I'm sick of it starting out Girls V Boys at the start of each series, its so bloody medieval. Men and Women are equal in the workplace why are the early weeks made into a gender war to see who is the better? Why not just mix the teams up from the start and will prevent a mentality of sexism that should not be encouraged

The girls nearly always win, because the BBC urges the boys to act as egomaniacal as possible so they'll look like mugs when they lose, despite performing better on the surface than the girls.

Same every year

If you look at it from another angle, if girls and boys are equal then it shouldn't matter that the genders are pitted against each other becuase neiher group would feel a fear that they're going to lose based on their gender.

i think the reasoning for boys and girls as first task opponents is actually what you have slightly touched upon. With all boys together and the girls together you see the first signs of a hierachy emerging within the genders and the fight within that group first before the second fight with the opposite gender. So argubly the sizing up of opponents in the Battle of the Sexes is as much a battle within the same gender group as it is with the other gender that are their task opponents. As we've seen, sometimes the boys and girls don't unite purely over gender on the first task so it can make for good tv if that common unity doesn't click (because of the stereotypical pumped out chests and sharp claws).

I remember-ish that task with the guy who just ordered his other male team members around in such a mannner that no one liked him and it was the disharmony of the group that helped the team to lose (as much as any skill incpabilty).

Now of course with mixed groups you can get all those dynamincs too (as yes, men can have claws and women over inflated chests and passive and aggessive exists in both genders as does masculinity and femmininty etc) but, I think those behind the cameras till percieve the 'Sexes battle' to be a good old age battle to set the tone of things to come. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with it but I don't think it's harmful in anyway and, ironically, if you think that there are some women in the business work place that don't work very often with lots of other women at the same time because of the one sided gender numbers in some workplaces then I think it's quite good on this show for them to have to work in an all female group for a change. And it's interesting sometimes more so with the women because some can be as un-used to working with other women as some men are.

I think it would be more entertaining from the off if you mix it up, men and women are more likely to argue with eachother then their own gender I reckon, it also gets some running feuds going very early

the boys and girls would not have worked with each other until at least three weeks into the process and will just no each other from a work sense.

They tried it in the US Series 3, where the candidates were divided into Booksmarts and Streetsmarts. It didn't work for me, I much prefer the traditional boys v girls as it adds an extra spice.

I really think the current format is fine. As they say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"!

I say it is broke.

Lets just agree to differ on that then!

It's a TV show. Things can't be too complicated, making it black and white like this is simple. In the first episodes, no one knows any of the contestants and it's much harder to tell the two teams apart if they have both boys and girls. I remember watching the first episodes of US season 5. It was quite difficult fto figure exactly which team person x or person y belonged to.

I'm with you!

In the first couple of weeks it alos us to see any potential characters in each grouprathe than trying to remember which group whoever was in... All girls and all boys is fine by me -(but not for longer than the first couple of weeks - particularly if one team loses both weeks!)

Series 1: men win (led by Tim).
Series 2: women win (led by Karen).
Series 3: men win (led by Jadine).
Series 4: women win (led by Claire).
Series 5: men win (led by Howard).
Series 6: women win (led by Joanna).
Series 7: women win (led by Melody).

So women have won 4 out of 7, which is as close to 50:50 as you can get with an odd number.


Given your premise is wrong, your justification of it is in danger of sounding like gender bias.

Personally I think the notion that gender has no effect on the workplace is wrong, and I find it interesting to see how specific gender-split teams pan out in practice. That said, I wouldn't mind a change. I suspect the book-smarts/street-smarts split wouldn't do, because it plays too much into Lord Sugar's known biases.

One time in the US they let two leaders emerge (by acclamation, as I recall), and then those two picked the teams. That could be interesting. You get to see how the leaders value the other candidates, and you also get to judge the leaders for the choices. However, it means the better leader tends to get a better team, which locks in their advantage for a while and can be dull.


I think it's medieval to refer to them as "boys and girls". I'm not meaning to get at you with this: I know it's what the show does and you are following their lead. It's just a pet peeve of mine. Calling the the candidates by such diminuitive names is one of many ways the show undermines them. Most of the candidates are about 30 years old. Most of them already have impressive achievements. In some years there are candidates for whom £100k/year would be a pay cut. Calling them "boys and girls" makes them sound like children playing at it, rather than serious business men and women.

I'm guessing it's mostly so the viewers don't get confused as to which team is which whilst they're getting to know the candidates. If you have all the men on one team & all the women on the other, it's much easier to keep up with what's happening on each team.

