8 ms·

A Truth About the Glass Ceiling No One Wants to Talk About

87 points by redshoediaries 14y ago

sosuke 14y ago
The author mentioned only two top females Marissa Mayer and Belinda Stronach. How about the very successful Chanda Zaveri we just had a post about? http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130126/jsp/calcutta/story_16488020.jsp http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130126/jsp/calcutta/story_164... I'm not saying looks don't affect interviews, I think they do, but I'd like to see a little more investigation and a little less assumption.
- fatjokes 14y ago
  She's smokin'.
- prodigal_erik 14y ago
  Sounds like she founded the company with money she earned as a talented student, rather than rising through the ranks of an existing company (where hiring and promotion bias takes effect).
- stan_rogers 14y ago
  Not entirely sure that Belinda Stronach fits, either -- having Frank for a father was a bit of a hand up, I'd think.
clavalle 14y ago
So the theory presented here is: = Attractive women are disproportionately hired and promoted. Many of these attractive women are not intelligent enough for upper management therefore there is a limit to how high these women reach in an organization. At the same time, less attractive women languish in the lower rungs, far below their intellectual potential. Furthermore, this phenomena does not affect men because they are judged based on their ability. = Well, there seems to be a lot of assumptions baked into this theory, but one I think is most likely to sink it is this one: Attractive women are, on average, less intelligent and capable than their less attractive counterparts. Seems a bit prejudicial to me. Edit: You all are right, of course -- I shot from the hip. While it would be relatively easy to fill a single position with someone who is both attractive and intelligent, when taken across a workforce (assuming it is a widespread practice -- widespread enough to skew the curve) you would end up with a smaller pool when taking anything but intelligence into account. I've got to wonder, though, how ubiquitous it is when hiring for skilled positions that can eventually lead to management and how much those types of factors differ compared to men?
- vor_ 14y ago
  It's a speculative article, but it does address your last point: "In no way am I suggesting that attractive women are necessarily incompetent. But I am saying that the greater emphasis on looks we place on women shrinks the pool of exceptional leaders we might get tomorrow."
- eurleif 14y ago
  The assumption is that women selected for attractiveness are, on average, less intelligent than women selected for intelligence. That doesn't mean attractive women are less intelligent than unattractive women.
  - gyom 14y ago
    I'm glad someone pointed out that reasoning flaw right away.
  - nathan_long 14y ago
    Yes. More generally, the principle here is you can only optimize for one thing.
- jere 14y ago
  >Attractive women are, on average, less intelligent and capable than their less attractive counterparts. Seems a bit prejudicial to me. That's not the argument being made. The author is only claiming that hiring by a metric other than competence will lead to worse hires than hiring by competence alone. It would be like if you hired the people with the shortest first names. Unless short names happened to be correlated with job performance, you're essentially picking names out of a hat. Pointing this out doesn't mean you think people with short names are less intelligent.
- tempaccount9473 14y ago
  > Well, there seems to be a lot of assumptions baked into this theory, but one I think is most likely to sink it is this one: Attractive women are, on average, less intelligent and capable than their less attractive counterparts. Seems a bit prejudicial to me. No, that's not what's being postulated. Let's stipulate for a moment that attractiveness and intelligence are completely independent. Imagine you have a pool of 1000 men and 1000 women with a standard distribution of looks and ability. Let's say you hire the top 10% of the men in terms of ability, and you also hire the top 10% of women in terms of attractiveness. When it comes time to promote your executives based on ability, you will have 10 men in the top one percent of ability to choose from, as opposed to 1 woman with the same qualifications.
k_kelly 14y ago
Here are the female CEO's of the fortune 500. Meg Whitman, HP (#10) Virginia Rometty, IBM (#19) Patricia A. Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) (#28) Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc. (#41) Irene B. Rosenfeld, Mondelez International Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin (#58) Ellen J. Kullman, DuPont (#72) Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics (#92) Carol M. Meyrowitz, The TJX Companies, Inc. (#125) Ursula M. Burns, Xerox Corporation (#127) Sheri S. McCoy, Avon Products Inc. (#234) Deanna M. Mulligan, Guardian (#250) Debra L. Reed, Sempra Energy (#266) Denise M. Morrison, Campbell Soup (#334) Ilene Gordon, Ingredion Incorproated (#390) Heather Bresch, Mylan (#396) Kathleen M. Mazzarella, Graybar Electric (#451) Mary Agnes (Maggie) Wilderotter, Frontier Communications (#464) Gracia C. Martore, Gannett (#465) Marissa Mayer, Yahoo (#483) Beth E. Mooney, KeyCorp (#499) Ironically despite being low on this list Marissa Mayer is by far one of the most recognisable, probably because as an attractive woman it's a good brand for Yahoo. Just in my opinion, but the most interesting thing the article brought up is the attractive lawyer being fired for being incompetent. It seems like a company could get great talent by assessing women independently of their looks and hiring appropriately.
- _mulder_ 14y ago
  With image links so you can judge for yourself whether the conclusions of the article hold true or not. Personally I don't think so. Whilst I wouldn't describe any of these hugely succesful women as unattractive, I think they would compare to the attractiveness ratings of male CEOs (also a bit above average). Meg Whitman, HP (#10) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Meg+Whitman&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Meg+Whitman&tbm=isch Virginia Rometty, IBM (#19) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Virginia+Rometty&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Virginia+Rometty&tbm=i... Patricia A. Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) (#28) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Patricia+A+Woertz&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Patricia+A+Woertz&tbm=... Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc. (#41) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Indra+K+Nooyi&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Indra+K+Nooyi&tbm=isch Irene B. Rosenfeld, Mondelez International https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Irene+B+Rosenfeld&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Irene+B+Rosenfeld&tbm=... Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin (#58) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marillyn+Hewson&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marillyn+Hewson&tbm=is... Ellen J. Kullman, DuPont (#72) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ellen+J+Kullman&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ellen+J+Kullman&tbm=is... Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics (#92) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Phebe+Novakovic&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Phebe+Novakovic&tbm=is... Carol M. Meyrowitz, The TJX Companies, Inc. (#125) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Carol+M+Meyrowitz&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Carol+M+Meyrowitz&tbm=... Ursula M. Burns, Xerox Corporation (#127) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ursula+M+Burns&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ursula+M+Burns&tbm=isc... Sheri S. McCoy, Avon Products Inc. (#234) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Sheri+S+McCoy&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Sheri+S+McCoy&tbm=isch Deanna M. Mulligan, Guardian (#250) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Deanna+M+Mulligan&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Deanna+M+Mulligan&tbm=... Debra L. Reed, Sempra Energy (#266) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Debra+L+Reed&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Debra+L+Reed&tbm=isch Denise M. Morrison, Campbell Soup (#334) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Denise+M+Morrison&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Denise+M+Morrison&tbm=... Ilene Gordon, Ingredion Incorproated (#390) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ilene+Gordon&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ilene+Gordon&tbm=isch Heather Bresch, Mylan (#396) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Heather+Bresch&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Heather+Bresch&tbm=isc... Kathleen M. Mazzarella, Graybar Electric (#451) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Kathleen+M+Mazzarella&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Kathleen+M+Mazzarella&... Mary Agnes (Maggie) Wilderotter, Frontier Communications (#464) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mary+Wilderotter&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mary+Wilderotter&tbm=i... Gracia C. Martore, Gannett (#465) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gracia+C+Martore&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gracia+C+Martore&tbm=i... Marissa Mayer, Yahoo (#483) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marissa+Mayer&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marissa+Mayer&tbm=isch Beth E. Mooney, KeyCorp (#499) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Beth+E+Mooney&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Beth+E+Mooney&tbm=isch
