Cultural Perceptions Of Women Online

Cindy King — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:00:57 +0000

Women have to pay close attention to cultural differences in perceptions. Many times when you make a cultural blunder you don’t realize you’ve made one until much later after the damage is done. Sometimes you never learn of your mistake. And often you’ll realize your mistake when you see the damage it’s done. This is particularly true of non-verbal cross-cultural communication challenges.

I’ve had a couple of reasons recently to think about the cultural differences in how women are perceived and I’d like to share one of these stories with you. I’m fairly sure the woman in this example did not realize the different perceptions people had of her photo.

First Impressions Online Go Farther Abroad

We all know the importance of the first impression we make. And when you have a successful online presence it’s natural to want to reach international audiences too.

But what happens when you’ve jeopardized your international success just because you did something too close to the line of what is socially acceptable in your own country. And it turns out to have a different impact in other cultures.

Wrong Assumptions

First here’s a little background information to keep in mind. As you can see, I’m a woman and I grew up with American television.

You might think that I react to American women the same as other Americans. Well the trouble is that I’ve worked with many different nationalities and I’ve learned to understand how others perceive things differently.

At the time I started blogging I noticed another woman who also started at about the same time. She was in the same networking sphere as I was. So naturally I stumbled across her blog a few times and clicked on her about page.

Too Much Skin Sends Clear Signals

There was a rather seductive photo of a woman… it was a head shot taken from an angle above. You could see lots of bare skin. She was obviously wearing a strapless dress, except you just couldn’t tell there was a dress in the way the photo was taken.

The photo clearly stated that this blogger wanted to appeal to men. And the men in my social networking group liked her. But I was not who she wanted to connect with.

Sorry guys. I don’t have a link for you. The photo is no longer there. Besides I just don’t like giving press to people unless I really like them. This is yet another way where my culture differs from others.

When Different Cultures Pick Up Different Signals

This presentation of herself would have impacted both men and women from other cultures in different ways. Of course in many cultures she would have had a certain popularity with the male readers. But popularity based on what?

Some cultures may simply consider it an artistic photo that did not match the content of the blog.

In Muslim countries this particular photo would probably have been considered pornographic.

The rules of seduction vary in different cultures and these rules of seduction can impact all of our communication. I personally do not take offense with a photo of a woman in a sleeveless dress. But a woman in a sleeveless dress in a very suggestive pose does tell me that she is after someone else to read her blog and I lose interest.

Success And A Change In Direction

Almost 2 years later, this blogger is still there and her blog is growing very nicely.

I revisted her blog recently and noticed the bare skin photo was gone. There was extra text: text describing an “all American girl” type lifestyle.

She’s obviously trying to change her image. The trouble is that I still remember the bare skin photo just a short while ago. There was a disconnect.

I wonder what challenges she’ll face in adjusting the first impressions her original readers had. And I think she’ll have more troubles establishing credibility for this new image within the international community.

Show Respect For All Of Your Audiences Right From The Start

This raises the question of showing respect and following basic cross-cultural communication guidelines to all of your audiences right from the start. Here are two things that could have made a difference in my eyes.

Clarity helps wrong assumptions on both sides. If this photo was a photography class assignment, a short mention of this together with some explanation on the connection to the rest of the blog content would have helped. It would have helped to keep a good impression with at least a portion of the international audience.

Maintain consistency for better credibility. The stories I got from the two different about pages did not seem to come from the same person. There’s probably a good explanation, but the transition was too brutal to maintain credibility.

This is just a little bit of effort to make to protect your reputation and credibility with a larger international audience.

What do you think?

Do women have a harder time to manage their online credibility?
As a woman, when would you wear sleeves online to avoid offending a wider international audience?
Do you consider an online photo in a sleeveless dress a cultural blunder?

Cindy King's International Business Blog » international audiences