Women are Naturally Less Competitive ? How About You?
Naturally, I’m not a competitive person. Although I participated in team sports at my younger age – I always went for the less aggressive (defensive positions). I can still remember when my roommate just got a buzzer on her head – I threw it at her. We were engaged in a game that was supposed to be ‘friendly’, and she was mercilessly beating me at it.
Anyway, I usually feel very uncomfortable each time I’m faced with a competitive situation, especially in a work environment – this is one of the reasons for my decision to be self-employed. You will never catch me fighting over a guy. On the other hand, it’s a case of a cage match to the death when it comes to boarding games.
Competition Is Innate
Everyone has the instinct to compete and in fact, that’s the reason for our existence – speaking from evolution point of view. Man has competed over mates and resources and prevailed – our genes to have at least. It’s either fight or flight, kill or be killed – only the fittest survives.
Well, if you want to reason it out from the aspect of running faster than your fellow on a treadmill – that may not be all that natural. This is evident in the nature to nurture disputation – both genetics and learned behavior play role in what constitutes most personality traits. It could be that our genes are propelling us to produce quicker and generate more. However, our different upbringings and the society as general also play a role in making us competitive.
It’s almost an accepted norm in Western culture – that women are naturally less competitive. This does not necessarily mean that men compete better than women – just that they are more willing to compete. Even, this theory has formed the part of an argument for the friction among genders. If you want to know why, just stroll into a sports bar while a football tournament is going on.
On the other hand, another study (focused on matrilineal and patriarchal societies) shows that competitive trait may not be actively linked to gender. In one of the societies studied, the males do not have the natural instinct to compete more than their female counterparts. But on the contrary, another society studied revealed that women are more eager to compete than the men – the Khasi women; it was also suggested by this study, that competitiveness is learnt.
Well, in the Western society, we are thought as women to be less competitive.
Image: by Andy Newson
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