simonsarris 14y ago
I'm slightly apprehensive (terrified) about commenting on this topic or any relating to gender/race because it seems like the bar for public crucifixion is somewhat low, even to those who just want to add data or other side-points to a discussion. Anyway, and I apologize in advance if I derail the topic, but I think there's a semi important distinction to qualify this discussion, because I do think the discussion applies just as much to men as it does to women. Casually attraction does seem like less important of a factor for men, but in data that seems to be because height is vastly important instead. So much so that a woman's attractiveness is not congruent to a man's attractiveness, but his height. I find this to be true casually and it certainly has some scientific backing[1]. In online forum threads (okay fine, AskReddit) and female friends have nearly universally expressed less interest in short males precisely because they are short. In fact, I think if you replace "attractive women" with "tall men" you have a slightly better scientific basis for this article, because we can base it on studies and not the author's perceptions of attractiveness. 10% of Russel 3000 CEOs are women, and similarly 10% of (original source doesn't say) CEOs are below average height. Wikipedia says[1]: > A survey of Fortune 500 CEO height in 2005 revealed that they were on average 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) tall, which is approximately 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) taller than the average American man. 30% were 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) tall or more; in comparison only 3.9% of the overall United States population is of this height.[11] Similar surveys have uncovered that less than 3% of CEOs were below 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) in height. Ninety percent of CEOs are of above average height. [1] See especially the "unsolicited messages per week, by height" graph: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination#In_business http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination#In_busine...
- kvb 14y ago
  Of course it's also possible that height and attractiveness are correlated with competence (e.g. because healthy diets as children influence all three attributes), in which case we'd expect to see more tall/attractive people promoted even in a meritocracy (though perhaps not to the observed degree).
  - 14y ago
nvr219 14y ago
If you do a google image search for "pictures of fortune 500 ceos" you will see that most of the women coming up are just as ugly as the men. I think this has more to do with the industry attracting people who are ugly on the inside and by the time they get to the top they just say "fuck it" and let their monstrousness show.
- Pwnguinz 14y ago
  What in the bloody heck are you talking about?
  - wmf 14y ago
    Sounds like a 19th-century-style theory linking sociopathy with unattractiveness. Might as well throw in some phrenology while he's at it.
russell 14y ago
I recall reading about a similar prejudice in the promotion of men. In the case of men it's height not prettiness. EDIT: simonsarris beat me by 3 minutes wit better data, so I'll throw in another data point. In the past 25 presidential elections the taller or tying candidate won 19 times. Before that it is more even, perhaps because it was harder to see the differences.
- erikj54 14y ago
  This is true. There is indeed a biological explanation for many of these behaviours. We are programmed to believe that tall men would infer strong mating partners, or someone to avoid in the case of a male. For females, it is quite similar. Women who possess certain qualities appear more attractive and we generally look more favourably upon them in society. This problem is indeed real, but it is perhaps more subconscious then we wish to believe.
  - alxp 14y ago
    Beware of using biology to explain behaviours when those behaviours re-enforce the status quo. Evolutionary psychology is struggling to seem legit and using it to make 'that's just how things are' statements sound scientific is not helping at all.
    - davidtanner 14y ago
      You're barking up the wrong tree if you think sex selection for height and attractiveness are anything but biological in origin.
- Evbn 14y ago
  How many were ties? 19/25 is already a smallish margin.
bgruber 14y ago
"What does this have to do with the glut of female leaders?" "glut" means the opposite of what you think it means.
- Evbn 14y ago
  We have a glut of female leaders who don't have companies to lead.
ggchappell 14y ago
Is the author here? If so, a note: > What does this have to do with the glut of female leaders? "Glut" is the wrong word; it means too many. You might replace it with "lack", "dearth", or "paucity".
j45 14y ago
Born into the most visible of minorities, I grew up comfortably and amongst the majority while being unable to change how I looked, or pick the family I was born into, or the color of my skin. The single thing I've seen over and over: The only way ignorance is destroyed is when we take a minute to turn a stranger into a person by first acknowledging their existence as a member of our human family, and if possible learning a little about them and realizing, they're not that different than us. Some truths I've yet to disprove about Glass Ceilings: You can generally only bet on people to pay attention to glass ceilings that also affect them. Too many people don't understand, nor can they empathize very well with those who do. I've learned to generally ignore every word anyone ever says about diversity of any kind in an organization and only pay attention to the actions. If their diversity isn't already reflected in management, there's little chance they'll get there. Discovering Glass Ceilings: It doesn't seem misleading to feel those who are equally capable but an identifiable minority have to be twice as good in as twice as many ways as others to get half the respect. You get the idea. I've spoken as an expert for a particular enterprise and government grade tool across North America. Imagine the biggest corporations and government departments in one room. Get some nice exposure, recognition, people even keep in touch.. Still, my oldest clients are the best, teach me so much about life and living, and I couldn't ask for anything more as I move forward. Glass ceilings as fuel: I figure getting where you want to go with hardwork is fine. It only helps build my entrepreneurial hustle. Sometimes there's a few more bridges for me to build if someone hasn't dealt with someone who is "like them". On the whole, I find this helps me build my ability to connect to people's needs that much better To those who find glass ceilings: Decide if you want to break through it. You can. (Often if you're not the first, you will be the last to try). On the other hand, if you're that high caliber, you can probably start your own organization (and probably should). It's not to say going on your own is any easier -- you just have more ability to find the people who see life and the world like you do. Life is crazy anyways, having better people around makes the extremely tough balance out with the extremely good. I understand this may be heavy maybe for some, but life with depth is where meaning and fulfillment is. If anyone wants to chat about this and is afraid of being painted as a *-ist, feel free to contact me offline or reply here. If it makes you feel more comfortable, I can offer immunity/protection for what may seem like poorly worded questions (but are often well intended).
gyom 14y ago
To me, the main point has to do with the unseen consequences / victims. It's similar to situations where the government creates winners in an industry, where people applaud the act of job creations, but nobody sees the lost opportunities elsewhere because they are not easily identifiable. >In reality, she was not qualified for the job. Literally hundreds of other women had applied, many of whom would have been more competent. The real injustice was not hiring one of them in the first place.
