Introduction
There are numerous secular studies on gender and socio-economic differences of risk perception. A cursory examination will help us in the spiritual endeavor of cross-cultural risk understand how to apply some of this awareness in a wise way as we assess risk as a team in a dangerous, front-line environment.
The goal of this article is to elevate unity and more effective communication between genders and international teams as we work for a common eternal purpose. Any time we can increase personal awareness of the individual, it will help us understand others better. This reflects the Trinity, as we seek to understand and know ourselves and each other more deeply. We love more deeply that and whom we know.
It is important to only cautiously make generalizations of risk perception between gender and culture groups. More research and clear methodology of research needs to be done (by those in the clinical mental-health fields). When using secular research on risk, only some of the research is really helpful to our purpose. We need to carefully weigh the strengths and weaknesses of that data. Sometimes I re-word the research quotes in order to make it more understandable for the rest of us!
As I often repeat in our RAM Training, the secular research on risk began looking at business and gambling risk, although now it is much more broad and includes many of the modern-day risks we all face as a global family. So we have to take the data with "a grain of salt" since we are engaged in what is clearly a high-risk endeavor but we do have the power of the Holy Spirit Who helps us to respond differently then all the data can possibly predict!
Additionally, more research on analyzing the secular data and applying it is a skill of analysis and synthesis. I welcome critical feedback on where I have wrongly interpreted and applied the psychological research.
Studies on WME
In general, numerous studies suggest that white males tend to rate risk lower, and less problematic than women and all other culture groups.1 Women in general feel more vulnerable in risk,2 especially in types of risk where there are social inequalities and where the "less powerful" are more subject to risk. This seems to fit the scenario for men and women where Christ-following foreigners are living in a hostile extremist environment!
Men who rate risk lower than others:
"tend to be better educated, had higher household incomes, and were politically more conservative. They showed greater trust in authorities and institutions, were anti-egalitarian and did not want to share [power to make decisions on risk with the general public.]"3
Being anti-egalitarian is especially problematic in the mission field and Church. More women are serving as missionaries then men (see the discussion at the bottom on this debated statistic).4 Males in leadership demonstrate wisdom to listen to their teammates with humility because human lives are at stake in the risk situation. The Biblical principle of stewardship of Kingdom resources means that we carefully listen to both men and women who are risking their lives on the field.
Historically, white males have generally experienced less vulnerability and perceive less injustice in their experience, thus rate risks lower than all other groups. Gender and to a lesser extent race, remains a robust predictor of risk perception.5
Another thesis on differences in risk perception are related to perceived power, control, and vulnerability.
"This thesis would suggest the gender and race differences that are regularly found in risk perception originate not just because of substantive differences in power to control risk but also because people with less power over risks feel more likely to be at risk and feel risk to be inequitably distributed" (Satterfield, et al., 2004).
There are several influencing factors to consider when evaluating a team's response to risk and their readiness to remain in or press forward in cross-cultural risk.
Factors to consider are a person's perceived vulnerability as well as exposure to a risk and their perceived lack of power or control over the risk and outcome will cause them to rate risks much higher than others (with more power and control).
Researchers are trying to look at causes other than the White Male Effect (WME). Is it possible that gender differences are less significant than social inequity? When one group of researchers looked at this in Sweden (Olofsson and Rashid, 2011), they found that
"Ethnicity serves as a marker of inequality and discrimination in Sweden. Consequently, ethnicity, in terms of foreign background, mediates inequality resulting in high risk perception."6
This only confirms what we already know and experience on a daily basis - we feel at higher risk being a foreigner in a strange land! I am much better educated as a white woman, having 4 degrees, but as a minority foreigner living in a Muslim extremist culture, I definitely feel much more at risk in general. I appreciate this scientific research by psychologists and Dr. Breakwell who makes it understandable for me, but sometimes I just want to say, "Of course! I didn't need research to tell me that!"
A person's perceived vulnerability is evaluated both in how they are handling it mentally and materially. Mental vulnerability can be explored in dialogue, helping someone evaluate their self awareness of their anxiety level. It also incorporates discussion on exposure to multiple stressors over time. A sense of vulnerability is increased when being subject to multiple stressors and hazards.
This is similar to stress resiliency training, where we teach front-line workers that "stress is accumulative." In the same way, it seems that the feeling of vulnerability is also cumulative: exposure to multiple streams of hazards (threat of kidnapping, murder, robbery, rape, sexual abuse on the street, etc) at one time wear a person down and cause them to feel more vulnerable in general.
