Beyond Babedom

We're (way) over 40. Deal with it.

The Battle Continues

“Multitaskers [are] just lousy at everything,” said Clifford I. Nass, part of a team at Stanford University whose study that proved that the most persistent multitaskers  perform badly. The study tested 100 college students with a series of electronic images of different color shapes, letters and numbers.

But they didn’t test them cooking dinner, watching tv and feeding the dogs simultaneously.

Because if they had, they would know what we know: women always multitask – by necessity – and we do it incredibly well. Which makes me wonder: who put together this study and decided what to test? Did they have these students dressing a four year old, helping a 10 year old finish his homework and making lunches at the same time?  How about watching TV, giving themselves a pedicure and deciding what to wear for work tomorrow? They even could have tried driving, putting on lipstick and giving someone directions over the phone. But, no, they flashed pictures of numbers and letters and colors. Big whooop.

I see this as just one more way to control the message, because they know women throughout history have had to multitask to survive, as they provide all the services men need. Have sex and decide on tomorrow’s dinner? We can do it. Clean the house and catch up with all of your soap operas? A snap for us. Read a magazine, file your nails and eat dinner? Hard, but we’ve got it down.

I’d like to challenge any man – except my gay friends – to a multitasking extravaganza. How many do you think could put on makeup, give phone advice to a friend and do the treadmill? Even if they couldn’t, I’d love to see them try.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 30th, 2009 at 4:05 PM and is filed under Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. Bill Barrett says:

    You will get no argument from me as long as you are not texting while driving and putting on that makeup all at the same time! Gotta draw the line somewhere! 😉

  2. Rosemarie Lederer says:

    I totally agree with you, my whole life has been multitasking.
    Woman are most excellent at it. Most woman manage a household, go to work, manage money and are caretakers for their spouse, children and pets and are their for their friends. Whether they have all of the above or not, they are able to manage several things at one time. This has been going on since the beginning of time and people functioned and were productive. I know many women that are cooking dinner,while at the same time feeding their toddler and helping the other child with his homework and it all gets done beautifully.

    That’s what I’m talking about!!!

  3. Kirk says:

    I currently work around multitasking women at the shop where I work. Most of the women there have too many things under their belts but they have a hard time finishing things. They thrive on taking on project but are always running around from taks to task. It takes them 2-3 times longer to finish any one project since they’re constantly jumping from task to task instead of focusing on one task to completion.

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