Zarathust 14y ago
I haven't had a long career but I've heard quite a few times "Hey, we'll have a girl onboard!". My initial concern is usually, I'll admit (is she cute?) but I don't like to look like an asshole so I ask "Is she good?". Almost everytime, someone tells me that "it doesn't matter". So yes, the article is right, some women get hired for their looks regardless of what they do.
john_b 14y ago
Interestingly, I just spoke with a colleague yesterday who admitted (without shame) that he recently campaigned (successfully) to have an attractive female hired into his group. I asked him about her qualifications, and he said she seemed capable, but not exceptional. He stressed that, at least to him, her appearance outweighted her abilities. Incidents like this make me wonder if some sort of anonymous interviewing could be implemented in certain industries, and whether the benefits associated with mitigating prejudices would outweigh the intangible benefits associated with getting to know someone as a whole person during the hiring process.
- groby_b 14y ago
  I honestly hope you acquainted your colleague with HR. That's completely unacceptable behavior. (And I know that I personally wouldn't want that job if those had been the hiring criteria)
- mtrimpe 14y ago
  Not to mention that incidents like this debase the efforts of (possibly attractive) women whom are trying to compete on merits instead. As far as I'm concerned blatant positive discrimination such as this should be treated as harshly as af it were negative discrimination based on race.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Google, for example, does not have teams make hiring decisions for teammates.
zacharyvoase 14y ago
Another funny fact about the 'halo effect' discussed here: when rating individuals for aptitude on a variety of tasks, straight men have a positive bias towards attractive women, whereas straight women have a negative bias towards attractive women (a kind of 'jealousy' phenomenon). This jealousy phenomenon seems less apparent when it's straight men rating men.
- j45 14y ago
  These kinds of biases are also interesting and definitely are present everywhere.
  - MartinCron 14y ago
    And yet, people are still so eager to buy in to the (often) self-serving meritocracy myth.
    - j45 14y ago
      Haha, for sure. I believe in meritocracies, but am well aware that what people do, say, and say they do is often 3 separate continents. If you have any thoughts on my other post in this thread, I'd be interested to read.
- intended 14y ago
  Or perhaps, women knowing that women often get promoted on their looks, and aware that good looking women tend to have a warped interaction with reality, are doing the right thing by nuking their chances. There have been several eye opening AMAs on reddit where people had things like gender changes, or went from attractive women to not attractive, and suddenly realizing that they had essentially been in a bubble. Heck I was just discussing this recently with a Neuro Science PHD student and she had had the same realization - coming in to work one day she needed help carrying stuff, and multiple people volunteered to help along her way. She reached work telling her co-workers that reality was amazing and that her faith in Humanity had been restored. A colleague pointed out that thats not normal - and asked her what sex all the volunteers were - they were universally male. Attractive women tend to end up in a bubble of sorts, and it has a distorting impact on their interaction and expectations of normal behavior.
ctbeiser 14y ago
I'm no expert, but this hasn't convinced me yet: 1. The author shows one anecdotal example of the effect being claimed, and then claims that it's a large factor based again, on wholly anecdotal factors. 2. The author uses as evidence that two CEOs that they can think of are attractive. I don't need to go into the statistics to point out how ridiculous this is. 3. Of CEOs who are women, there aren't any exceptional levels of beauty present, v everywhere else in the world. 4. There are several more likely explanations for this effect than this one. 5. That attractiveness is correlated with pay doesn't mean that attractiveness is being selected for. It can also imply that self-confident people are more likely to be successful, which I believe studies have shown in the past. 6. While claiming not to, this article feeds into the narrative of 'attractive women must be stupid,' by implying that attractive women, having clearly been selected for their attractiveness, will tend to be less intelligent. I'm not saying this isn't something that happens. I'm stating that I'm not convinced attractive women getting hired is a primary problem, rather than, perhaps, sexism in hiring and promoting practices, which has been demonstrated at just about every level of employment.
- betterunix 14y ago
  "While claiming not to, this article feeds into the narrative of 'attractive women must be stupid,' by implying that attractive women, having clearly been selected for their attractiveness, will tend to be less intelligent." This is not the right way to read it. The article is saying that if your promotion process selects the men with the most merit, but where the appearance of women takes precedence over their merits, the women who make it to higher levels will be less likely to have strong merits than the men (due to different selection criteria). It is not saying that attractive women are less likely to be intelligent, it is saying that they will be competing against men who were selected for their talents (including intelligence).
  - ctbeiser 14y ago
    Perhaps I'm not being clear enough; I'm aware that wasn't what was being argued,but it did very little to dispel that narrative, which it plays into. Still, looking back, it seems to be a somewhat overblown critique. I didn't feel that it explicitly addressed how an individual should be running their promotion process, but I could have missed something.
southphillyman 14y ago
What's the point of hiring based on attractiveness? What's the probability of one actually getting the drawers? Everyone can't be Keith Rabois you know....
- betterunix 14y ago
  Well, here's a dilemma for you: if you were hiring someone for a position in sales, and I told you that attractive women were more likely to make "the deal" than unattractive women, would you exclude attractiveness from your hiring criteria?
betterunix 14y ago
Does anyone know of a study on this that breaks down the effect between different types of leadership positions? In particular, I am wondering if positions that involve sales or otherwise interacting with the customers or general public exhibit this phenomenon more strongly than engineering or "internal" positions. The reason I say this is that it would help identify where the problem really lies. If it affects all categories of work equally, then I would be more likely to say that organizations themselves are basing decisions on attractiveness. On the other hand, if this is affecting people who interact with the public to a greater degree than those who do not, I would point to a broader problem: that perhaps such people are simply more successful at their jobs, because their attractiveness is an asset in their work (which would make a solution pretty tricky).
dade_ 14y ago
I think change will be exponential. For example, look at the change in the makeup of Canadian provincial premiers. All 10 premiers were men 20 years ago, but now: Ontario: Kathleen Wynn (Last weekend) Quebec: Pauline Marois (September 2012) Alberta: Alison Redford (October 2011) British Columbia: Rita Johnston (1991), Christy Clark (March 2011)
nicarus 14y ago
Explain Meg Whitman...
sheraz 14y ago
250 words and he said nothing. I'm getting so sick of tripe like this that thinks men and women want the same things in their lives and careers. I would like to know: - Of the working men and women, how many actually want these executive positions?
VLM 14y ago
Couple hidden assumptions: 1) Intelligence is a single digit number which can be optimized for, and (even more incredibly unlikely) the interview / hiring process is capable of properly determining and ranking applicants in a ridiculously short amount of time and effort. 2) Beauty (see above, although this isn't as strong of an argument). I would say based on decades of observation, other than eliminating perhaps the absolute bottom 10% of the population, the overall hiring process especially the interview process is utterly ineffective at determining intelligence or effectiveness. On the other hand, internal promotions either select for that, or brown nosing. This made the original article rather comical when it claimed hundred of women applied and they seriously think they'll be able to select the smartest? Clearly, given the proven ineffectiveness overall of corporate hiring process, the average IQ of new hires is going to average 100 or so, regardless if the women are hot or not. So the question becomes given two individuals both IQ of 100 or whatever other ranking system you'd prefer, why do the hot women not get promoted but the men are promoted?
