Why are Women better than Men as supermarket check-out clerks ...

When, within the limits imposed by Nature (like motherhood) ....

Men are better at everything else?

Hello probonopublico,

I should definitely tread lightly, as I am sure at some point, the
females that make up the other half of any of my relationships are
surely going to base my worth on this answer. May all of my "t's be
crossed and my i's be well dotted."


Q. Why are Women better than Men as supermarket check-out clerks?

Social stigma seems to be the overwhelming factor. To understand
better what I am implying, we have to go back to the dictionary and
see what the origin of the word stigma is in the purest sense:

stigma origin
"Middle English stigme, brand, from Latin stigma"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=stigma

Much like everything else in the world, males feel the need to
associate a 'brand', or a reference to identify with. Most men think
women are better at this particular job because until recently, the
job was thought of as, 'a woman's type of job'. We can clearly see in
society today that this theory is losing steam.

Shifting gears, one can contend that the argument is in the overall
unexplained genetics of men and women. Here is an excerpt from the
book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus',

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - by John Gray
"Where men are task-oriented, we are relational-oriented."
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/men-mars.html

To explain the above point, I can only be reminded of an example that
I was once privileged to hear:

In essence, the man and woman are both going out to buy jacket :

- The man goes straight to the store, and gets the first jacket he
finds.

- The woman goes to 300 stores and finds nothing she likes.

- The woman comes home with a lemonade and a cookie.

- She is pleased because she didn't spend money on something she
didn't want.

- As a bonus she got a delicious lemonade and cookie for only a
dollar.

- The man is pleased because he accomplished his task of getting a
jacket.


How does this relate to a supermarket clerk? Here's my thoughts using
the above line of thinking as a reference:

A woman is bound to take more pride in just about any job. The
relational thought could be the fact that Christmas is right around
the corner and she needs more money for gifts.

A man would consider this just another job, and work if it's the only
thing available at the time. His task may have been to simply become
employed, but in most cases this job is not what he really wanted. At
least he completed the task at hand.

Conclusion - The woman really likes her job, and her performance level
will show it. Indeed her paternal instincts may play a role that helps
men to feel more comfortable when going through the checkout. The man
does a *sub-par* job because his next 'task' is to "Get out of this
dead end job".   :-)

This of course are just my personal opinion, and does not reflect the
thoughts of Google, or anyone else for that matter.


Q. When within the limits imposed by nature, men are better at
everything else?

This works much on the same premise as the answer above. Women are
mostly held back by the labels that men allow to continue to exist in
our own minds and society.

I'm not *whipped*, as most men would quip, I'm just well educated. My
conscious simply couldn't allow me to give anything but a fair
analysis :

- Women fly fighter jets today. In combat.
- Women have their own 'NBA' league.
- In the Marine Corps, women have to meet the same physical standards
as men.

I found this article that contends women are better managers overall.
Here are a few reasons this article points out:

- Women encourage openness and are more accessible (relational
oriented)
- Women are more tolerant of differences, and handle diversity better

Then the article quickly points out :

Bcentral - Why women make better managers
"Men tend to be more speedy decision-makers". (task oriented)
http://www.bcentral.com/articles/krotz/150.asp?format=print


Conclusion - I couldn't find a single instance that would prove that a
man is better than a woman at everything else.

Maybe my informative answer will change the way the world thinks? One
can only hope for the best. (smile)


To help assist with this answer I searched Google for :

women are better then men at
://www.google.com/search?q=women+are+better+then+men+at

Should you need further clarification or resources, please ask before
rating this answer. I would love to offer more insight.


Thanks for the very poignant question!
SgtCory

Brilliant, Sarge!

(As usual)

Of course, you have carefully ignored the great women inventors (like
Thomasina Edison), the great women composers (like Joanna Sebastian
Bach) and the great women authors (like Enid Blyton) ....
Understandably.

In my opinion, you now deserve a step up the ladder ... so please
report to the Pentagon on Monday .... Captain Cory.

Kindest regards

Bryan

hehehe  what a fun answer!

Yes, and probonopublico is also forgetting the great male scientists
and inventors, such as Marieno Curie, Elizabethan Blackwell, Betsyan
Ancker-Johnson, Adam Lovelace, and Dorothim Crowfoot Hodgkin, as well
as artists Marlon Cassatt and George O'Keefe.

;)

What a great answer, SgtCory! Took what could have been a very touchy
subject matter and applied great logic and examples.  Well done, per
the norm

-THV

Hi, Aceresearcher

Many thanks for the additions ... but, rather than 'forgetting' the
names mentioned, I can only recall Curie and Lovelace ...

I suspect that are teasing me into asking another question ... Very
clever!

