In a Different Voice

"This was written about 30 years ago, by a psychologist, and it’s a classic text. It’s a book about why the way women make decisions, for instance, may be different from men. By doing studies only on male subjects and then saying that is the norm always makes women look less developed. That was the conventional viewpoint, that women somehow got stuck at an earlier stage of development. Instead of which you should be saying they are different, and compare women with women and men with men. Also, if you test drugs on men, the results may be very different from if you test them on women. It’s a very important and basic idea that men and women may be different, for whatever reason, and if you try to compare results from studies you may be making the wrong comparison. For me, when I read the book, I realised that I perhaps present my arguments in a different way – which may not be because I’m bad at presenting arguments, it may be something more fundamental and I shouldn’t therefore see it as a failing in me. But I still have to learn how to use it to convince other people. I don’t think there is any single identifiable thing. You could say men tend to be more self-confident, but that’s almost certainly nurture not nature – it’s not a characteristic difference in the way that strength is. But even talking about strength, a weak man could lose to a strong woman, so I don’t think that’s a useful way of looking at it. I think that as an individual you should try to learn what your strengths and weaknesses are, then try to do something about your weaknesses and play to your strengths. It’s about working out who you are – if you’re trying to succeed, that’s what matters."