We keep being told: Always define your terms.

Here is my definition of argument:

An argument is a verbal disagreement between two people, each of whom wishes to convince the other of the validity of her/his point of view.

This definition is supposed to covered all disagreements, not just rows or quarrels, but discussions and debates as well. And it does not say that each person is trying to win. However, not everyone agrees with this broad definition!

See What is an Argument which shows how women and men define it differently.

The Division of Labour

The Division of Labour between women and men is a central concept in my book, and it is not simply based on the biological fact that women bear babies and men do not.

I argue that there is another and equally important Division of Labour that we have accepted for thousands of years.

This Division of Labour is based on a deep fundamental conflict within the psyche of every human being.

On the one hand, we have a deep desire to live in harmony with other people. In the United States, the pursuit of happiness is even enshrined in the Constitution. In spite of the ambitions of demagogues and dictators, most people throughout the world would prefer to live in peace.

On the other hand, we have a deep instinct to feel hostile to anyone who is not "one of us", not one of the "in-group". This hostility to outsiders can be aroused in anyone.

Western society has tried to resolve the conflict between two opposing elements in the human psyche by assigning the task of dealing with one element to men and the task of dealing with the other element to women.

Men's task is to deal with the external world, to decide when hostilities with other groups are appropriate, and how to run the broader society.

Women's task is to create peace and harmony among people: relationships within the family are obviously the woman's responsibility, but as society has developed, so the in-group has grown larger, and women are expected to care for people's well-being within society as a whole. This is why women are easily accepted as nurse and infant school teacher, secretary and personal assistant, but resisted when they try to move into positions of power where they would be making decisions society expects should be made by men.

This division of labour holds that women's task is to be caring and nurturing and to safeguard relationships in the in-group; their special qualities are that they are warm, emotional, and good at feelings.

Men's task is to be practical and strong, to protect the weak (women and children) and to provide leadership and decision-making; men's special qualities are that they are cool, rational, and good at thinking.

These qualities are directly relevant to argument.

Men who argue are exercising their rational faculties, it is part of their task to debate with others as to the proper way to run society; because power is involved, both within society itself and in relation to out-groups, it is not surprising that many men would see argument as a battle which they must win. Argument in Western society has long been held to be the proper job of men, and indeed, a man who does not "stand up for himself" may be characterised as weak, wet, wimp or jellyfish.

Because their task is nurturing, women are not expected to argue: if they do, they demonstrate that they are inadequate women by failing to be caring and concerned for feelings. Women know they are not expected to risk damage to relationships by disagreement, which is why they need to feel "safe" in order to express their own opinions. As we have seen, the impulse we all have to argue with other people leads some women to find a new description for what they are doing.

"Nice people don't argue" and it is quintessentially women's job to be "nice". They therefore cannot be arguing when they express disagreement, and redefine what they are doing as "talking about differences".

This division of labour is widely held to be based upon innate, immutable differences between the sexes, and thus any person who tries to act outside these expectations is liable to be judged aberrant. Each sex is held to be poor at what the other excels.

This means that women's supposed inability to follow logic allows others to dismiss their expressions of opinion as unreasonable, irrational and illogical; women's supposed special knowledge of feelings allows them to be dismissed as emotional; and their failure in their primary task of caring opens the door to accusations of disagreeableness, of being a shrew, a bitch, a harridan, or perhaps even more revealing, a strident castrating ball-breaker.

Furthermore, because women are not supposed to argue, the negative aspects of the ideologies of argument are marshalled to explain their failure in a specially masculine activity. Thus women are frequently accused of unfair rhetoric: "they never say what they mean," "they use emotional blackmail", even "they'll use tears if it gets them their way".

In work situations, in particular, where cool rationality seems called for, women who try to adopt a debating style will frequently be accused of aggression and hostility: the negative aspects of the gladiatorial style are invoked as a means of undermining a woman's contributions. Never mind that many men use just this style in the same situation without criticism. Women are not supposed to argue at all.

The Porcupine's Dilemma

"But when two people are at one in their inmost hearts, They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze. And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts, Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids." (Confucius)

The sharp quills of the porcupine are notoriously painful, a fact which has led generations of youthful naturalists to speculate on their sex lives.

Porcupines in love provide a perfect symbol of human psychology. Imagine two porcupines attempting to make love, and you have an image of the eternal conflict between our desire for closeness and its inevitable pain.

The main difference between happy and unhappy long-term love relationships, we are told by experts, is that "hurt" can be transformed and even the most painful exchanges can be negotiated so that they become "positive communication". Both women and men then want to be able to talk to each other and negotiate differences.

The problem is, of course, that when you talk about differences, those differences exist, out there, and cannot any longer be ignored or wished away. If talking about differences leads to pain and alienation, sometimes it does not seem worth it, especially when such differences seem to prove that love is not true love after all. (More about Lovers' Tiffs). That new cultural demand to "communicate" leads to even more unexpected difficulties and discomforts when combined with the old expectations, which may operate unconsciously, that women and men behave differently. Deep down many of us believe that women and men are not human in the same way.

The sharp quills of the porcupine can jab as painfully in friendship as in love. That human desire for closeness to another person can jar against the reality of that Other, whether that Other is the same or different gender, whether or not the relationship has, as one dimension, sexual love. Woman daring to disagree with woman, man disputing with man, man and woman in argument, parent and child in dispute: our ideas about the meaning of these situations are very different, and go to the heart of how we expect our relationships to be.

