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Teaching about Gender and Negotiation: Sex, Truths, and Videotape

Carrie Menkel-Meadow

Empirical evidence and theory frequently present conflicting observations about what, if any, role gender plays in negotiation. The author reviews the history of theory development on gender and negotiation, and suggests that the differing opinions present opportunities for a negotiation teacher. She offers a series of prescriptions on how to make the subject of gender integral to the negotiation class. Among the techniques she describes is the use of videotape to combat the lie that sex is necessarily a determinant of the way one views or behaves in negotiation.

he continuing inconclusive debate about whether there are gender differences in negotiation goals and behavior1 offers a great opportunity for teaching about gender issues in negotiation theory and practice. Because both theory and empirical research thus far provide conflicting claims and widely disparate results such as the most recent studies conclusions that men negotiate significantly better outcomes than women (Stuhlmacher and Walters 1999); women behave more cooperatively than men (Walters, Stuhlmacher and Meyer 1998); women may obtain lower joint outcomes in integrative bargaining because of a higher level of concern for the other (Calhoun and Smith 1999); but also that there are no statistically significant
Carrie Menkel-Meadow is Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center, 600 New Jersey Ave. NW Washington, D.C. 20001. Email: meadow@law.georgetown.edu. She is currently Chair of the Georgetown-CPR Commission on Ethics and Standards for ADR. Professor MenkelMeadow formerly was co-director of the Center for the Study of Women at the University of California at Los Angeles, where she taught in both the law school and the womens studies program. She also served as co-director of UCLAs Center for Racial and Ethnic Conflict Resolution.
0748-4526/00/1000-0357$18.00/0 2000 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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differences in negotiation outcomes and performance between men and women (Craver and Barnes 1999) both teachers and students of negotiation can explore their perspectives on these claims without fear that there is a simple dispositive answer to this timeless question. This presents an opportunity for exploring the issues in many different ways in negotiation pedagogy and in negotiation practice. For anyone to baldly assert that there are clear sex-based differences in negotiation behavior is simply a lie these days (research findings and practice are too complex to assert anything), and I can use videotape to demonstrate!

Why Do We Care?
When the question of gendered behavior comes up, it is always useful to ask why we care so much about whether there are gender differences in negotiation performance? Does it matter that women negotiate differently than blue-eyed negotiators or tall people (if they do at all)? Whether women and men conceptualize negotiation differently or whether the two genders behave differently in negotiation, there clearly is a perception that they might. These perceptions create stereotypes, expectations, and behaviors that themselves flow from these assumptions. Thus, we seek to understand which of our default, preconceived, or learned assumptions are actually correct and which are not. So, researchers continue to seek answers to questions about gender difference (unfortunately, mostly in artificial laboratory settings in social psychology departments) and practitioners continue to amass data through experience and anecdote in order to create descriptions from which we might derive prescriptions. For some looking at the gender question, there is the hope of taking advantage of whatever gender-based attribute is thought to exist: Men can be naturally tough in distributive bargaining problems while women will more collaboratively solve problems. Others seek to improve their performances by learning to change behaviors, away from stereotypic notions of how they are expected to behave. So some women will seek to be more cautious about cooperatively sharing information when they dont know how it will be used, and some men will work harder at listening better. For most of us with any sophistication about gender and negotiation, we know that as the conditions and situations of negotiated problems vary, so too will the salience and the expression of gender. Thus, the most effective pedagogy about gender and negotiation is to explore both when gender is or might be salient in a negotiation and when and how the significance of gender (in the demographics of the negotiators and the content of negotiated issues) might and does vary. We are hopefully past the days of the simplest gender stereotyping men are competitive, women are cooperative; men talk and interrupt more, women use tentative language and seek to please the other; men threaten and assert; women seek to please and concede too much, although as the recent research cited above suggests, there may be some truth in some of
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the stereotypes, at least under certain conditions. If we have learned anything from the hundreds of studies conducted on gender and negotiation (studies before 1975 are summarized in Rubin and Brown [1975]; more recent studies are discussed in Watson [1994]), it is that in negotiation gender (though a constant for the individual negotiator) is dynamic and interactive that is, its significance and expression varies under different conditions and in different situations. From a pedagogical perspective, it is important to teach about gender and negotiation in a nuanced, and not superficial, way which accounts for the contestedness and complexity of the issues. In thinking about teaching about gender we should ask ourselves several key questions: Why do we care about gender (in this particular context, setting, situation)? What are the underlying theories or assumptions that inform our questions about gender? What, if anything, do we know empirically, about the operation of gender in this particular negotiation setting? And what questions should we be asking or analyzing in studying and teaching about gender in any particular negotiation? This essay reviews some of the issues implicated in teaching about gender and negotiation and suggests a variety of different ways of exploring these issues in negotiation classes and workshops.

