BeyondIntractability.org   BeyondIntractability.org
Beyond Intractability: A Free Knowledge Base on More Constructive Approaches to Destructive Conflict
   


Introduction: Some people talk about negotiation and gender in terms of how women negotiate differently from men. Deborah Kolb of Simmon's College in Boston says that what people should really be talking about is why women are not at the negotiation table in the first place.


This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).

Why Are Women Not At the Negotiation Table?
Deborah Kolb
Co-Director of the Program on Negotiations in the Workplace, Program on Negotiation, Harvard University
Interviewed by
Julian Portilla
2003

People have a way of thinking about gender as differences between men and women, and its very hard to move away from that. When you say its about gender they think either you're just going to talk about women, or your going to talk in your negotiations about the differences between men and women. What I always like to say is when we talk about the differences between men and women in negotiation, were doing two things, either women are the same as men, or they're different from men; we never talk about men. It's a model deficiency, so women are deficient in some way and we have to help them get better. I think that a way to think about gender is not to just look at the way men and women would negotiate differently. The fact is that the women aren't at the table, and so how can they be participants? The issues that one would want to work on from a gender perspective, as far as I am concerned, is how women mobilize to get to the table so that they can be participants.

 
Peace we want because there is another war to fight against poverty, disease and ignorance. -- Indira Gandhi

Featured Links
Organizations Making Noteworthy Contributions to Efforts to Promote More Constructive Conflict
Institute of World Affairs
Institute of World Affairs


Other Resources from
Beyond Intractability
A User's Guide for Third Siders
A User's Guide for Third Siders

The Third Side concept was developed by William Ury. Third Siders are people who try to see both sides of a conflict and encourage cooperative solutions, fair fights, and decision making that advocates solutions which meet everyone's interests and needs as much as possible.

Nobel Peace Prize Winners

George Catlett Marshall
George Catlett Marshall

Former Secretary of State and Defense for the United States, originator of the Marshall Plan, and 1953 Nobel Peace Laureate

Beyond Intractability Version IV
Copyright © 2003-2010 The Beyond Intractability Project
Beyond Intractability is a Registered Trademark of the University of Colorado
Project Acknowledgements

The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project
Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors and Editors
c/o Conflict Information Consortium (Formerly Conflict Research Consortium), University of Colorado
Campus Box 580, Boulder, CO 80309
Phone: (303) 492-1635; Fax: (303) 492-2154; Contact
University of Colorado at Boulder