I've been struck recently by how fond men and women are of supporting the never-ending "battle of the sexes." If one gender wins, the other one must lose, or so it seems. If only we could move away from this battle and instead learn to understand and respect each other, we may find we have more in common than either gender thinks. (see Chapter 2 in my book "The Power of the Purse" for a description of how The Home Depot used this concept of similarities instead of difference to redefine its stores.)

Two readings have brought this ongoing battle to mind for me in the past few weeks. On Sunday, journalism professor Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Chalt Barnett, a senior scientist, at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis University took on the "boy crisis" that seems to be gripping the nation--or at least gripping the front pages of magazines and newspapers. Rivers and Barnett are the authors of "Same Difference: How Gender Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children, and Our Jobs," a great read if you need some debunking of the myths surrounding men and women.

As Rivers and Barnett point out in their Washington Post article, boys were also in "crisis" more than 100 years ago. The reason: "spending too much time in school with female teachers," a relationship that was "robbing them of their manhood," write Rivers and Barnett. Fast forward to 2006 and once again women are being blamed for today's "boy crisis." Whether it's "hostile" female teachers or the fact that boys aren't "wired" to learn in the way today's education system has been constructed. Such an education system is apparently rigged to promote girls--who are supposedly outpacing boys in this "girl-centered" education system.

Rivers and Barnett go deeper to look at the statistics only to find, no surprise, that there really isn't a "boy crisis." When girls and boys of the same race and economic class are compared, there is hardly any gap in education advancement. There is a crisis in education and advancement, but it has nothing to do with gender, write Rivers and Barnett. It has everything to do with being poor and not-white. "Race and class completely swamp gender," they write. Instead of focusing on boys in crisis, we be addressing how our education system fails blacks and poor children, especially from rural areas.

This effort to go deeper beneath the surface of "facts" brings me to my other recent reading: "The Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent, the journalist who went "undercover" as a man in hopes of better understanding them.

While by no means the perfect book, it's a worthwhile read if just for the first chapter. Vincent joins a men's-only bowling league and comes to understand these men in a way that few women would have ever been willing or able to understand men. Women (I am broadly generalizing, I know) instead like too more often harp that men don't understand us.

But women don't seem to understand men either. Moreover, it feels as if women are far less interested in understanding men and are happier being smugly superior about how well women express emotions. In giving us insight and trying to understand men is where Vincent's experiment is most useful. While by no means scientific, Vincent does get far deeper with these men as a man than she would as a woman. The bowling-league chapter shows how these men take care of each other, how they express their feelings in ways that are as individual as the men themselves, and how women miss all this because we are too busy asking why men don't understand us.

If you've read the book, I'd love to hear your thoughts--pro or con. I'll be finishing it next week and would like to have a conversation about whether Vincent's book does anything to stop the battle of the sexes.

Posted by Fara at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)

Apologies for the lack of consistency in my blog of late. I was traveling in New York City, which gave me a few ideas to think about regarding the travel industry.

First, let me vent my frustration at Northwest Airlines' recent decision to charge $15 for exit rows and aisle seats. I fired off an email to Northwest about the program, dubbed CoachChoice, when the announcement arrived in my email box. I've pasted the response I received below in the "read more" entry. The response doesn't change my negative impression of this program, a practice I understand is becoming standard in the airline industry. Not only do I find paying more for a seat I've already bought egregious, I wonder how they check that the people booking exit rows can handle their duties. It used to be you had to book exit rows at check-in so the gate agents could visually assess whether you could handle opening and then tossing away a 40-pound door.

Once again, an airline has shown that it is willing to frustrate and anger passengers to make more money. But I wonder just how much money Northwest will make on this venture given that as my email responder notes that only 5 percent of domestic seats will be saved for the CoachChoice program. Northwest likely has spent a good sum on the marketing campaign and trademarking the name "CoachChoice." I wonder if they will make up that money on the funds they receive from passengers who are willing to pay extra. I'm not the only media person peeved. In the "Checklist" section of Newsweek's Tip Sheet for the week of April 3, 2006, the editors told readers to avoid Northwest. Their tip: "book early, or on another carrier." If Northwest wanted to charge more for something, why not offer me better food to buy on the flights. The $1 bag of trail mix is getting old and the box lunches leave much to be desired. I have to assume that there's a food brand out there looking for a great way to market their products to a captive audience.

While these frustrations of mine aren't confined to women, I do think it points to a trend that many in the travel industry haven't seen or, if they have, they don't understand all that well. Women are increasingly an economic force in the travel industry--and they are making their wants and needs heard. Just a decade ago, women business travelers were a tiny minority; today more than half of business travelers are women. Women also make up the majority of purchases of hotel rooms and airline tickets. With the advent of the online booking, many women have taken over the role of travel agent for their families. In travel, I've found at least for myself, that it's the small things that can really make a difference in whether I choose an airline or hotel more than once.

But I find only a few companies have really understood women travelers and their importance in the role of booking travel--even if they aren't the ones doing the travel. Hotel company Wyndham certainly made strides with its focus on women, although some of their efforts fell flat with me. The offering of a women's only floor raised my eyebrows. But I know that a group of women do want that feeling of security so I applaud those efforts. I do like their personalization efforts that give me the option of what kind of treats I want delivered to my room.

But as my book points out, women change quickly and I suspect that younger generations of women will be less interested in a women's only floor and far more taken by free wireless Internet service, docking devices for their iPods so they can listen to their own music and plasma screen televisions. I suspect these wants aren't that different from what men want in a room.

The hotel chain Kimpton seems to be getting this idea of the "small things count." Many hotel chains have focused on what now feels like "bed envy." It seems every chain has some version of Westin's heavenly bed. But Kimpton has made an effort not to be a copycat--even of its own existing hotels. They strive to keep their hotels different from each other. Some focus on health--offering wheat grass drinks at its Topaz Hotel--while its Hotel Helix gives out chocolate YooHoo and Twinkies (http://www.wsj.com "Kimpton Checks in Between Boutiques and Hotel Giants). But travelers know that while the goodies may be different in every hotel, the same level of service will be offered.

I could certainly go for Yoohoo and Twinkies on a long Northwest flight. But for now, I'll have to remember to book early or as Newsweek succinctly put it choose a different carrier.
Read more for the text of Northwest's answer to my query on CoachChoice. I'll be back on Friday.

Continue reading "Thoughts on Traveling" »

Posted by Fara at 09:32 AM | Comments (2)