Gender Theory in Negotiation


First, it is useful to stop and ask what is gendered in our own negotiation theory and practices (Gray 1994). Whether teaching traditional competitive, distributive bargaining models or the more likely canon of readers of this journal, integrative, problem-solving or principled negotiation, where do our concepts come from? As others have noted with respect to cultural assumptions about our negotiation goals (Avruch 2000), even Getting to YES may be riddled with assumed universalisms like seeking objective criteria, separating the people from the problem and exploring interests. If those principles, developed by expert male negotiators in particular contexts (international, consumer, legal, and commercial disputes) were elaborated by women or in other negotiation contexts, they might look different. For example, when would subjective criteria be the more appropriate choice if it makes you feel better, lets do it that way (especially if the other side of a negotiation is a loved one, a repeat customer, or a former enemy you are trying to make peace with)? Why do we look for those self-regarding, Hobbesian interests behind the positions, rather than the basic human needs or wants, going beyond what a negotiation principal might articulate and examine what might actually be his, her, or its (an institutions) real needs?2 This distinction between interests and needs or concerns may seem only semantic. I prefer to see them as additive; however, interests and needs actually represent, in shorthand, a feminist critique of the very goals of negotiation activity. There may be very different content to what is needed or what ones interests are. Even if defined as instrumental joint gain (an improvement over individual maximization), the goals of a negotiation that
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seeks to maximize joint interests does not necessarily consider whether the primary or basic social needs of the parties have been met, whether justice has been done, or whether there are benefits or harms to those standing outside of the negotiation. Thus, at least one gendered critique of negotiation theory is that the very goals of a negotiation may be situationally differentiated (social welfare vs. Pareto-optimality for the parties) and gender itself might construct different goals in different situations (relationship, family, international, environmental) which clearly might affect how those goals might be pursued (differentiated behaviors). Are we to meet, share, satisfy, satisfice, fulfill, or maximize needs or interests? All negotiation concepts might have gendered valences. And, as Roger Fisher and his various colleagues have now recognized,3 not all genders would necessarily separate the people from the problem. Even if it makes analytic sense to focus on the substance of the problem, the people may be the problem to be solved. To the extent that feminist theory has controversially focused on womens particular concerns about the relationship aspect of negotiations,4 then once again the theories and canons of our practice may need to be reexamined in light of how both genders would define and describe their negotiation goals, purposes, and implementations. A good teacher, then, begins by questioning whether the concepts she is teaching are themselves gendered, and reflects on what might be elaborated and expanded upon by being viewed from other perspectives.5 This sensitivity to the gendered nature of negotiation theory has its counterweight in the contested nature of gender itself and thus requires the negotiation teacher to be somewhat conversant in the controversies of gender theory (Menkel-Meadow and Diamond 1991). In both law and the constituent social science disciplines which inform negotiation research and practice (game theory, economics, psychology, communications, anthropology, sociology, political science and international relations), feminists and gender theorists have queried the assumed universalisms of their fields when the knowledge creators have mostly been men. Thus, gender theory in each field initially sought to understand whether including the second sex (de Beauvoir 1949) as not just another variable but as a different viewpoint, might transform the very concepts of the field. Consider whether two female prisoners would both rationally defect. Might it not depend on such relational possibilities as one being the mother of the other or the two being sisters? Such an outpouring of feminist difference scholarship, reinventing categories, suggesting new ones and developing new theories as occurred in a variety of disciplines and subfields has not really prospered in negotiation theory. (Perhaps because the male canon of integrative bargaining or joint gain seemed so female-friendly [in theory, if not in practice6]?) This first wave of scholarship spawned a second wave of critique that feared a new essentialism, and called greater attention to assumed universal gender differences (in theories and in behaviors) than both equality feminists
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(Epstein 1988) and diversity feminists (Harris 1990) were willing to tolerate. For equality feminists, the genders were on average more alike than different, and differences in the tails of distribution of behaviors by gender were made too much of. For such sameness theorists, men and women are more alike than different, and human variation includes as much difference within gender categories as between them. So, for example, we might find both female and male attorneys in the categories of competitive or cooperative or effective or ineffective negotiators (Williams 1979). Diversity feminists focused instead on the differences among women, by race, ethnicity, class, and other dimensions, casting doubt on whether there was such a viable concept or testable variable as a womans way of being, or negotiating. This, in turn, raised the question of why the gender problem in negotiation (or any other field of human activity) has so often been conceptualized as the woman problem. The gender question becomes the expression of the woman problem Why are women less effective in negotiation, less competitive, achieving lower monetary or point outcomes, rather than, why are men less likely to place value on relationship preservation or less likely to process and hear information? Thus, if we focus on gender in negotiation we must note that there are two genders and that male negotiating behavior (if such a thing exists) is just as problematic and worth scrutinizing as female negotiation behavior.7 The deconstruction of false gender labels is often just as empowering to men (who want to be collaborative and information sharing in negotiation without the stigma of being a negotiation sissy) as it is to women who are strong interest-maximizing competitors. To the extent that gender is now argued to be socially constructed (by a variety of social forces, including situation), whether gender exists and how it is constructed in a particular negotiation is as interesting an aspect of negotiation analysis as any other aspect of a negotiation process that we might study or observe. The operation of gender is itself more variable. Mothers are now professionals as well as mothers; thus, individuals occupy a variety of social roles that may influence behavior, mediated through a variety of different social categories of being. And, the significance of gender might change within any interaction itself. To the extent that a woman feels she is the same as a man (in a negotiation context), but is treated differently by a man who has more conventional gendered expectations, her reactions might change (whether to deal with the gender issue explicitly, conform to gender type, or respond with a strong counter-gender behavior), depending on the situation, context, and the other negotiator(s). The question of what difference a difference of gender (Eisenstein and Jardine 1985) makes certainly seems to be elusive in the aggregations of data supplied by laboratory studies, but is apparently still endlessly fascinating in the individual cases we analyze and tell stories about. Gender theory presents different explanations or sources for whatever gender differences may be thought to exist (which are replicated below in how negotiation analysts