Kindest regards

Bryan

Long ago when I was in public grade school the girls clearly out
performed the boys on the average. As age advanses the average equals
then reverses. It is a matter of expectation I think. The men expect
to compete vigorously in the working world for the next 50 years or
so; while the women expect to find a husband to take care of such
nonesense as providing the family income. Men typically are better at
taking charge, making quick desissions, even with big stakes. There is
hardly any demand for gigalos, male dancers.....Besides cashiers women
are still prefered as teachers of small children, several kinds of
nurses in the medical field, and secretaries, answering the telephone,
telephone solisiters, insurance claims adjusters, bank tellers, baby
sitters, dog groomers, bueaticians.... Neil

neilzero-ga,

Thanks for that chauvinistic blast back to the 1950's. Maybe we should
go one further and repeal or reammend the Constitution to get rid of
that nasty 19th Ammendment. But I'll give you the benefit of doubt and
take your retrograde opinions as sarcasm, and have a laugh with you.


Additional Links:

19th Ammendment Info:
http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/charters_of_freedom/constitution/19th_amendment.html


skermit-ga

"Men typically are better at
taking charge, making quick desissions, even with big stakes. There is
hardly any demand for gigalos, male dancers..."

Neil,

Men have always been given encouragement and wide-berth to make
decisions, etc. Women have been repeatedly told they can't (are
incapable) and when they successfully make high stakes decisions they
are often ridiculed by men (and other women) as "mannish" "maculine"
or the B word I won't repeat here. Men insist that competence is a
man's quality instead of seeing it as a human quality. Thus women are
encouraged to use their looks as a sign of their worth, instead of
their innate talents and abilities. Thus the "dancing girls" -- that
job is based on appearance, and women today (unfortunately) allow
themselves to be seen and used as ornaments instead of instruments (as
men see themselves).

It is my theory that there is a high demand for male escorts, dancers,
etc. but men have suppressed this aspect of society as one that, if it
should be widely known it would be also wiidely accepted and men would
thus be seen as ornaments as well. This leads to men having to groom
themselves much more stridently and preserve their appearances. Think
of the money women spend on this aspect -- their beauty i.e. their
"worth" -- men would have to spend that too, just to keep up with
their buddies. Men are in my opinion also very ashamed of their
bodies. I have been told repeatedly (and I am a woman) that women find
male bdies to be "ugly". I've been told this for years. Despite the
fact that millions of women enjoy looking at males, males continue to
provide gratuitous nudity in print and on film of females and have
never broken through their shame to provide nude males on screen. This
is of course because men have most of the power in the media world.
Thus they determine what women want to see, not women themselves.

I would not say there was less want or need for male dancers etc. as
much as there is suppression of those facts by males themselves. Like
I said, I have been told what women like and I do not always agree
with whatever preference I am "supposed" to go with. Everyone is
different.

Men do some things much better than women, and women do some things
much better than men. the real problem is placing levels of importance
on each gender's tasks and abilities. Men seem to need to insist that
women's innate talents are less important then men's (i.e. a "high
stakes" decision making ability is more beneficial and amazing than a
women's ability to increase effective communications in an office
setting). It would be better to appreciate people based on individual
achievements and abilities, noting that every talent is worthwhile and
needed in this world.

Don't you agree?

I have the advantage that I have been a check-out clerk, and I studied
brain and cognitive science at MIT!

I propose a different hypothesis.  

The brain physiologies of men and women differ such that, generally,
men have greater cognitive intensity to devote to a task, while women
have greater cognitive scope.

In other words, the male cashier is likely to focus on each item in a
task-at-hand fashion.  The female cashier will regard the entire
stock, so that in her mind, she's already thinking of how she's going
to ring up the scallions while her hands are scanning the tuna.

This also accounts for why, generally speaking, men make fewer
checkout errors than women do (this was true where I worked).  Male
cashiers are more precise.  Meanwhile, female cashiers' minds are
wandering on the customer, the floor manager, her aching feet, and
whether or not she should bag the kitty litter.

Hi, mmerse

What an insightful comment!

Brilliant!

Many thanks

PB

Well, your original question still went unanswered or was misunderstood.
"Why are Women better than Men as supermarket check-out clerks ..."

So, why are women better as supermarket check-out clerks (according to
your sources anyway) than men are?

The only logical answer I can come up with is because more females
happen to be employed in that position than men. This does not mean
that they are better at this position than men, just more of them.
Usually in grocery stores (I worked at some for a few years) men do
all the stocking, receiving deliveries, loading the trucks, head the
various departments (bakery, produce, etc) and do cart runs and the
like.

Since being a checker doesn't require the sort of physical agility as
it does to...say unloading dozens of pallets filled with product from
semi-trucks ...women tend to be "put" there more often than men...

In no way is this meant to be sexist, but that is how the industry is...