redthrowaway 14y ago
I have a suspicion that there's a cognitive bias at play here, whereby men unconsciously overrate the competence of attractive women and underrate the competence of unattractive women. While I have no evidence to back it up, it does a better job of passing the sniff test than the implicit assertion that men are consciously hiring unqualified women simply because they're attractive.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  >a cognitive bias at play here, whereby men unconsciously overrate the competence of attractive women [...] // Only men? I don't consider it likely but it seems mathematically possible that men are entirely even handed on the appearance of women but that women are highly partial to more attractive women. That would mean that as more women entered higher echelons of companies there would be more bias towards hiring attractive women [for top positions]. If the effect was greater amongst more attractive women - like stereotypical high school girl groups of Hollywood movies - then the effect would quickly magnify until only the most attractive women were allowed, by other women, to attain top positions. I'm not at all saying this is the case but just questioning whether there's a basis in science for your apparently pinning the apparent bias on men [alone]. It also strikes me that perhaps the person writing the story is attracted to power. That would make those women appear more attractive than they otherwise might. A further possibility is that after attaining positions with good wages they then were able to acquire the ability to stay (or become) more attractive - basically flipping the cause and effect.
  - redthrowaway 14y ago
    I questioned whether or not to include women, and elected not to because I simply don't know enough about how their minds work. In addition, most of the people making the hiring decisions are currently men, so the influence of a cognitive bias in women on the overall makeup of the pool of employees would be considerably less than one in men. It may well be that the same bias exists in both men and women, but I strongly suspect it does in men, whereas I have no idea if it does in women.
chimpinee 14y ago
Part of the problem is that we mostly don't know how good managers do what they do (and they don't either). Their knowledge is tacit. And we have to make a tacit judgement when hiring -- which means that memes about gender necessarily exert an unquantifiable influence.
gambiting 14y ago
In my experience, all women that could advance and take a senior/executive/managerial positions declined to do so,because the increased responsibilities that would come with their new position were too much, especially since most of them were young and had a child within the last 5-6 years. It was the case for 100% women I know, both my friends and in my family.
cjmb 14y ago
This is a ridiculously hard issue to discuss, especially with anyone who identifies with a group they feel has been victimized. Which can stretch to almost anyone these days. The only thing I wanted to add here is that the article & subsequent discussion seems to be about whether or not it's acceptable for men/women/other to be judged based on anything except their competence. I think that's what can make this topic tricky - because companies, in my (admittedly limited) experience don't just hire based on competence. Most people would think it was acceptable not to hire someone because they didn't "fit" with the company's culture. Maybe they were a jerk, maybe they were hugely arrogant, maybe they didn't shower, maybe they showed up in a three-piece suit to your shorts and flip-flops interview, whatever it is. So really this whole discussion ought to be about what things are acceptable to discriminate against to determine "fit" and what things aren't. Which I think requires taking a look at what it means to assess someone for "fit" - because I can see how easy it is for "attractiveness" to be a part of that definition. So should it not be? What should - and on what grounds? I think the discussion becomes subjective quite quickly...which is what makes it all so hard to discuss.
ucee054 14y ago
Anecdotal, but in my experience smart girls are uglier and cute girls are stupider. This is verified by comparing 2 groups: nightclub girls and science research nerd girls. As a group the nerd girls are uglier on average, because there are several severely plain nerd girls, though an individual nerd girl may be very attractive. As a group the disco girls are stupider on average, because there are several severely ditzy disco girls, though an individual disco girl may have brains. I believe the reason for this is that it takes effort to make yourself attractive, just as it takes effort to make yourself smart, so there is a trade off.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  There is a flaw in your methodology. You are comparing a group of preselected smart girls with a group of preselected pretty girls. Neither is a representative sample of the population.
  - ucee054 14y ago
    3 Questions then: A) Do you disagree with my position on effort? B) How else is one going to encounter this phenomenon in real life? C) How should I correctly test the hypothesis?
    - tedunangst 14y ago
      Gather an unbiased representative sample of the population. Rate their intelligence and appearance. Plot a graph. I'll also make the following observations. Girls in a club may appear dumber than they are because they're drunk and having silly fun. Girls in a research lab are quite possibly wearing less makeup than they would wear to a club. It's entirely possible you're looking at the same set of girls, but aren't recognizing that fact because the effects of environment and context are so transformative.
      - ucee054 14y ago
        "Girls in a research lab are quite possibly wearing less makeup" Well I think that's my point. The girls in the club put in quite a lot of effort in makeup and dress, and are tottering around in high heels, to make themselves more attractive. (I've seen girls put themselves through comical levels of suffering merely for the sake of wearing heels.) The girls in the research lab are probably instead putting that effort into reading research papers to make themselves better informed. They may well be wearing lab safety gear. "It's entirely possible you're looking at the same set of girls" Maybe, somehow I doubt researchers have the time to get out of lab though.
stanleydrew 14y ago
I feel compelled to include a link to Roy Baumeister's "Is There Anything Good About Men?": http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm. It is possible that there are fewer women in the upper echelons of business because evolutionarily women didn't have to take as many risks as men in order to reproduce. So men are biologically programmed to take risks, and either spectacularly succeed or spectacularly fail. Hence there are more male CEOs, but there are also more male homeless, for example.
- saranagati 14y ago
  how dare you bring biology into a gender debate. it was well established decades ago that a billion year old evolutionary trait is no longer relavent.
lexarchy 14y ago
There are only 18 female CEOs within the fortune 500. The number for the Russell 3000, is a bit better, at about 10 percent. Why are there so few women in senior leadership positions? A deviation from a 50/50 gender split is not by itself evidence of unjustified gender discrimination. For example, there are about as many current NBA players as there are Fortune 500 CEOs. Since virtually every top university has a women's basketball team, approximately half of NCAA Division I-A basketball players are female. Why then are there so few women (none!) in the NBA? Of course, the lack of women in the NBA is principally due to gender differences in the aptitude and inclination needed to play basketball. Based on these differences, the natural split between between men and women in the NBA isn't 50/50—it's 100/0. In particular, if (say) 10% of NBA players were female, women would be over-represented in the NBA. It's entirely possible that, based on the aptitude and inclination needed to be a Fortune 500 CEO, the natural gender split is the same as the split in the NBA. In other words, women may very well be over-represented among Fortune 500 CEOs. Indeed, given the current official policy of the United States Government for gender-based (pro-female) affirmative action, this would even appear to be the null hypothesis. One might just as reasonably ask, "Why are there so many women in senior leadership positions?"
boboblong 14y ago
There's a simpler explanation. Women clump toward the mean on many metrics, while the distribution for men is much more spread out.

