Last week my anime club had its annual sushi activity. This year I invited the local high school's Japanese teacher, Cook Sensei, to show the kids how to make their own maki rolls and some bean curd thing that I cannot begin to spell. The kids were delighted and there were over 30 of them jumping and bouncing around, high on wasabi.
The noise level increased to a roar and after attempts to quiet them down with more reasonable tones I raised my voice to a loud shout above the din asking them all to listen to the sushi instructions. This quieted them down for like two minutes and then the roar increased to school lunchroom levels. Cook Sensei had had enough and with a huge, deep MASCULINE voice he said the same thing I did. This shut them up immediately and they stayed quiet.
I have noticed this same kind of reaction with the teens with my male manager. I will say the exact same thing to the teens, in the exact same tone but their response to my FEMININE presence is different than my manager's masculine one. The teens reacted to Cook Sensei the same way. People don't respond to female authority figures the same way men do. That's why no matter what I say to the teens I just won't get the same response.
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