Its done purely because you dont know who anyone is, so its easier to track who is on which team since by and large we can identify gender. Then as we get to know them, they are slowly mixed in together ........... nowt to do with 'equality'

And the twattishness and bitchiness shows up earlier... which of course makes for entertaining TV...

And considering that a lot of the contestants fancy themselves as "consultants" - and how many of us have seen these idiots screw up?

Numpty with an MBA = still a numpty. And when this is exposed in front of OB units...

They did variations on this twice. In Season 5 Trump chose Tarek and Allie as initial Team Leaders (him because he was in MENSA and her because she went to Harvard Business School) and then they chose off first impressions. Allie definitely got the better end of that - Synergy were the more dominant team and four of her first five picks were in the final 6 of the season, along with Allie herself.

Season 6, team leaders Heidi & Frank were arrived on by consensus by all candidates after a mini-task where all candidates were required to pitch tents. There was a certain element of gamesmanship in the selection of Frank as first PM from what I remember, simply because he was so loud and pushy. Overall, Frank's hand-picked team lose heavily early on, but rally to produce the entire Final 4, but it's hard to tell how much of that is innate ability and how much is due to that whole series being an effing trainwreck.

Its Boys Vs Girls for at least the first TWO weeks of each series. So lets see the results once you've doubled up.


I'm only referring to it as its referred. Men Vs Women, Masculine V Feminine, whatever you want.



.

And so does forcing girls and boys away from each other like private boarding schools in case they are caught canoodling in a corner somewhere instead of trying to sell some crap to someone.


And so does forcing them apart so they can engage in either male oneupmanship or female bitching as is the hope by forcing them apart

And the suggestion by a few member that its less confusing if the boys and girls are apart is preposterous. I think you can tell men and women apart from the getgo, and all them have their own little interview sections with their names and ages etc, I think if anything 8 males together and 8 females together is more confusing then four of each with each other

Just my opinion. A fair one.

Gender of winners in the first two tasks of each series:
Series 1: M, M
Series 2: F, M
Series 3: M, F
Series 4: F, M
Series 5: M, F.
Series 6: F, M
Series 7: F, F

So the winning team in the first two tasks is equally likely to be male or female. I'm surprised it's so exact (although, had the question been asked at this point last year, it would have been 7:5, less equal and somewhat against the women). It's interesting how often the losing team becomes the winner. Generally, the candidates who agree to be leader in the first week are either very strong, and go on to reach the final 4 or the final 2; or else they are weak and get summarily fired. I guess that polarises the results.

I'd like to see that stats of losing PM in week one being fired as 7 people blame him for the loss.

I'd also add that the series 6 2nd week victory was due to Stella - the eventual winner - coming over and being PM for the boys

And I'd add that its clear that you're in a minority here. It is pretty well even in the first two weeks.

I think that you don't really have a strong argument here. If the candidates would be split up from the start you still haven't explained how you could easily tell who is on what team.

For me the most interesting statistic is the fact that Tim is the only winner who won as PM on the opening task (and perhaps the fact that only Karen got eliminated early in the process, whereas all the others survived until much later in the show).

It´s probably not that important for the winner to be PM very early on, from memory only Yasmina and Stella were PM´s very early on in the show (apart from Tim, obviously).

I'm not in the minority, DS is hardly representative. Take a flipping country wide survey if you like, won't change my well reasoned opinion.

Cheers.

Give me evidence to the contrary. Prove that the majority of people want a change from boys/girls.

I'm not trying to change your opinion. I'm merely stating mine.

And trying to belittle my own, as if this thread is inflammatory.

Its boring to see girls and boys going at each other. We're all equal so mix the teams up from day one.

I may write to Sugar about this. Yes, I think I will.

It was certainly not my intention to belittle your opinion and if you feel I have done so, I apologise.

Out of interest, have you seen the first episode of the US Series 3? There boys and girls were split up and I, personally found it hard to follow. That's where my opinion is coming from. I just feel that the American version has been ruined by too many changes to the format and I just don't want to see the same happen to the UK version, which is my favourite show on TV.

Really? You can tell eight men (often similar ages, dressed similarly) apart within ten minutes or so of being first introduced to them, when several might have only been onscreen for a few seconds? And eight women, too, at the same time?

Because I can't. It often takes me a couple episodes to get straight which candidates are which, especially as several candidates usually fly under the radar in the first couple episodes. And I pay a lot of attention when I'm watching; what about people (probably the majority of viewers) who aren't all that invested in it? If you have the teams split up by sex - yeah, it's kind of medieval and all that, but it's a lot easier to keep up with which team is which.

"Well reasoned," but completely unsupported by anything resembling a fact.

Yeah, good luck with that.

^^

What this guy says.