The author mentioned only two top females Marissa Mayer and Belinda Stronach. How about the very successful Chanda Zaveri we just had a post about? http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130126/jsp/calcutta/story_16488020.jsp http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130126/jsp/calcutta/story_164... I'm not saying looks don't affect interviews, I think they do, but I'd like to see a little more investigation and a little less assumption.

fatjokes 14y ago
She's smokin'.
prodigal_erik 14y ago
Sounds like she founded the company with money she earned as a talented student, rather than rising through the ranks of an existing company (where hiring and promotion bias takes effect).
stan_rogers 14y ago
Not entirely sure that Belinda Stronach fits, either -- having Frank for a father was a bit of a hand up, I'd think.

clavalle 14y ago

So the theory presented here is: = Attractive women are disproportionately hired and promoted. Many of these attractive women are not intelligent enough for upper management therefore there is a limit to how high these women reach in an organization. At the same time, less attractive women languish in the lower rungs, far below their intellectual potential. Furthermore, this phenomena does not affect men because they are judged based on their ability. = Well, there seems to be a lot of assumptions baked into this theory, but one I think is most likely to sink it is this one: Attractive women are, on average, less intelligent and capable than their less attractive counterparts. Seems a bit prejudicial to me. Edit: You all are right, of course -- I shot from the hip. While it would be relatively easy to fill a single position with someone who is both attractive and intelligent, when taken across a workforce (assuming it is a widespread practice -- widespread enough to skew the curve) you would end up with a smaller pool when taking anything but intelligence into account. I've got to wonder, though, how ubiquitous it is when hiring for skilled positions that can eventually lead to management and how much those types of factors differ compared to men?

