things from Noah Carl here and here. Finally, a more limited but I think relevant observations from Conor Fitzgerald (often worth reading - here's one of his on a completely different topic) and Psychology Today, of all places.
I would not recommend reading all of these in one go, but you might perhaps dip into one or two, and if you want more then I've given you the list.
I found it interesting to see the similarities in what these writers have to say on the subject despite the different angles from which they approach it. But it is also worth considering that many of the differences in argumentation style between men and women may be attributable to the situations or formats in which they argue rather than to underlying differences between them. (More on that topic from me below the break.)
I work in a field which involves structured, formal arguments that take place in public at set times and places, and which are concluded on a once and for all basis. No one who takes part in those arguments is expected to take the disputes personally: on the contrary, they are under not only a formal professional obligation but also strong cultural pressure from other members of the profession to maintain personal distance from the arguments they advance - barristers are expected meet with triumph and disaster in the manner recommended by Kipling and the All England Club. In short, legal proceedings are the epitome - indeed, almost a parody - of 'male-style' argumentation.
And yet women do it in just the same way and just as well as men. There are women barristers at all levels - and women judges at all levels - and there's no difference in how men and women go about their arguments. Off the court, so to speak, of course male and female barristers talk about different things, dress differently, behave differently, blah blah blah, but I don't think you would be able to tell from the written argument or the transcript of a hearing or a written judgment whether the person making the argument or giving the judgment was a man or a woman.
For examples to prove my point I am going to turn to judgments rather than transcripts of arguments, but only because they are more readily available. Search out some transcripts and see for yourself.
Here are the first and last paragraphs of a recent judgment given by a judge of the Commercial Court. First, "By his Order and Reasons of 13 May 2021, Jacobs J granted the Claimant Buyer leave pursuant to section 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 to appeal the following question of law arising from the GAFTA Board of Appeal's ("the Tribunal") Amended Award nos. 4580A and 4581A dated 1 April 2021 (collectively, "the Awards"): [there follows a boring question of law not formulated by the judge]"; and, finally, "For the reasons given I consider the argument that the Tribunal erred in law is not made out and I dismiss the appeal."
Here's the next judgment in time from the Commercial Court. First paragraph: "By this action, the Claimant (MCM) alleges that it is the victim of a high value metals fraud. It maintains that the First Defendant (Come Harvest or CH) and the Second Defendant (Mega Wealth or MW) utilised 92 fraudulent documents (the Purported Receipts), in order to obtain finance from it under bogus sale and repurchase transactions (or "repo transactions")." Last paragraph: "I leave it to the parties to draw up an order reflecting my findings in this judgment."
Finally, here are the first and last paragraphs of a third recent Commercial Court judgment. First: "In the decades following the Second World War, there were many owners of grand private houses who found their financial salvation in selling them for conversion into luxury hotels. The properties which have given rise to this trial followed a reverse trajectory, the disputes arising from the very significant profit realised through transactions involving the sale of luxury hotels for their subsequent conversion to and use as private residences." Last: "I would like to conclude this judgment by expressing my thanks to the parties' legal teams for their work in ensuring the smooth progress of the trial, and for the high quality of the submissions."
It strikes me that there a plain difference in style here: the third judgment strikes a chatty and discursive tone, at least in the extremities of the judgment that I have quoted, that is absent from the brisk and businesslike tone of the first two judgments. Yet it is the first two judgments which come from judges of the opposite sex. The third judge has the same sex as the second (I think - I haven't gone back to check - perhaps it's the first...).
(I should stress that no cherries were picked in the selection of these judgments: I took the most recent judgment of any kind at the time of writing, the most recent judgment by a judge of the other sex, and then the next judgment by a judge of the other sex to the second judge. But I have not presented them in that order above.)
The same point might be made of another forum for formal argument, namely the House of Commons. Margaret Thatcher was - famously - a woman, and famously also noted for the female touches she brought to politics, from dressing smartly and caring about her hairstyle to writing thank you notes (and prompting that weird comment from President Mitterand). And yet her performances in Parliament - and indeed in other settings in which formal speeches are made - were not noticeably redolent of the 'female' styles of argumentation mentioned at the links. Again, it is the setting and format of the argument, not the sex of the arguer, that plays a big role in determining the style of argument.
Or we could approach the issue from a different direction. Think of some other old, stereotypically male behaviour that takes place outside the forum of formal argument: the Old Boys' Network, being clubbable, blackballing, the tap on the shoulder for promotion or the quiet word in someone's ear to ruin a career ... surely each of these sounds quite like the kind of female behaviour described in the links? Or again, aren't the hierarchies seen in traditionally female-dominated social structures (nursing, convents, girls boarding schools) not that different from those seen in male equivalents? Surely, I would suggest, the structure or the format of the debate or organisation in question goes a long way to explaining the type of behaviour we observe within it.
All of which leads me to wonder whether the pathology of at least some of the problems identified at the links is the result of inappropriate choice of venue or format rather than a problem to do with male-female relations.
To see what I mean, think of the example of an argument given by Hanania, namely the Yale Halloween Christakis confrontation. I would readily agree that an argument which consists of young women crying in front of an older man is bound to trigger 'white knight' behaviour by other men and a presumption that the older man has done something to offend the young women. I also agree that an argument of that kind cannot be resolved by violence: while, traditionally, a woman can slap a man in the face (to which the corrrect response is to rub one's face ruefully and say "I was kinda asking for that"), a man cannot hit a woman. But just think about it for a moment: is it a good idea for us to try to resolve political arguments by shouting at each other in public places? No. Nor would it be a better forum for serious political argument if the public place was filled with an all-male or all-female crowd. At best, shouting at each other in public is a possible way of resolving highly charged emotional disputes at family gatherings after a few drinks - it's not for use in political debates.
That, I think, is an example of the pursuit of political arguments through new and unsuitable channels. HR departments, social media, American campus campaigns - these are perfectly good venues for resolving certain kinds of debate, including certain emotionally charged ones, but they are not sensible places for political debate. It may well be that women have the advantage in disputes arising in these venues, just as men have a sustained advantage in resolving disputes through trial by combat or duelling. But so what? HR complaints, social media whisper campaigns and trial by combat are all sub-optimal ways to resolve political arguments.
My irenic proposal is therefore to eliminate, or at least reduce, the problems identified at the links by making a more careful choice of forum for political argument. We - men and women - should appreciate that the old fora for political debate - reasoned argument in public discourse, pamphlets, manifestoes, hustings and all the rest of it - while historically dominated by men, are not intrinsically male in any important sense, just as the law courts are not intrinsically male, and they remain the best way for resolving the political and social differences that are bound to arise in any kind of society, whether all-male, all-female or mixed.
And if that doesn't work then at least we can hope that political debates in the West are to be resolved by bitchiness, cancelling, cry-baby behaviour, gossip and all the worst kinds of stereotypically female beahviour given in the links rather than by the even worse stereotypically male behaviour now on show in Ukraine: "Always keep a-hold of Nurse [for all her faults], / For fear of finding something worse."
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