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have theorized the role of gender in negotiation), including biological essentialism, socialization, power and dominance theories, and situational and interactive differences in the expression of gendered characteristics (see, for example: Deaux [1976]; Maccoby and Jacklin [1974]; Kantor [1977]; Henley [1977]; Hennig and Jardim [1977]; Fausto-Sterling [1985]; Tavris [1992]; Tannen [1993], Thorne [1993]; and Hess and Ferree [1987]). The effects of gender as a variable in negotiation practice have themselves been theorized, and students of negotiation should be aware of both the theory and the empirical tests of those theories. Sources of presumed gender differences in negotiation are now analyzed in at least four basic categories. The most conventional and standard explanation for gender differences in negotiation behavior is socialization: Men and women are simply socialized in different ways and to value things differently, which produces different expectations, behaviors, perceptions, outcomes, and levels of satisfaction in negotiation. So, as the standard story goes, men are more competitive, assertive, direct, have higher expectations, achieve more for themselves (and their clients in agent situations), but may also be more stubborn, less creative and problem solving and less focused on relationship while more focused on task and self. Women are accommodating, fear competition, have excessive concern for the other, but are better listeners, seek integrative and fair solutions and are most comfortable when negotiating with other women. Though the socialization theory is prevalent and basic (and actually covers for the even more basic biological determinism which no one seriously argues for in our field anymore), it actually has not been tested. If gender socialization is the crucial variable, then we should look at differences based on actual socialization practices. After a reading of portions of Carol Gilligans In a Different Voice in my negotiation classes, I always ask students to reflect on and report on their own socialization experiences. What we learn is that, like most conceptions of gender as a category, gender socialization is itself a dynamic and changing process. Women have now participated in team sports, men have taken dance classes, both boys and girls have been reared by single mothers, with or without siblings, children have been reared by substitute parents when both parents are working, so that conventional and gendered patterns of socialization may be breaking down somewhat.8 To fully test socialization theories, negotiators would have to be sorted by different socialization practices (across genders) and then we could see if gender differences in negotiation still persisted. A more common explanation for gender difference is that of situational power (or social structure or place as Deborah Kolb calls it (Kolb 1992). Since women have less access to power and the powerful are more efficacious in negotiation, then power, not gender, determines negotiation outcomes. To the extent that women achieve positions of power, they too will exhibit the characteristics of powerful and efficacious negotiators (whether from a competitive or an integrative perspective). Status or power,
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then, is the real variable. And, since gender is merely correlated with low power or low status, findings of gender differences are artifacts of a different variable relationship. Others argue that gender and status operate in an additive model that can produce more complex dynamics in assessing negotiating behavior. Women in positions of high power will exhibit different negotiating behaviors and achieve different outcomes than men in high-power settings, and women and men with little power likewise behave differently. One study, for example, found that women in some lower-power settings are, in fact, the most stubborn and competitive of negotiators, particularly when confronted by negotiation partners who are high-power males (Watson 1994). Lowpower males were more inclined to withdraw. To this so-called additive model, I would add the notion of gender plus (or gender minus), that is, gender as a demographic characteristic that interacts not only with power and status, but also with other demographic characteristics of the negotiators. As dimensions separate from power crudely defined, race, ethnicity, class, occupation, familial status, and other sociological statuses will interact differentially with gender to produce different negotiation expectations, goals, and behaviors. Ian Ayres studies of negotiations in the car purchasing arena, for example, found that black females were the most disadvantaged in the prices demanded of them (Ayres 1991 and 1995). This gender plus theory, then, acknowledges that gender is a separate prism through which other demographic factors may be refracted each negotiator brings an intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989) of a variety of personal characteristics which may affect perceptions and expectations of the other and may constrain the negotiation repertoires available for any negotiator. Finally, a more modern theory which seeks to beg the question of essentialist or innate differences suggests that perhaps others stereotypic expectations of gender-conforming behaviors will produce such behaviors or at least influence behavioral choices and outcomes. This last theory is often the most sophisticated at recognizing that negotiations are interactive, and thus different behaviors and outcomes may depend on whether the negotiation pair is same sex or mixed sex and may depend on the size and uniformity of gender composition of each negotiation team. To the extent that how one behaves in a negotiation is interdependent with the other negotiators behavior (whether in a dyadic or multiparty negotiation), gendered behavior will be socially constructed from the interaction of the expectations, choices, and behaviors that each party enacts in relation to the perceptions, behaviors, and assumed assumptions of the others. The gendered quality of negotiation behavior may shift from moment to moment as participants enact behaviors, confront them, respond to them, ignore them, shift them, or engage in any number of infinitely complicated maneuvers around or through gender stereotyping. Thus, negotiation behaviors may be a particularly rich, albeit difficult, environment in which to test