vor_ 14y ago
It's a speculative article, but it does address your last point: "In no way am I suggesting that attractive women are necessarily incompetent. But I am saying that the greater emphasis on looks we place on women shrinks the pool of exceptional leaders we might get tomorrow."
eurleif 14y ago
The assumption is that women selected for attractiveness are, on average, less intelligent than women selected for intelligence. That doesn't mean attractive women are less intelligent than unattractive women.
- gyom 14y ago
  I'm glad someone pointed out that reasoning flaw right away.
- nathan_long 14y ago
  Yes. More generally, the principle here is you can only optimize for one thing.
jere 14y ago
>Attractive women are, on average, less intelligent and capable than their less attractive counterparts. Seems a bit prejudicial to me. That's not the argument being made. The author is only claiming that hiring by a metric other than competence will lead to worse hires than hiring by competence alone. It would be like if you hired the people with the shortest first names. Unless short names happened to be correlated with job performance, you're essentially picking names out of a hat. Pointing this out doesn't mean you think people with short names are less intelligent.
tempaccount9473 14y ago
> Well, there seems to be a lot of assumptions baked into this theory, but one I think is most likely to sink it is this one: Attractive women are, on average, less intelligent and capable than their less attractive counterparts. Seems a bit prejudicial to me. No, that's not what's being postulated. Let's stipulate for a moment that attractiveness and intelligence are completely independent. Imagine you have a pool of 1000 men and 1000 women with a standard distribution of looks and ability. Let's say you hire the top 10% of the men in terms of ability, and you also hire the top 10% of women in terms of attractiveness. When it comes time to promote your executives based on ability, you will have 10 men in the top one percent of ability to choose from, as opposed to 1 woman with the same qualifications.

k_kelly 14y ago

Here are the female CEO's of the fortune 500. Meg Whitman, HP (#10) Virginia Rometty, IBM (#19) Patricia A. Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) (#28) Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc. (#41) Irene B. Rosenfeld, Mondelez International Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin (#58) Ellen J. Kullman, DuPont (#72) Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics (#92) Carol M. Meyrowitz, The TJX Companies, Inc. (#125) Ursula M. Burns, Xerox Corporation (#127) Sheri S. McCoy, Avon Products Inc. (#234) Deanna M. Mulligan, Guardian (#250) Debra L. Reed, Sempra Energy (#266) Denise M. Morrison, Campbell Soup (#334) Ilene Gordon, Ingredion Incorproated (#390) Heather Bresch, Mylan (#396) Kathleen M. Mazzarella, Graybar Electric (#451) Mary Agnes (Maggie) Wilderotter, Frontier Communications (#464) Gracia C. Martore, Gannett (#465) Marissa Mayer, Yahoo (#483) Beth E. Mooney, KeyCorp (#499) Ironically despite being low on this list Marissa Mayer is by far one of the most recognisable, probably because as an attractive woman it's a good brand for Yahoo. Just in my opinion, but the most interesting thing the article brought up is the attractive lawyer being fired for being incompetent. It seems like a company could get great talent by assessing women independently of their looks and hiring appropriately.

_mulder_ 14y ago
With image links so you can judge for yourself whether the conclusions of the article hold true or not. Personally I don't think so. Whilst I wouldn't describe any of these hugely succesful women as unattractive, I think they would compare to the attractiveness ratings of male CEOs (also a bit above average). Meg Whitman, HP (#10) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Meg+Whitman&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Meg+Whitman&tbm=isch Virginia Rometty, IBM (#19) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Virginia+Rometty&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Virginia+Rometty&tbm=i... Patricia A. Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) (#28) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Patricia+A+Woertz&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Patricia+A+Woertz&tbm=... Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc. (#41) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Indra+K+Nooyi&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Indra+K+Nooyi&tbm=isch Irene B. Rosenfeld, Mondelez International https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Irene+B+Rosenfeld&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Irene+B+Rosenfeld&tbm=... Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin (#58) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marillyn+Hewson&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marillyn+Hewson&tbm=is... Ellen J. Kullman, DuPont (#72) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ellen+J+Kullman&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ellen+J+Kullman&tbm=is... Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics (#92) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Phebe+Novakovic&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Phebe+Novakovic&tbm=is... Carol M. Meyrowitz, The TJX Companies, Inc. (#125) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Carol+M+Meyrowitz&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Carol+M+Meyrowitz&tbm=... Ursula M. Burns, Xerox Corporation (#127) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ursula+M+Burns&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ursula+M+Burns&tbm=isc... Sheri S. McCoy, Avon Products Inc. (#234) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Sheri+S+McCoy&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Sheri+S+McCoy&tbm=isch Deanna M. Mulligan, Guardian (#250) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Deanna+M+Mulligan&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Deanna+M+Mulligan&tbm=... Debra L. Reed, Sempra Energy (#266) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Debra+L+Reed&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Debra+L+Reed&tbm=isch Denise M. Morrison, Campbell Soup (#334) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Denise+M+Morrison&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Denise+M+Morrison&tbm=... Ilene Gordon, Ingredion Incorproated (#390) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ilene+Gordon&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ilene+Gordon&tbm=isch Heather Bresch, Mylan (#396) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Heather+Bresch&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Heather+Bresch&tbm=isc... Kathleen M. Mazzarella, Graybar Electric (#451) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Kathleen+M+Mazzarella&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Kathleen+M+Mazzarella&... Mary Agnes (Maggie) Wilderotter, Frontier Communications (#464) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mary+Wilderotter&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mary+Wilderotter&tbm=i... Gracia C. Martore, Gannett (#465) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gracia+C+Martore&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gracia+C+Martore&tbm=i... Marissa Mayer, Yahoo (#483) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marissa+Mayer&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marissa+Mayer&tbm=isch Beth E. Mooney, KeyCorp (#499) https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Beth+E+Mooney&tbm=isch https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Beth+E+Mooney&tbm=isch

