Women’s Tendencies in Conflict

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. And I’m welcoming you to this second video in our series on conflict with Dr. Sue Edwards. Our series is really focused toward leaders, and Sue is giving us some tips on how to survive and thrive through conflict as leaders. In the first video, we just talked about being ready, being prepared, that conflict is going to happen.

And Sue shared some of her own personal experiences with conflict as I have. And in this one we’re going to talk about women’s tendencies in conflict because women have some tendencies that are a little bit different from the way men might handle conflict. As I told you in the first video, you can read Sue’s full bio on our website as she is an Associate Professor at Dallas Seminary.

And we are so thankful that she gave us the time to talk about this. So Sue in your experience, in your research, what can you tell us about women in conflict?

Sue >> Well, I think, first of all, I would give a warning that we don’t want to put everybody in the same box, that stereotypes are dangerous and misleading. But there are some tendencies that are real, and I’ve experienced them. You probably have as well. And as women and women leaders particularly we just need to be aware.

Kay >> Some of them will apply to the leaders themselves.

Sue >> Yes. Yes.

Kay >> And if you’re a leader, you need to know what your tendencies are.

Sue >> Exactly. And you need to know that as a leader, often you’re working with men. So if you don’t understand how you may come at this differently, then you will possibly have some real problems. So this is helpful just to be aware.

Kay >> I think of the story you told in the last video that the executive pastor gave you 15 minutes to mediate an entire conflict. That’s a man’s tendency isn’t it?

Sue >> Yes, and he ended up having to—then we had three or four more sessions as a result because there was no possible way because we were in this personally. That’s something that we see Janet Lever has done research on children’s playgrounds and she has spent large blocks of time watching children play together. And what she has observed is that the little boys will come together, and when there is a conflict, they will get into it physically and verbally. Then they’ll be rolling in the dirt, and they’ll be really going after each other.

But she’s watching and the next day, they’re fine. They don’t hold on to this at all. It’s just a way to work things out.

The little girls, however, are much less likely to be physical. But when there’s a conflict, they will tend to be catty, form groups that leave that little girl out, and she watches them the next day, and they don’t give up on this. In fact, it sometimes it goes on and on and on and can get very mean spirited, but in a more passive-aggressive way.

That’s what we see in ministry as well. I’ve sat in meetings with men, and they will come after each other in the sense of they want something and they’re jockeying back and forth. And they get a little edgy and a little, I don’t know, just competitive.

And they say some things and you just kind of watch the women. A lot of them will just somewhat shut down because we don’t do that. If we get into something like that with a woman in a nano-second, it gets personal, you know. Not only are we arguing and we disagree over this issue, but you don’t like my hair. You don’t like my children. You don’t like my pecan pie. Suddenly you don’t like anything about me.

And unless we actually sit down and work through this biblically, the chances are we’re going to carry this with us. The men after they have all this back and forth, they’re going to go out and play basketball or have breakfast or do whatever. And because they seem better able to just focus on the issue, we have a disagreement over an issue. We’re going to work that out. But I want my way.

Whereas with women, it seems to get personal very, very quick, and we don’t work it out unless we’re very intentional about that. And we don’t go out to lunch afterwards, and we hold on to these things.

Kay >> And so even if, I as a leader, am not someone who does that, chances are some of the women that may end up in conflict under my ministry or with me as the leader will be the kind. . .

Sue >> That’s right.

Kay >> Who handle it the way that you just described.

Sue >> That’s right. And so we as leaders have to be very intentional about training our leaders and the women that are in our ministry to biblically handle (which we’ll talk about in the next in the next session to biblically handle).

Even though it may be more natural for men to be direct, Jesus tells us that we need to be direct. And we are not to be passive-aggressive. And even though we tend to be that way, we don’t get a pass on handling conflict biblically—just like men. Although they may not be relational as naturally, they don’t get a pass on being relational. So all of those areas, we have to work on those things.

And some of this has to do with— as women, research shows we live in a web, a relational web. And even those of us who are leaders—I’m a strong leader. I test high on all the leadership. I’m very task oriented, but I still live in a relational web where my relationship with the Lord, my relationship with my husband, children, grandchildren, friends, students, these are very important to me.

And in a conflict that relationship is threatened. And so I’m less likely to directly involve myself in it because my fear is that I’ll lose you in that relationship. But the problem with that is then we don’t deal with it. We end up—it comes out in these really ugly, passive-aggressive ways or we sin, we gossip, we form factions.

We do the kinds of things that ultimately cause harm to the reputation of the church, to the body of Christ, to Christ’s reputation. Even though this is hard for us, we have to be the example ourself, and we have to train our leaders and the women that we minister to how to do conflict biblically. And it’s not easy.

Kay >> It’s not easy. I can tend to be more of a leader and directive as well. But I remember that when I was leading a women’s ministry in our church, one of my women who was on the leadership team (she was one of the main leaders) came into my office one day just crying. And she had been told that some of the Bible study leaders (and she was in charge of the Bible studies), they had gone to lunch together and had a conversation about how terrible she was.

Sue >> Oh, boy.

Kay >> And so she was just mortified. She was there to resign. She was there to quit her position. She was so hurt, and so we both had an idea of who had actually started this conversation. And of course, she told this woman, she’s the one that told the woman that everybody hates you.

Sue >> Yes.

Kay >> Everybody hates you.

Sue >> Of course. Never listen to that.

Kay >> And the truth is, you know, half the women there said nothing. She was talking and they said nothing.

Sue >> She was gossiping actually.

Kay >> But I couldn’t just leave it, you know, I would have loved to have just gone—“I just want you to get over it and it’ll be okay.” But I had to deal with the women who had gossiped or had let it go on without saying anything.

Sue >> And that nips it in the bud. That’s what I have found. In fact, I remember a time after all this happened at the church where we were together and I was leading in another church. And someone came to me and said, they were in a Bible study the day before and the women had talked about me and said something that wasn’t true related to that conflict years ago.

Well, I immediately I said, “Well, give me the phone number, give me the name.” And I called the leader of the group and I said, “I hear that happened. And I would like to talk with the woman in the group because that’s not true.”

Well, she stammered around and then she said, Well, I’ll talk to her. And she did.

And I said, “Well, I’ll call you back tomorrow-and for her name.”

And I called her back and she said, “Well, the woman doesn’t want to be identified, but she’s very sorry and she’ll never do it again.”

Well, at least we nipped it in the bud right there. And that’s what I said. There’s a graciousness. Absolutely. But there’s a strength.

We call it the velvet covered brick. There’s a graciousness, but there is a strength in which we approach conflict as leaders. That will tend to nip it in the bud and not give the enemy what he’s looking for, which is woundedness, discouragement, disruption of unity. This is an important area for us as leaders to model and to teach and train on.

Kay >> Right. And that group that I was dealing with, I had failed to really, I suppose, ever really train them on. You don’t gossip. You don’t put up with gossip. You don’t tear somebody down in the midst of your group.

Sue >> You can train them, and they’ll still do it.

Kay >> And that’s probably true. But, you know, I mean, I look back on it as I spoke to each one individually. I said, “You know, I haven’t been mentioning this, but you need to speak up. You’re a leader.”

Sue >> Yes.

Kay >> “You’re a Bible study leader. You need to speak up when someone is doing that to another person.”

Sue >> It’s an opportunity, then, to help them learn to do conflict biblically.

Kay >> Absolutely. Well, thank you, Sue. I’m looking forward to our next video where we really talk about how to handle this well and do it the way that God would have us do it. But your insights and your experiences are so helpful.

And I know that they’re helping you as well, so I hope you’ll join us for part three of our series.