Some Beginning Application for Cross-Cultural Risk
The issue of gender on risk perception impacts risk decision-making, communication, and risk management. Becoming aware of the background factors of how people perceive the level of risk will help us to ask better questions of one another. Leaders who are aware of these issues will actually cause their teams to have increased trust in their leadership, simply by taking the time to listen to the fears and the perceived level of risk, and not dismissing it.
When I shared about the WME with a group of white male missionaries in October 2016, I asked them what suggestions they have for other white men about addressing this issue. They promptly responded with: "Include women and other nationalities in the risk assessment and mitigation."
As a woman regularly living in a risk situation with children, I would add the following: It is easy to respond to someone's feeling of vulnerability and anxiety in risk with facts, figures, and a rational danger response. I would encourage leaders, whatever color and gender they are, to listen well and be slow to try to "fix" the other person, even when you disagree with the risk perception they are sharing. As a leader, it is important to listen for the underlying fear, but also for their intuition, and for the Holy Spirit's voice through those He has given you to shepherd and lead through risk.
1. Breakwell, Glynis. The Psychology of Risk. 72.
2. Ibid., 74
2. Ibid., 73.
4. Barret and Johnson's report suggests otherwise, but see the discussion here. I would concur that Barret and Johnson's findings do not seem to be consistent with the anecdotal evidence. It would be helpful to know how they calculate there are more men then women on the mission field, as that number does not seem accurate historically or today. See their report and the discussion here: http://oscaractive.ning.com/forum/topics/shocking-mission-statsfacts
http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/resources.php
Farther down on the Oscar page, Marti Smith pasted in a portion of an article she wrote on men and women on the mission field. Marti Smith said:
- In many places and kinds of work there are many more women than men... but if you add together all kinds of missionaries everywhere the trend is not so strong, as Mike points out. Wonder how they get those figures? But here are some more anecdotal things I used in a paper on the topic.
A. The Significant Presence of Women in Missions
In spite of the challenges women in many times and places have faced by following God’s call in missions, they have followed him in numbers. By 1910 more women than men were serving in missions. (1) In the coming years the numbers of women would continue to climb until women in some areas outnumbered men by 2:1. (2) Statistical studies on the topic are few, but one in the late 1980s, a survey of 19 mission agencies representing 20,333 missionaries, showed that 56 percent of them were women, with unmarried women outnumbering unmarried men six to one. (3) A more recent report, from 2002, found that some 54 percent of Southern Baptists’ 5,241 missionaries were women, about a fourth of them single. (4)
In short-term missions as well as in situations that are considered too dangerous to send families, including many areas with a Muslim majority, the foreign mission force is composed largely of workers who are single, and a majority of these laborers are women. Representatives of Frontiers, which works solely in the Muslim world, report that they are seeing women respond to the call in great numbers. In 2002 women comprised 75 percent of their short-term team applicants. (5)
Anecdotal evidence produces similar numbers. In a 2002 personal interview, a woman working with Operation Mobilization reported that of the 100 people working with her agency in one Asian country, 60 were women and 40 were men; and in ratios that seem fairly typical, these included 35 married couples, 25 single women, and five single men. Colleagues currently studying in Yemen say the expatriate community in their city includes 26 couples, two single men, and 21 single women. We must conclude that women have a significant presence in the mission force: not that of a minority, but a majority.
(1) Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya (Grand Rapids: MI, 1983), p. 232.
(2) Tucker, p. 232.
(3) Howard Erickson, “Single Missionary Survey,” Fundamentalist Journal, January 1989, p. 27, cited in John Piper’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991), p. 23. The foreword to this book, which addresses single men and women, includes some very helpful thinking on the topic of singleness and includes thoughts from a number of single missionaries throughout history.
(4) Mary Jane Welch, “Obedient and Faithful,” The Commission 65:5 (July-August 2002), p. 8. Also available at www.archives.tconline.org/Stories/JulyAug02/obedient.htm. The Commission is the magazine of the International Missions Board, the mission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Most of the articles in this issue deal with missionary women serving in challenging mission fields.
(5) Frontiers, www.frontiers.org, accessed March 15, 2004.
5. Ibid., 74.
6. Ibid., 75