Argument in all intimate relationships is examined in my book

Friendship can pose special problems for speaking one's mind. Many people believe that disagreements can damage a relationship by revealing differences that wound. Others claim that frankness is essential in any truly warm and close relationship, and that understanding can be achieved only by talking about differences. What is one to do with such contradictions, if getting it wrong can lead to devastating consequences?

The Tenderness Trap

Relationships are more important than any issue. I think some things should never be said. (Rebecca, 22)

Many - if not most - young women have internalised the belief that they must nurture others and be good at relationships. This is part of their Gender Role and is their job in the Division of Labour.

It follows that each must then prove her skills by getting on with people; and if she can't get on with another woman, who herself is bound to be nurturing, then there must be something very wrong with her. Her self-esteem becomes inextricably bound up with her ability to make friends.

This is the Tenderness Trap.

Women who are afraid of spoiling a friendship by speaking up if they disagree are trapped by the notion that there must be "something wrong with them" if they don't "get on" - with almost everybody, but especially with another woman.

They must never say anything that hurts another, never put themselves first. This is extremely difficult, and something few of us are good at. But many women try, and they expect their best friends to try too.

The Gender Game

What is the Gender Game?

The Gender Game is my term for the various ploys and strategies employed by men who use gender role expectations to their own advantage. This may be done in various ways, which are shown in more detail in the book. Not all these ploys are necessarily disadvantageous to the woman who recognizes what is going on. All are designed to promote the man's future and not the woman's - a factor to be borne in mind by the tender-hearted - and will be turned against the woman if she dares to show she may be a threat. Much of Part 4 of the book, which is about all aspects of arguing at work, became an examination of men playing the Gender Game.

Women too sometimes try to play the Gender Game by turning gender role expectations on their head. They are few at the moment, but, as we shall see, some exceptionally successful women play their own version of the Gender Game - and win.

The Machiavellian woman who is determined to succeed in a man's world works quietly, seeing clearly what is going on and turning other people's assumptions to her advantage. She knows when to put on the Big Sister act, when to don the character of the Bitch and the ways of the Mother, when to play the Siren and with whom".

To manipulate is to acknowledge that power lies elsewhere, and can be acquired only surreptitiously. This approach is anathema to those, like me I'm afraid, who prefer to be direct and open. It is also clear acknowledgement that freedom of speech is constrained. If it were not that this approach quite clearly works when you are concerned with ends rather than means, I would be inclined to characterise it as reflecting a "slavegirl mentality". But given the current imbalance of power between women and men, perhaps we should applaud?

This approach may be compared to someone playing charades, with its talk of "role-playing", "putting on an act" and "donning the character". This is the game of a loner, the kind of game many young girls love - play-acting, dressing-up, pretending to be someone you are not. So women may play games at work as well, but they are unlikely to be team games, and their language may well not reveal as clearly as men which game they are playing.

Most women though are carefully not playing games at work, because they want to do their work to the best of their ability and believe they should take their job seriously. They need to learn that games can be very serious, and stakes in the Gender Game are high.

Gender Roles

Gender Roles are a way of describing all those different jobs you are expected to carry out, simply because you are a woman or you are a man. Gender Roles are simply a different way of viewing the Division of Labour.

Gender Role Expectations become embedded in what we understand about society as a whole. Even though Gender Roles actually vary from one culture to another (for example, men among the Arapesh care for the children, and women among the Mundugumor are violent and aggressive), people tend to believe that the culture in which they grow up is "the way it is and the way it should be".

So Western culture has for centuries expected women to care for babies and children - and any woman who doesn't want children, doesn't even like them much, and certainly prefers, say, mountain-climbing, is thought to be "not a proper woman".

Gender Roles as related to argument: Women

Women are expected to be warm, caring, nurturant.

They are expected to be concerned for other people's feelings, to calm stormy waters.

They are "known" to understand emotions and feelings.

They are "known" to become emotional.

Therefore, a woman who argues is behaving contrary to expectations. "A nice person never argues" and women's job is to be nice.

A woman who argues may therefore be called over-emotional, because she is "letting her emotions run away with her". She almost certainly "takes everything personally" because women's essential role is the personal.

The more she becomes "unwomanly", the harsher the criticism - she is disagreeable, aggressive, a harpy, a harridan, a cow, a shrew - even (most tellingly) a vicious ball-breaking bitch.

Gender Roles as related to argument: Men

Men are expected to be cool, calm, rational.

They "never let their emotions get the better of them."

When a man argues, he is doing what a man's gotta do - it is men's job to discuss and debate how society should be run. If the argument is about feelings, of course, that is women's work, and he doesn't want / need to know about that. Let her do her job, and let him get on with his.

Men are expected to be logical and rational, they "know" all about evidence and what "makes a good argument".

A man who refuses to get involved in debate and argument is avoiding a man's job: he is wet, a wimp, a jellyfish.

Anger and aggression are not things to frighten a "real man".

Golden Bridge

Build your adversary a golden bridge to retreat across
(Sun Tzu)

Even in the building of bridges we can discover the Division of Labour: traditionally it is men who build physical bridges across rivers and ravines, and it is women who build psychological bridges between people who disagree within the group.

The notion of a Golden Bridge is a psychological bridge built by both women and men to provide a means of bridging the gulf between them.

The old Division of Labour is breaking down as we approach the new millennium, and we need to build new structures, new ideas to help us find new ways of carrying out the tasks society needs in harmony with one another.

Argument is crucial here, because we tend to disagree about the best way forward. We need to listen to one another, and allow each other to retreat from time to time. We need a Golden Bridge to unite us, and to provide somewhere to retreat across when our new understanding is shown not to be enough. Building a strong and effective Golden Bridge will take a long time, and must be begun from both sides.