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	<title>Comments on: Hofstede cultural dimensions, used entirely not-as-intended</title>
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	<link>http://blog.melchua.com/2009/12/21/hofstede-cultural-dimensions-used-entirely-not-as-intended/</link>
	<description>Braindumps on things Mel Chua has found shiny lately.</description>
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		<title>By: Mel</title>
		<link>http://blog.melchua.com/2009/12/21/hofstede-cultural-dimensions-used-entirely-not-as-intended/comment-page-1/#comment-4085</link>
		<dc:creator>Mel</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Jan 2010 19:25:34 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description>Note that I don&#039;t actually know if my interpretation of the Hofstede masculine/feminine dimension is the same as his, but here&#039;s what I&#039;d say:

Masculine: stereotypically, technical cultures have an intense competitive focus on functionality and a dismissal of &quot;soft&quot; skills like communication (I&#039;ve personally tended to hang out in the areas of the engineering world where that&#039;s not true - and have found most of the engineering world to not be like this at all). Confucianism-based cultures tend to (also stereotypically) have very strictly defined gender roles. Note that all-female groups can also be masculine (as I understand the Hofstede cultural dimension for that word) if they promote a single image of what womanhood should be and have an almost militant focus on achieving it.

Feminine: Examples of this might be the culture present in support groups and mediation sesssions, though I haven&#039;t really had direct exposure to those myself so I&#039;m mostly guessing here. LGBT groups tend to be very supportive of a wide range of gender identities. Overly feminine cultures bother me just as much as overly masculine ones do - sitting in the middle of a group talking about who likes who is about equal to sitting in the middle of a group talking about who has more video game kills, and in both cases I&#039;d prefer to go off by myself and read a book.

All the cultures I&#039;ve encountered have both masculine and feminine elements; I think you&#039;re always going to find a mix, regardless of which side a particular culture tends towards. For instance, many of the software projects I&#039;m involved with lean towards the masculine with a focus on technical functionality, but also greatly value community and consensus-building even if it temporarily appears to make the technical progress &quot;slow down.&quot; It&#039;s a balance.

Not sure if this helps, but those are my (not particularly fully formed) thoughts on the subject.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Note that I don&#8217;t actually know if my interpretation of the Hofstede masculine/feminine dimension is the same as his, but here&#8217;s what I&#8217;d say:</p>
<p>Masculine: stereotypically, technical cultures have an intense competitive focus on functionality and a dismissal of &#8220;soft&#8221; skills like communication (I&#8217;ve personally tended to hang out in the areas of the engineering world where that&#8217;s not true &#8211; and have found most of the engineering world to not be like this at all). Confucianism-based cultures tend to (also stereotypically) have very strictly defined gender roles. Note that all-female groups can also be masculine (as I understand the Hofstede cultural dimension for that word) if they promote a single image of what womanhood should be and have an almost militant focus on achieving it.</p>
<p>Feminine: Examples of this might be the culture present in support groups and mediation sesssions, though I haven&#8217;t really had direct exposure to those myself so I&#8217;m mostly guessing here. LGBT groups tend to be very supportive of a wide range of gender identities. Overly feminine cultures bother me just as much as overly masculine ones do &#8211; sitting in the middle of a group talking about who likes who is about equal to sitting in the middle of a group talking about who has more video game kills, and in both cases I&#8217;d prefer to go off by myself and read a book.</p>
<p>All the cultures I&#8217;ve encountered have both masculine and feminine elements; I think you&#8217;re always going to find a mix, regardless of which side a particular culture tends towards. For instance, many of the software projects I&#8217;m involved with lean towards the masculine with a focus on technical functionality, but also greatly value community and consensus-building even if it temporarily appears to make the technical progress &#8220;slow down.&#8221; It&#8217;s a balance.</p>
<p>Not sure if this helps, but those are my (not particularly fully formed) thoughts on the subject.</p>
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		<title>By: James</title>
		<link>http://blog.melchua.com/2009/12/21/hofstede-cultural-dimensions-used-entirely-not-as-intended/comment-page-1/#comment-4018</link>
		<dc:creator>James</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2009 23:19:24 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description>nice post, I was wondering if you would give some examples of what you call Feminine and Masculine cultures that you have encountered? I am curious which cultures you encountered and how they fall into these categories.
Thanks for humoring my puzzling</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>nice post, I was wondering if you would give some examples of what you call Feminine and Masculine cultures that you have encountered? I am curious which cultures you encountered and how they fall into these categories.<br />
Thanks for humoring my puzzling</p>
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