simonsarris 14y ago

I'm slightly apprehensive (terrified) about commenting on this topic or any relating to gender/race because it seems like the bar for public crucifixion is somewhat low, even to those who just want to add data or other side-points to a discussion. Anyway, and I apologize in advance if I derail the topic, but I think there's a semi important distinction to qualify this discussion, because I do think the discussion applies just as much to men as it does to women. Casually attraction does seem like less important of a factor for men, but in data that seems to be because height is vastly important instead. So much so that a woman's attractiveness is not congruent to a man's attractiveness, but his height. I find this to be true casually and it certainly has some scientific backing[1]. In online forum threads (okay fine, AskReddit) and female friends have nearly universally expressed less interest in short males precisely because they are short. In fact, I think if you replace "attractive women" with "tall men" you have a slightly better scientific basis for this article, because we can base it on studies and not the author's perceptions of attractiveness. 10% of Russel 3000 CEOs are women, and similarly 10% of (original source doesn't say) CEOs are below average height. Wikipedia says[1]: > A survey of Fortune 500 CEO height in 2005 revealed that they were on average 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) tall, which is approximately 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) taller than the average American man. 30% were 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) tall or more; in comparison only 3.9% of the overall United States population is of this height.[11] Similar surveys have uncovered that less than 3% of CEOs were below 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) in height. Ninety percent of CEOs are of above average height. [1] See especially the "unsolicited messages per week, by height" graph: http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-dating/ http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination#In_business http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination#In_busine...

kvb 14y ago
Of course it's also possible that height and attractiveness are correlated with competence (e.g. because healthy diets as children influence all three attributes), in which case we'd expect to see more tall/attractive people promoted even in a meritocracy (though perhaps not to the observed degree).
- 14y ago

nvr219 14y ago

If you do a google image search for "pictures of fortune 500 ceos" you will see that most of the women coming up are just as ugly as the men. I think this has more to do with the industry attracting people who are ugly on the inside and by the time they get to the top they just say "fuck it" and let their monstrousness show.

Pwnguinz 14y ago
What in the bloody heck are you talking about?
- wmf 14y ago
  Sounds like a 19th-century-style theory linking sociopathy with unattractiveness. Might as well throw in some phrenology while he's at it.

russell 14y ago

I recall reading about a similar prejudice in the promotion of men. In the case of men it's height not prettiness. EDIT: simonsarris beat me by 3 minutes wit better data, so I'll throw in another data point. In the past 25 presidential elections the taller or tying candidate won 19 times. Before that it is more even, perhaps because it was harder to see the differences.

erikj54 14y ago
This is true. There is indeed a biological explanation for many of these behaviours. We are programmed to believe that tall men would infer strong mating partners, or someone to avoid in the case of a male. For females, it is quite similar. Women who possess certain qualities appear more attractive and we generally look more favourably upon them in society. This problem is indeed real, but it is perhaps more subconscious then we wish to believe.
- alxp 14y ago
  Beware of using biology to explain behaviours when those behaviours re-enforce the status quo. Evolutionary psychology is struggling to seem legit and using it to make 'that's just how things are' statements sound scientific is not helping at all.
  - davidtanner 14y ago
    You're barking up the wrong tree if you think sex selection for height and attractiveness are anything but biological in origin.
Evbn 14y ago
How many were ties? 19/25 is already a smallish margin.

bgruber 14y ago

"What does this have to do with the glut of female leaders?" "glut" means the opposite of what you think it means.

Evbn 14y ago
We have a glut of female leaders who don't have companies to lead.

ggchappell 14y ago

Is the author here? If so, a note: > What does this have to do with the glut of female leaders? "Glut" is the wrong word; it means too many. You might replace it with "lack", "dearth", or "paucity".

j45 14y ago

Born into the most visible of minorities, I grew up comfortably and amongst the majority while being unable to change how I looked, or pick the family I was born into, or the color of my skin. The single thing I've seen over and over: The only way ignorance is destroyed is when we take a minute to turn a stranger into a person by first acknowledging their existence as a member of our human family, and if possible learning a little about them and realizing, they're not that different than us. Some truths I've yet to disprove about Glass Ceilings: You can generally only bet on people to pay attention to glass ceilings that also affect them. Too many people don't understand, nor can they empathize very well with those who do. I've learned to generally ignore every word anyone ever says about diversity of any kind in an organization and only pay attention to the actions. If their diversity isn't already reflected in management, there's little chance they'll get there. Discovering Glass Ceilings: It doesn't seem misleading to feel those who are equally capable but an identifiable minority have to be twice as good in as twice as many ways as others to get half the respect. You get the idea. I've spoken as an expert for a particular enterprise and government grade tool across North America. Imagine the biggest corporations and government departments in one room. Get some nice exposure, recognition, people even keep in touch.. Still, my oldest clients are the best, teach me so much about life and living, and I couldn't ask for anything more as I move forward. Glass ceilings as fuel: I figure getting where you want to go with hardwork is fine. It only helps build my entrepreneurial hustle. Sometimes there's a few more bridges for me to build if someone hasn't dealt with someone who is "like them". On the whole, I find this helps me build my ability to connect to people's needs that much better To those who find glass ceilings: Decide if you want to break through it. You can. (Often if you're not the first, you will be the last to try). On the other hand, if you're that high caliber, you can probably start your own organization (and probably should). It's not to say going on your own is any easier -- you just have more ability to find the people who see life and the world like you do. Life is crazy anyways, having better people around makes the extremely tough balance out with the extremely good. I understand this may be heavy maybe for some, but life with depth is where meaning and fulfillment is. If anyone wants to chat about this and is afraid of being painted as a *-ist, feel free to contact me offline or reply here. If it makes you feel more comfortable, I can offer immunity/protection for what may seem like poorly worded questions (but are often well intended).

gyom 14y ago

To me, the main point has to do with the unseen consequences / victims. It's similar to situations where the government creates winners in an industry, where people applaud the act of job creations, but nobody sees the lost opportunities elsewhere because they are not easily identifiable. >In reality, she was not qualified for the job. Literally hundreds of other women had applied, many of whom would have been more competent. The real injustice was not hiring one of them in the first place.