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the post-modern and ever-changing enactments of self and other through the constructed and interpretative moves of the negotiation dance. Recent meta-reviews of empirical studies of gender differences in negotiation (Watson 1994; Walters and Stuhlmacher 1998; Craver and Barnes 1999) have somewhat disconcertingly replicated the earlier work of Rubin and Brown (1975). The empirical results are all over the map. For every study which seems to suggest some gender difference (women are more cooperative; men are more competitive), there is another that finds no statistically significant difference in negotiation performance, whether measured by integrative and joint gain outcomes or by more competitive outcomes. Some of the studies have pointed to the situational or moderating factor complexity (such as one study which demonstrates that overly cooperative women may actually achieve poorer joint gain solutions because they settle too early, do not probe for more information, or fail to hold on to their own interests [Calhoun and Smith 1999]), but this is consistent with research that finds similar results for friends or others in close relationships who bargain with each other (Bazerman 2000). One useful frame from which to analyze these studies, when assigned to students for reading, discussion and critique, is the source of sample. My own review of this literature reveals that most of the data on which we base our empirical conclusions about negotiation behavior are social psychology laboratory simulations, prisoner dilemma games and, more recently, some data from negotiation courses in law, international relations, and business schools. Very few of these studies measure negotiation performance in actual negotiations where real situational power and statuses actually do differentiate the negotiators, which is not usually the case in student settings. Interestingly, the findings from law school negotiation classes almost uniformly find no gender differences in outcomes, though a recent study (Farber and Rickenberg 1999) documents a common result of lower satisfaction and confidence in women negotiators, even when their outcomes were the same as male students. (Of course, another way to express this is that the men were overconfident and too self-satisfied!)

