CHAPTER 6

Men, Women, and Conflict

Take It Like a Man Versus Nice Girls Don’t Do Conflict

The Chinese have a character for conflict that consists of two symbols: one for opportunity and the other for danger.

—Victor H. Mair (2009)

Learning Objectives

  • Understand and self-assess how gender-conflict styles are developmentally formed and evolve to shape adult conflict-management repertoires.
  • Determine how women’s conflict mantra, “Harmony is normal and conflict is abnormal,” affects conflict outcomes.
  • Know how men’s conflict mantra, “Winning at any cost is the name of the game,” affects conflict outcomes.
  • Distinguish the double standard of how men and women express anger with a flight or fight approach.
  • Analyze how women show vulnerability and men ...

Get The Gender Communication Handbook: Conquering Conversational Collisions between Men and Women now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.