The Gender Experience

Men and women are different. History shows that women have been subjected to discrimination and oppression, but certainly they deserve the same rights and privileges as men. Nevertheless, I still think it’s okay to celebrate our differences. While my stance is somewhat off-center from politically correct, I’m 53 and I’m comfortable with the insights I’ve acquired over the years.

In fact, I’ve been fascinated by the study of male-female gender differences. Among my favorite books are Men are from Mars, Women from Venus and Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps. In my readings, I’ve come across some interesting observations, like the evidence that points to men having thicker skin than women on their backs. In other studies, men have been shown to have better spatial awareness than women, a possible explanation for their love of sports. Researchers also have some evidence that women’s peripheral vision is wider than men’s, and women seem multitask better, on average, than men.

One of my favorite findings, though, is from a well-known paper: “Are Women Really More Talkative Than Men?” (Mehl et al. Science Vol. 317, No. 5834). In this study, 396 subjects, male and female, wore a voice recorder that collected samples of conversation over several days. The male and female participants were randomly sampled in groups of six., and the results suggest that women really do talk more than men. The mean number of words spoken per day for a man was 15,668.5 (sample size 186). The mean number of words spoken per day for a woman was 16, 215.0 (sample size 210).

So what do our differences mean to customer experience? They’re an indication that customer experiences can be tailored by gender.

Are you designing your experience with gender in mind? Whether male-female differences are innate or a product of socialization, they matter for the purposes of designing a successful customer experience, where gender is one of several psychological factors for consideration.