Teaching Strategies
So, given the complexity of empirical findings and competing theories, how does one teach about gender? My answers are pervasively, complexedly, participatorily, and in multi-media formats. Because we, as scholars, practitioners, and teachers are still as curious about these questions as are our students, the study of gender in negotiation is an especially rich area for mutual and cooperative learning. Some of the ways in which the richness and contestability of the material can add to the learning are summarized in the following prescriptive principles: 1. Recognize that gender and gender theory is itself dynamic and changing. Students have been socialized differently than many of us have. Many have studied gender and culture more rigorously in university programs
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than have we. (I seldom encounter a law student these days who has not been exposed to Carol Gilligan or Deborah Tannen in college.) Be prepared to learn from your students and create and use exercises throughout a negotiation course that explore the differences, along all dimensions, of your students. Essentialist claims about gender, race, identity, etc. are disfavored in many circles; instead, explore how gender interacts with other characteristics. 2. If you teach about gender in negotiation, you should read gender theory literature and empirical scholarship. Gender studies explore the complex ways in which gender is understood in our culture and to teach gender and negotiation one needs to be conversant in this literature just as one must understand game theory to teach prisoners dilemma games in negotiation courses. 3. Talk about gender issues pervasively and in context (along with other similar topics). Dont simply reserve a single class for the gender and race and culture aspects of negotiation. These are not discrete variables in negotiation, but are always already operating in negotiations and simulations. When the issue comes up in class, address it and discuss it in the context of particular negotiation problems, simulations, and questions. Make it a part of the list of issues that you explore along with all others. This prevents it from being marginalized or trivialized on the one day that it blows up9 or comes up in a particular setting. 4. Assign some of the research studies and rigorous theory for class discussion. To the extent that the research studies probably match students disparate views about how gender operates in negotiation, discussion can be both realistic, stimulating, theory-developing and helpful at the same time. Stereotype-breaking behaviors and perspectives can be helpful to all students both those who fear they fulfill stereotypes and want to change behaviors and those who feel they deviate from conventional gender expectations. 5. Explore the contradictions and complexity in the material. My own personal favorite issue at the moment is to explore the contradictory claims that women, who are claimed to be less powerful, are disadvantaged in negotiation and mediation settings (Grillo 1991), but are more likely to be expert in talking, communication (Tannen 1990), and collaborative problem solving.10 6. Explore gender issues in simulations and videotaped illustrations of negotiations as part of the agenda of debriefing and discussion (discussed more fully in the next section). 7. Encourage students to explore their own questions and issues about gender roles in negotiation. Over the years, many of my students have done research, reflection and empirical papers on gender issues in negotiation. Analyze and discuss real-world issues as they come up, pre-

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sented by students or films and television programs depicting negotiation sessions (Menkel-Meadow 1999). 8. Be aware of your own gender power. How gender is raised, discussed and considered in any negotiation teaching situation depends on how the instructor presents it and who the instructor is. The gender dynamics in my classes, I suspect, are different (since I am a female, middle-aged, well-published feminist scholar, as well as a negotiation teacher and scholar) from those in classes led by older white men or younger men or women instructors. 9. Consider what your teaching goals are. Mine are to acknowledge that gender may matter in negotiation in conceptualization of goals, in behaviors, and possibly even in outcomes but that how it matters is very complicated and worth thinking about and planning for, as one would plan for any other issue in a negotiation. Planning issues include: How am I likely to be perceived? How am I perceiving the other side? Who else should we bring along? What, if anything, should be done to counteract stereotypic expectations? How should I present myself? How should I prepare for the negotiation? Who should do the opening? The brainstorming or bargaining? The closing? What might need to be said explicitly? What might be managed tacitly (clothing, room set-ups, team coordination, task specialization, etc.)? What should be considered afterward? Evaluation? Leaving openers?

Some Examples
To illustrate some of the different (and multi-media) ways in which I teach about gender and negotiation, let me give three examples. Like many of us, I use the Thomas-Kilmann MODE (management of differences exercise) paper and pencil test (Thomas 1975) of modes of conflict resolution behavior, following one of the negotiation simulations in my course. After the students have completed the 30-item test and totaled their scores in the five different categories (competing, accommodating, compromising, avoiding, and collaborating), I ask them to physically move themselves into groups representing their scores. In the groups, I ask them to consider the advantages and disadvantages of this quality and then to look around the room to comment on whether there are any observations to be made about where others in the class have appeared. In some years, there are obvious gender groupings more men as competitors, more women as accommodators. Often the students express disbelief in how someone tested, when their experience of that person was different in prior simulations. In any event, this is a good place to discuss gender and whether these modes of conflict handling11 are thought to be gender related, either in theory or in practice, when utilized immediately following a particular negotiation. Students can compare their self-scores with what others in the class have experienced about them, based on prior exercises, so there are multiple layers of information and data to explore about this issue.

