Wednesday 25 June 2008

Sexist Comment?

Seems I have caused a bit of a stir in the UK Business Forum over a comment in my last Post that 'women tend to have much more emotional attachment to the companies they create than men'.

A lot of (male) comment that it's a sweeping statement and I offer no evidence etc. etc.

Well, you may know that I have an Entrepreneurial Profile Test on my website and having just run an analysis of c3,000 entrepreneurs profiled so far, here are the results:

54% of men profile as having strong money/material drivers vs 45% having predominantly emotional drivers, whereas only 34% of women have strong money drivers vs 65% having strong emotional drivers.

I think this safely proves that my comment is pretty accurate - and all the anecdotal evidence I have points to the same theory too...

Put that in your pipe and smoke it gentlemen!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

The whole show (Dragons Den) is laced with sexist and racist comments. In fact in one of Rachel's own investments, the comment in the after pitch interview was "thankfully a woman was there!" That was a sexist comment made by a woman.

Doug Richard oozed racism, which came to a head when he made allegations against criticisms against Spanish people. In the same broadcast, the BBC said such comments against the French were acceptable.

Simon was seen in several exchanges arguing with Duncan and others after some dragons reduced investment seekers to tears. Simon once shouted "do not beat the guy up!"

Similar exchanges occured between Peter and Duncan to such extent that the bleep button is often used in the Den.

I think before hurling allegations of sexism, Rachel and others, should use a mirror and reflect on their sexist and racist positions.

Anonymous said...

No I do not think it sexist, I actually admire women who are successful in life, only problem they seem to include men in their activities! I would love to have one or more female staff in my company, lets say like yourself for example, they seem to have a talent of creating new custom, but are not always forthcoming when they are approached!

Anonymous said...

only problem they seem not to include men in their activities! SHould have read like this oops!

Mr Robot said...

Look - i'm a man...

I think woman are much better in business - on the whole. Sure 20 years ago - maybe not, but these days the Zeta queen rocks.

I'm not saying this is always the case - but more often than not.

I'd also go as far to say that men who are in touch with their femine side are also likely to succeed, more so than their Alpha counterparts.

With the proliferation of the Internet, the Alpha male is going to have even less influence.

I believe that Zeta run businesses have a higher degree of emotional intelligent. They are much more in touch with who they are and the teams are usually offer more tacit communication, meaning you get more output from the team, as a whole - over a sustained period, than you would from Alpha male dominated environments.

Alpha male dominated tends to be stick em in one end, use them up and then spit them out the other... etc

Its based on a Gorilla Pyramid, with the big swinger at the top.

Anonymous said...

I agree wholeheartedly with Rachel's comments. Women in their female energy are more emotionally connected than men - FACT! This is related to their role as nurturers. However, in my experience this often has a negative effect on business growth as they treat the business as their baby and have a fear of letting go . My advice to women is to simply reframe this and instead of nurturing the business, nurture the talent within the business and watch it fly. When women do this they are amazing entrepreneurs. When women recognise their natural leadership talents, utilise their creativity and acknowledge their own potential the debate will be over!

Anonymous said...

Although I agree with the statement that “women tend to have much more emotional attachment to the companies they create than men” to some degree (as per above evidence) – I feel that it doesn’t go far enough.

Emotional attachment is a vast concept, and one can be emotionally attached in many ways. Different types of emotions are the basis of attachments, which creates variations from the onset.

The statement also lacks refinement in the sense that it doesn’t state whether the attachment is productive or not, what type of attachment it is, or if the attachment is irrational.

Although you have stated the object of the attachment (the company), you haven’t made a comparison to the attachment that man have. Your evidence shows quite clearly that men to have attachment in the same arena, and that the object of their attachment is more often than not “money / material”.

A better statement to make would be:

“There are two main areas of emotional attachment with regards to the creator of a business, attachment to the business itself (the concept, the idea), and attachment to the reward (material success). More often than not, women display signs of the latter and men the former.”

I’d also like to point out your response, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it gentlemen!”
Surely this is not conducive to a sensible rebuttal?

I personally would have been happier to see, “sorry I didn’t feel I need to cite the evidence as it seemed obvious to me, however, here it is”.

You lose a few points for your unnecessary display of cockiness and arrogance. Not that I think that is what you were aiming for. But, in light of the fact that this is just the written word, that is how I read it – perception is everything I’m sure you’ll agree.

I would really like to read the original post, can you link it?

Cheers

Mr Robot said...

Darremn, your quote
“There are two main areas of emotional attachment with regards to the creator of a business, attachment to the business itself (the concept, the idea), and attachment to the reward (material success). More often than not, women display signs of the latter and men the former.”

I'd have thought the reverse was true?????????????

Anonymous said...

Rachel, I'm with you on this one.

My (very new, admittedly) business is my baby, my creation, and I coo over it like a newborn :)

This emotional attachment extends to my clients' businesses, too - and that's a good thing, I think, because the emotional attachment is a great driving factor, especially in my line of business (marketing).

I wouldn't have it any other way - one of the best things about being a woman is that we can be emotional and not have to apologise for it!