MEN AND WOMEN

(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE WEEKEND MAGAZINE CARRIED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 23 MAY 2008)

According to American advertising executive and author Lois Wyse, “men are taught to apologize for their weaknesses, women for their strengths.” I hate to add fuel to the fire that has kept the Battle of the Sexes a burning issue in this age of Cory Aquino and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, but in my experience managing people and working under male and female bosses, I find women somewhat stronger.

BLURB
You don’t have to be anti-man to be pro-woman. —Jane Galvin Lewis

This is, of course, a sweeping statement, but I am talking in general terms. I have to emphasize this is based on my experience—limited, I admit—drawing good things out of young and not-so-young writers, artists, and other mostly creative people.

This is not to say, either, that men are weaker. It’s just that, I believe, women have more fortitude. Under heavy pressure, they seem to plod on more steadily, working with what’s available, rather than dreaming or complaining about what should have been available to make things easier, more manageable, less stressful. More important, men, straight or gay, tend to get hurt more easily. When things go wrong and you scold a woman, you are more or less assured she will focus on what went wrong and how she can avoid it next time. When things go wrong and you scold a man, you often have to worry if you hurt his ego, if you made him feel small, if he felt violated and humiliated by your “harsh” words.

As bosses, men and women are different, too. I have had an exceptional boss back in my early days as an advertising copywriter. He was an award-winning creative director and, working under him, I always wondered how I could get into his brains because even though he was quiet and hardly ever gave me specific orders I felt guided by his renowned brilliance in the advertising field. All the time, he would leave me to figure out on my own how to attack a creative challenge, look at whatever I came up with, and make very minimal recommendations on how to make it better. Voila, I won a Best Print Ad award under this kind of leadership and did many commercials that I feel continue to enrich and empower me now. But then that was it. Even now, I cannot say I know this man and I cannot even recall any word he had said or written to me that has any role in what I have become.

In contrast, the best boss I ever had, a female, was more involved in my development as a writer. Although she did give me a lot of freedom, allowing me to push the envelope at any given time, she conveyed to me in no uncertain terms how things should be and how I should do them. Her rules, at least to me, were not black and white; she left a universe of gray areas so I could play with my own ideas and inject my own style, but somehow I could see her imprint on my work. Somehow, the very way she carried herself, composed her sentences, drank her tea, did a 15-minute meditation break during work afternoons, smelled the flowers that arrived on her desk almost every day, gazed at the full moon, and conversed with people, whether a spa attendant or the President of the Philippines, had impact on my own growth as a person, as a writer, as an editor, whose main task now is to encourage, nurture, and manage creative talent.

Maybe it’s not fair that I make these comparisons. As an editor, I have had the privilege of handling both men’s and women’s magazines. If it’s any indication, I have spent 90 percent of the last decade working on women’s magazines. It’s just that I feel more drawn to the lifestyle of women. They have, for one thing, a million and one ways to get all dressed up, not counting the frills they put on after the basic wardrobe, whereas, except for the very few but growing number of male fashionistas who are so daring and inventive with their looks, men only mostly have the usual suit or jacket to turn to when there’s a need to put their best foot forward, especially now that even the boutonnière is no longer in fashion.

But then that’s me talking, a man who does have the tendency to dream and complain about what should have been rather than working with what is.

A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.