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Sex, Truths, and Videotape

As a second example, I integrate discussion of gender in both individual and class debriefings of videotaped negotiation simulations. In my negotiation course (taught in a law school, occasionally with some business students, foreign lawyers, government officials, and others enrolled), each student participates in several videotaped simulations each semester (with at least one litigation/dispute and one transactional negotiation). At least one negotiation is conducted one-on-one and at least one is conducted in teams (usually, but not always two-on-two). The simulations I use are my own, written over a twenty-year period of teaching, and are drawn from real cases, with rich and dynamically changing facts (real people play clients to the students lawyer roles and thus individually vary their personal preferences and negotiation goals within a given set of facts, designed to contain both distributive and integrative elements). Each class usually presents a rich mix of gendered variations female and male clients, female and male lawyers, same-sex negotiation pairs, mixed-sex negotiation pairs, mixed teams and same-sex teams, same-sex multiparty groups and mixed-sex multiparty groups. (Despite the obvious studiable matrices here, I have never systematically aggregated gender behaviors or outcomes for all my years of teaching, though I keep informal data collections for each individual class, which I destroy at the end of the semester.12) When debriefing a videotaped simulation, I ask students to self-describe their negotiation goals and then ask them to conduct (both orally with me and other students, then written, after the debriefing) a self-critique of their performances, in light of their own goals and planned for and perceived goals of the other parties. This allows gender issues to emerge naturalistically, if students raise them on their own, and if not, I may ask specific performance or planning questions that will elicit issues or concerns about gender, such as: How did you plan to deal with the other side? Was there anything in how the other side approached you that you found surprising, interesting, troubling? Did you assign specific subject matter expertise or specific tasks to particular members of the team? Why or why not? What particular attributes did you find useful/helpful/troubling/problematic in your own team or in the other team? What instructions, if any, did you have from your client, on this issue/behavior? What if anything, can we note, from body language, word choices, metaphors used (Thornburg 1995)? If gender issues are raised by students, I ask how the other side perceived the issue. Gender, like culture or race, may be differentially perceived and experienced (Gadlin 1994). It is often rewarding to explore how different perceptions of how gender operated in particular interactions may have affected communication and bargaining patterns or behaviors. Sometimes when an issue is particularly salient for a student (a woman who feels she is not assertive enough, a man who fears he is being too cooperative), it can become a part of the learning agenda an issue for both me and the student to watch in subsequent interactions.

