OK, folks--it's a fact of life that in the real world, people think differently than other people. So what are some effective ways to deal with them? Do you seek to convince others of your position? Do you try to out-shout them? Do you simply ignore anyone who disagrees with you? In short, what's your general strategy for dealing with situations in which two or more people disagree?

You can see the reason for this question: I've been reminding you with increasing emphasis that dealing with the opposition (whether it's formally, in your essays, or informally on LJ) is critical. What I'd really like to see here is some discussion of the ways to handle situations when you have a position that others don't share. How do you handle religious conflict? What about a difference of opinions about the quality of your academic work? Your research projects are full of good conflicts for this question.

Now, a reminder: "discussion" does not mean just replying to the post. It means getting into a conversation, back and forth, with others about the topic at hand. Ask questions, trade ideas, come up with examples.

It'll be simplest, I think, if you come up with a good example of conflict, whether personal or professional or academic, and then explain how you made your position clear and how you dealt with the others who disagreed with your solution or argued with you about your position. I'll chime in with my own contribution to this post after some of you have commented!

This semester i was assigned (for my Sociology class) to read a book called Down To Earth Sociology. One of the articles that i was assigned to read was titled Women in the Military. This article is what inspired me to write about the topic that i choose for our research paper, which was wether or not women should be in the military. Its probably the most resourceful article that i used in my paper. The author actually spent time with enlisted men and women, and really got an idea of how the men and women felt about gender issues. This was a genuine source since it was not skewed my the media, but just real information. That is, the article was filled with quotes from multiple men in the military. The quotes were all about their feelings relating to different issues about women being in combat. Since this was such a genuine source filled with quotes, i used this source more then any other one in my paper.

The article, Female Soldiers In the Cross Hairs is an open ended article. That, is there is no evident information that shows the author leaning towards one side more then the other. Instead this source lays out many facts, and statitistics. For instance as of Dec. 2004, 15 percent of the Actice duty Army were women, 23 percent make up the Army National Guard, and 13 percent make up the Army Reserve. It also talks about the issue of privacy and how women require more of it then men must. Yet it is impossible for women to have more privacy while working with an all male unit. I used this source to help strengthen my knowledge of statistics, and to become more aware of how the issue of privacy unermines cohesion.

The artcle titled Women In Combat Why Not? opposed the the ieda of women not being allowed in combat. It contained information about the specifics of women's training. For instance the females would run 2 miles with a rucksack on their back that weighed 75 pounds, they did 5 times a week. Also how they performed squats with a 100 pound barbell on their shoulders. There were other concepts discussed, but they dident really seem to be that logical to me so i did not include them in my paper, however i might conider putting it in for my final draft. One for example quoted a women who said you dont need testerone to get strong. I thought this just seemed a little to controversial to use. Also discussed that seemed like a good opposition was how tests were done that concluding that with new methods of physical training, women could be at the same level of build and size as men, and how integrating women and men in training would improve the operational peformance. When I make revisions to my rough draft, I think will include more information from this source (since its oppositional).

This article at first came as a shock to me. It was by the Daily News and it gave a report and the background on what happened to Private Jessica Lynch. On the morning of March 23rd The humvee that Jessica was in "crashed." She was captured by Iraqi captors and as identified for medical records she was anally raped. What is surprising to me is that Iraqi doctors deemed "traitors" by Saddam tryed to sneak her to safety in an ambulance. Its surprising since it showed how reblious they were to Saddam by risking their lives in order to save an american. I thought this source was appropriate to use because it strenghtened my argument of proving why putting women in battle situations can have worse conclusions than if a man had been in her position.