Personal Empowerment
When Women Disagree
by Betty Parker, CPLP
R
eality TV would have the world
believe that women—especially African American women—only know
how to backstab, sabotage, scream, curse,
and fight in order to be heard in conflict. For
some, unfortunately, this is real. But the real
“reality” is that women are often diplomatic
when dealing with differences, and everyone’s
not behaving like they’re suited for a bout in
a WWE ring. Still, we can do a better job at
managing conflict amongst ourselves. Here
are three ideas to keep in mind:
Jumping to Conclusions
Avoid jumping to conclusions when
faced with a situation that is hurtful. Oftentimes, people hurt one another inadvertently.
The intent may not be to step on someone
else’s feelings or to cause them pain in any
way. It happens, and most often, without the
offender knowing they’ve done something
wrong until it’s too late. Since we don’t always
know the limits around people’s pain points,
it is easy to prick a person’s heart without
trying. Immediately when a person feels emo-
24 HimPower October 2015
tional pain, they act emotionally. They become
sad, angry, offended, and sometimes all of
those at once. Then they may lash out in retaliation. They accuse and judge without all the
facts. Acts 11:1-18 gives us a good example of
people jumping to conclusions erroneously.
When the brothers heard that the Gentiles had also received the Word of God, they
got angry with Peter and accused him of going
into the houses of men who were not like
them (“circumcised men”). Verse 2 says, “So
when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him….”
We become critical first before we get
the full story. And yes, men do it too. We tend
to judge a situation without getting all the
facts up front. In this case, the men ended up
realizing they had mistakenly judged Peter
after he told them the details. Though men
may be able to get over a matter more quickly
after talking about it, women tend to hold
onto grudges and share the incident through
gossip with other women. Then the incident
never dies. It keeps reappearing as the story
gets told over and over again. These actions
cause women to appear “catty” because we’re
quick to pull the claws out and rip into each
other—even if the situation doesn’t apply to
us. But reserving judgment until we know all
angles of the situation is the first way to manage those hurt feelings before we say or do
something we might later regret.
Communication
Speak up to that person when you
disagree with them. There are people in the
world who are conflict-averse. They would
rather say nothing at all than get into a confrontation with another person. The angst
involved with arguing is far greater to them
than keeping quiet. But unless a person
expresses their discontent in a matter, the
other person does not know if they have said
or done something that is disagreeable. The
time to be quiet is if the situation runs off the
rails because the other person is not willing to
engage in a meaningful conversation. Never
argue with irrational people. There should be
attempts at resolution where possible. And
even if you ultimately still don’t agree, at least
you’ve let your viewpoint be known and considered. Avoiding conflict is a temporary fix
that leaves the person who’s hiding from it
feeling resentful and disrespected.
And finally, because women tend to
be more emotional and sensit