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Because negotiation students in a classroom setting (or a multiday workshop) have repeated interactions with each other, these issues can be tracked and compared in different contexts and in interactions with different people. For example, for many years now, there have always been a number of students quite hostile to the problem-solving, Getting to YES canon (Zimmerman 2000; White 1981) who insist that it is a dog-eat-dog, zero-sum, competitive world of scarce resources (especially in the litigation environment) in which strong, assertive, and competitive behaviors are always most appropriate. In my classes, such students have been mostly, but not exclusively, male. When they identify themselves (as they usually do in class discussions or through aggressive behavior demonstrated in the many inclass simulations we do), other students consider and prepare their strategies for interacting with these students (complicated for them by a belief that I will reward them for collaborative problem-solving behaviors and Paretooptimal outcomes). Thus, behaviors, both strategic and gendered, will vary depending on whom one perceives ones opponent to be and I rotate (not predictably) student assignments so that they must develop plans and different behavioral repertoires for different kinds of student-partners and opponents. The advantage of a class conducted over time is that it allows context, repeat play, reputation and experimentation with new behaviors all to coexist and, when it works well, to maximize the learning environment. If gender is seen as an issue, by a student or by me, it will be raised as it emerges from the negotiation activity generated by the course, in its full complexity and context. As was demonstrated in the videotape I presented at the Hewlett 2000 Negotiation Pedagogy conference this past spring, different participants viewing the tape (of a multiparty contractual-transactional-business negotiation) drew different conclusions from their observations of the same behaviors. Where a very attractive woman wearing a relatively low-cut sweater was seen by some to be playing the role of an ineffective female, others saw her as using her sexual power to gain force and strength in a negotiation with many parties, but with a particularly strong male on the other side. These reactions (taken somewhat out of context by one-shot viewers) were surprising to me (and the participants in the videotape who had come to know each other so well during many repeat play negotiations in a course, that they interpreted their behavior as casual and relaxed, rather than sexualized13). The woman in question had been one of the most well prepared, intelligent and solution-seeking students in the course, and I had not noticed her clothing or body language much. Rather, I focused more on her words and analysis, thus demonstrating that gender may be in the eyes of the beholder and differentially beheld, depending on the context and relationship of the negotiators. To truthfully debrief such videotapes, one would have to ask the participants to report (perhaps as in simultaneous translation), exactly what they were thinking at the moment of an action or
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reaction in a negotiation. Whether any particular moment of gendered behavior or reaction actually affects the overall outcome requires close attention to the full text (both verbal and nonverbal) of the particular negotiation. In reviewing parts of videotapes with a whole class, gender can be made an issue for all to observe, either by simply waiting for class-generated gender observations to emerge or through more pointed, instructor-suggested questions, such as: What observations do you have, if any, about how gender may have affected these (particular) interactions14? What might Mark or Susan have done differently to deal with x? Have others of you experienced this issue/dilemma? What have you done? Such questions should be interspersed with references to the literature on gender differences so that students can compare, contrast, and explain how their own behavior does or does not comport with the research findings. (My own experience is that gender relations in negotiations, at least in law schools, is dynamic and changes from class to class, dependent on the gender ratio and critical masses in the class, the force-field of the arguments about appropriate theoretical and behavioral models, and the other classes that students are taking. My own unsystematic conclusion is that conventional gender stereotypes of negotiation behavior are becoming less common, at least among the equals of students in a class.15 This is a highly contextual conclusion, of course, and may be different for those who teach in single-sex environments, single gender-dominant environments, or in situations or workshops with differential power dynamics.16) Finally, perhaps the best way to explore gender issues is to have students rigorously pursue their own research and practice interests and to study their own hypotheses about gender interactions in negotiation. This past year, when I casually opined that, after viewing all the videotaped simulations from my negotiation class, I was prepared to announce that all gender stereotypes had been defied (as a rule, the woman did more talking, agenda setting, topic control, substantive solution suggesting and brainstorming than the men in the class, which was split 50-50 in enrollment), one student decided to rigorously test my observation. After obtaining permission from the other students in the class to view their videotaped negotiation simulations, Mona Ross performed a detailed content analysis of all of the mixed gender negotiations for one of the problems. In addition to content analysis, she coded such items as talk time, agenda setting and agenda control, interruptions, questioning, information requests, responses, listening, expressions of empathy or understanding of other sides stated needs, interests, preferences, assertions, threats, voice quality and tone (soft, loud, quick, slow), nonverbal displays (head nodding, posture), emotional variability/volatility, persistence, solution suggestions, offer patterns, agreement drafting, use of principles to respond or request, and the nature of discussion topics introduced and responded to (law, facts, needs, relationship concerns, options, etc.). I report some of her findings in her own words (Ross 2000):
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In general, these negotiation sessions deviated quite dramatically from gender-stereotype assumptions about men and women negotiators. In all but one group, the woman took control early on and dictated the direction of the negotiation throughout the session. In the only group that did not follow this pattern, Bob seemed to try to take control, but Jane held her ground primarily by asking pointed questions and demanding Bob give principled reasons for his assertions. Thus, it seems that when a woman finds herself up against a competitive male, practicing principled negotiation may in fact be an equalizing force. For their part, most of the men were better listeners than the women a finding that seems to contradict a wealth of research that says men are poor listeners. In almost every session, the woman interrupted the men more often than vice versa. The women also often spoke with great force and assertiveness, while one or two of the men, in contrast, were quite passive and cautious in their language. The women also seemed to employ more repertoires than the men. The women would shift from sounding empathetic for their own client or their opponents client to behaving quite forward and aggressive. They seemed prepared to turn on and turn off their competitive side. The fact that these negotiations took place within the context of a law school course about negotiation is crucial. Training and education can help reduce differences between male and female negotiators. . . .Gender parity in the classroom and greater equality in the legal profession as a whole, may finally be impacting the manner in which male and female law students resolve disputes. By behaving out of type, these women may help eliminate the perception that women are less adept negotiators. The more men and women learn to broaden their repertoires, the sooner we are likely to break the cycle of gender stereotyping in legal negotiations.

Obviously, one law school course with a small n of studied negotiations cannot substitute for the many years of research conducted in a variety of other settings. At the same time, this in-depth study sought to explore, with the tools of conversation and content analysis, the quality of the negotiation process, as well as its outcomes. The rigorous research and paper written by Mona Ross are important for those of us who teach negotiation for several reasons. In process, it displays the possibility of new knowledge generated by the work of a new generation of negotiation students, scholars and practitioners, using relatively newer teaching and research technologies (videotaped negotiations, coding protocols developed by prior researchers) to explore age-old questions. In substance, it provides a sophisticated and hopeful analysis that gender stereotypes are breaking down and negotiation repertoires are becoming more attuned to the context of substantive negotiation situations as more and more students are taught to negotiate, rather than to improvise from and react to untutored assumptions.

