My Opinion on the Gender Differences in Social Media.
January 30, 2011
I just finished reading The Male Brain By Louann Brizendin, a neuropsychiatrist, this year and Dr. John Medina's, a developmental molecular biologist, book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School back in 2009.
You can read my quick review of the latter, here:
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home and School
Here's a link to the NY Times review of Louann's book: A Mind of His Own
I enjoy learning about the brain because then you understand yourself, and others, better and you don't always listen to experts who are skilled in their fields, but perhaps don't understand the full gender differences which begin with the way our brains are wired.
As a result, I feel social media is one of the areas currently dominated by male experts who tout certain ways of executing campaigns, interacting on behalf of clients, and measuring ROI that work in certain situations, but not all the time. From a male perspective, if there's no bottom line, no money attached to it, how can there be any value?
Men measure their success by how much money they make, how successful their careers are, and where they are in the pecking order I've noticed. Women, more so now perhaps, do the same, but on a much smaller scale. But in the long scope of things, women seem to mainly measure their success by the relationships they've nourished and kept, and their social interactions simply to interact (not always requiring a result since the social interaction in and of itself is a result.)
Now if we apply that to social media, then it might be said that women who are used to developing relationships,"building communities" per se, to their benefit should be considered the true experts. What I always find interesting is the predominance of male speakers over female speakers when discussing social media. Don't we, as a gender, have value to add? Are there that few women willing to put themselves out there that there's such a gender imbalance?
Or, is it possible, that male organizers choose other males since there's always a boy's club in every industry until women band together to create one of their own, not as large, but there nonetheless hence the need for such organizations as Women in Film, NAWBO, etc. To be honest, I've never joined any all-female organizations because I realize that men make the business world go round and if you have more male connections than female you have a much better chance of succeeding since your male counterparts have access to venture capital, resources, information, their network and other keys to worlds women are often shut out of unless they keep that door open wider.
Not to say there aren't very successful women who have succeeded by virtue of all female groups, but I like to keep my professional connections mixed myself. I've always done it, always will. I've also always mixed up the racial makeup of whatever I've worked on too because I feel all people have something of value to add which can also be lacking in certain professional situations.
Now if only social media conferences would consider doing the same thing perhaps there would be a more balanced world representation of what works and what doesn't in social media.
Don't you agree?
