As proof of this, Pynchon sites that women are now 50% of all law students. She also mentions that humans, primates that is, created fire and math. I’m sure there was some negotiation involved in that, as in, “Hey, if you make the fire, I'll do the math. And if you do a big fire, I'll do a very complex math problem.” Finally, blogger and She Negotiates member Lisa Gates weighed in with "Why Women Are Better Negotiators Than Men." To back up her claim, she writes: “[Women] naturally seek affinity and common ground. We are more concerned with relationship and mutual best interest than we are intimidation and for this reason we are much more naturally disposed than men to produce collaborative, durable agreements—meaning our agreements last, and don’t induce lingering resentment.”
Tell that to the Real Housewives of New Jersey, Lisa!
I’m here to add an important component the negotiation symposium. Hence, my blog "Cats Are Better Negotiators Than Dogs." To wit:
Dinner Time
When you call a dog for its dinner, it comes bounding, slobbering, careening over to you, and practically dives into its food. Frankly, it will eat whatever you give it. A cat, on the other hand, will watch you coolly until you produce said food. It may eat, it may not. It may eat a little, give you a disdainful look, walk away, come back in an hour, and eat a little more. It may say, “Hey you, I’m done with this brand!” and make you run out to fetch another. It may like the new brand, it may not. It may put you through the whole routine again. Cats eat what they want, when they want.
Hollywood vs YouTube
There are a lot of famous dog movies. Rin Tin Tin, Benji, Turner and Hooch. Dogs don’t mind working long hours for little pay. Marley & Me? I have it on good authority that both Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson made much more money than the golden retriever in the title role. Says an insider: “The pooch didn’t negotiate at all. He just rolled over for the studio heads and a few meat chews.”
Cats, on the other hand, are all over YouTube. Some of the most popular and iconic videos on the site are cat videos: Surprised Kitty, The Two Talking Cats, Stalking Cat. Together these videos have over 120 million hits. It’s easy to see why cats prefer homemade videos to Hollywood movie sets: They do what they want, when they want. If the video goes viral, they know their humans are happy and will keep them in treats and cat nip and whatever else they desire. But otherwise, they don't have to put themselves out.
Tricks
Let’s face it, with the possible exception of the guy from the Moscow Cats Theater, nobody teaches a cat to do tricks. You don’t teach it to sit, or come, or stay. A cat can’t be bothered. A cat does what it wants to do. It's the humans that stand there and videotape them, hoping they'll do something interesting enough that it goes viral. Humans are on a cat schedule, not vice versa. In this aspect, cats are the best negotiators because they simply refuse to negotiate.
Dogs might have a "leg up" in terms of negotiating in the wild—they generally need a human to feed it and care for it. Cats, on the other hand, can hunt, and don’t need to rely on humans for survival. Still, many a stray has found its way into an unsuspecting human’s yard, where it quickly ingratiates itself into a regular feeding schedule.
Cats, I conclude, are better negotiators than dogs. I await a rebuttal.