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NOTES
This essay is based on a talk delivered at the Hewlett 2000 Conference: Focus on Negotiation Pedagogy at Harvard University, 11 March 2000. The author would like to express her thanks to: Howard Gadlin for comments; the participants in the Hewlett 2000 Negotiation Pedagogy Conference for a stimulating conversation about these issues; Margaret Martin for research assistance; and as always, Bill Breslin, for good counsel and editing. 1. For some of the classic expositions of this debate, in both theoretical and empirical forms, see for example: Rubin and Brown (1975); Kolb and Coolidge (1991); Menkel-Meadow (1994 and 1985); Craver (1990); Ayres (1991); Weingarten and Douvan (1985); Watson (1994); GwartneyGibbs and Lach (1991); Jack and Jack (1989); and Burton, Farmer, Gee, Johnson, and Williams (1991). 2. I labeled the concerns of parties in a negotiation as needs, as well as interests, in an article on negotiation from a social justice perspective. See Menkel-Meadow (1984). Others have used the same terminology in the international setting. For example, see Burton (1990). 3. Fisher and Brown (1988) and Stone, Patton and Heen (1999). 4. For example, see Gilligan (1982); Menkel-Meadow (1994); Tannen (1990); and Landry and Donnellon (1999). For a really distressing distortion of gender difference, see H. Rubin (1997), in which women are advised to use their special female traits to negotiate strategically (and competitively and shrewdly) to get what they want in a mans world. Of course, men too have emphasized other aspects of the negotiation process, such as the relationship, identity, and social justice concerns of recognition and empowerment (Baruch Bush and Folger [1994]). 5. This essay is concerned primarily with gender but much of what is said here can be considered in relation to other diversity, identity, or cultural issues in negotiation. Whose theories and practices define what the goal in a negotiation is and how negotiation should be practiced and evaluated? 6. Some of our most important concepts do, in fact, come from a woman Mary Parker Follett. For a sampling of her work, along with commentaries by todays scholars, see Graham (1995). See also Davis (1991); Kolb (1995); and Menkel-Meadow (2000). 7. Modern gender theory actually problematizes the existence of only two genders, not only in biological categories (Kessler and McKenna 1978), but in cultural ones as well (Butler 1990). 8. And of course, may raise the difficult question of whether some gender difference may be biological, if not cultural, where socialization processes are similar but gender differences remain. 9. As it did once for me when three male students froze out the one female in their negotiation group by talking about sports she didnt follow, and then taunted her with sexual innuendos. As I watched the session from a separate viewing room, it was clear she expected me, the instructor, to come and rescue her (I didnt) from what she thought was inappropriate classroom behavior. Since my simulations are supposed to simulate the real world, I did not intervene and instead the whole class, later watching the videotape, had to analyze what she might have done and what behaviors she might want to develop to deal with such situations in the real world. (I regard the classroom of a negotiation course as a real world.) 10. Similar contradictions exist in the critical race literature. While the same scholar asserts that minorities will be disadvantaged in mediation processes because of their relative powerlessness (Delgado 1985), in other contexts he asserts that minorities before the law will be empowered by using narrative strategies (Delgado 1989), a process most likely to be used in mediation or negotiation settings where talk is not constrained by formal legal evidence rules. 11. It is useful to point out that the Thomas-Kilmann test was developed for the use of presumed male business managers and, in its original form, was deeply sexist (all the parties are hes). I use a modernized h/s/he language form of the test. 12. In my view, and at most universities, the collection of formal data for publication purposes from one s own students requires Human Subjects Experimentation and Protection committee approval. 13. Could this also be a general phenomenon of older teachers not seeing the changed casual cross-gender interactions that seem more sexualized to those of us from a different age? 14. Mary Rowe suggests playing videotapes without the sound to analyze the nonverbal conduct and messages conveyed. 15. Charles Craver (1990) also notes that the shared experience and expert training of a negotiation class may minimize gender differences within the class setting. (Craver 1990).

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16. For example, negotiation workshops in corporate, governmental or other organizational contexts in which hierarchies of employees and managers participate together or, as I have been doing for years, gender-segregated negotiation workshops for women lawyers or women managers.

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