Zarathust 14y ago

I haven't had a long career but I've heard quite a few times "Hey, we'll have a girl onboard!". My initial concern is usually, I'll admit (is she cute?) but I don't like to look like an asshole so I ask "Is she good?". Almost everytime, someone tells me that "it doesn't matter". So yes, the article is right, some women get hired for their looks regardless of what they do.

john_b 14y ago

Interestingly, I just spoke with a colleague yesterday who admitted (without shame) that he recently campaigned (successfully) to have an attractive female hired into his group. I asked him about her qualifications, and he said she seemed capable, but not exceptional. He stressed that, at least to him, her appearance outweighted her abilities. Incidents like this make me wonder if some sort of anonymous interviewing could be implemented in certain industries, and whether the benefits associated with mitigating prejudices would outweigh the intangible benefits associated with getting to know someone as a whole person during the hiring process.

groby_b 14y ago
I honestly hope you acquainted your colleague with HR. That's completely unacceptable behavior. (And I know that I personally wouldn't want that job if those had been the hiring criteria)
mtrimpe 14y ago
Not to mention that incidents like this debase the efforts of (possibly attractive) women whom are trying to compete on merits instead. As far as I'm concerned blatant positive discrimination such as this should be treated as harshly as af it were negative discrimination based on race.
Evbn 14y ago
Google, for example, does not have teams make hiring decisions for teammates.

zacharyvoase 14y ago

Another funny fact about the 'halo effect' discussed here: when rating individuals for aptitude on a variety of tasks, straight men have a positive bias towards attractive women, whereas straight women have a negative bias towards attractive women (a kind of 'jealousy' phenomenon). This jealousy phenomenon seems less apparent when it's straight men rating men.

j45 14y ago
These kinds of biases are also interesting and definitely are present everywhere.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  And yet, people are still so eager to buy in to the (often) self-serving meritocracy myth.
  - j45 14y ago
    Haha, for sure. I believe in meritocracies, but am well aware that what people do, say, and say they do is often 3 separate continents. If you have any thoughts on my other post in this thread, I'd be interested to read.
intended 14y ago
Or perhaps, women knowing that women often get promoted on their looks, and aware that good looking women tend to have a warped interaction with reality, are doing the right thing by nuking their chances. There have been several eye opening AMAs on reddit where people had things like gender changes, or went from attractive women to not attractive, and suddenly realizing that they had essentially been in a bubble. Heck I was just discussing this recently with a Neuro Science PHD student and she had had the same realization - coming in to work one day she needed help carrying stuff, and multiple people volunteered to help along her way. She reached work telling her co-workers that reality was amazing and that her faith in Humanity had been restored. A colleague pointed out that thats not normal - and asked her what sex all the volunteers were - they were universally male. Attractive women tend to end up in a bubble of sorts, and it has a distorting impact on their interaction and expectations of normal behavior.

ctbeiser 14y ago

I'm no expert, but this hasn't convinced me yet: 1. The author shows one anecdotal example of the effect being claimed, and then claims that it's a large factor based again, on wholly anecdotal factors. 2. The author uses as evidence that two CEOs that they can think of are attractive. I don't need to go into the statistics to point out how ridiculous this is. 3. Of CEOs who are women, there aren't any exceptional levels of beauty present, v everywhere else in the world. 4. There are several more likely explanations for this effect than this one. 5. That attractiveness is correlated with pay doesn't mean that attractiveness is being selected for. It can also imply that self-confident people are more likely to be successful, which I believe studies have shown in the past. 6. While claiming not to, this article feeds into the narrative of 'attractive women must be stupid,' by implying that attractive women, having clearly been selected for their attractiveness, will tend to be less intelligent. I'm not saying this isn't something that happens. I'm stating that I'm not convinced attractive women getting hired is a primary problem, rather than, perhaps, sexism in hiring and promoting practices, which has been demonstrated at just about every level of employment.

betterunix 14y ago
"While claiming not to, this article feeds into the narrative of 'attractive women must be stupid,' by implying that attractive women, having clearly been selected for their attractiveness, will tend to be less intelligent." This is not the right way to read it. The article is saying that if your promotion process selects the men with the most merit, but where the appearance of women takes precedence over their merits, the women who make it to higher levels will be less likely to have strong merits than the men (due to different selection criteria). It is not saying that attractive women are less likely to be intelligent, it is saying that they will be competing against men who were selected for their talents (including intelligence).
- ctbeiser 14y ago
  Perhaps I'm not being clear enough; I'm aware that wasn't what was being argued,but it did very little to dispel that narrative, which it plays into. Still, looking back, it seems to be a somewhat overblown critique. I didn't feel that it explicitly addressed how an individual should be running their promotion process, but I could have missed something.

southphillyman 14y ago

What's the point of hiring based on attractiveness? What's the probability of one actually getting the drawers? Everyone can't be Keith Rabois you know....

betterunix 14y ago
Well, here's a dilemma for you: if you were hiring someone for a position in sales, and I told you that attractive women were more likely to make "the deal" than unattractive women, would you exclude attractiveness from your hiring criteria?

betterunix 14y ago

Does anyone know of a study on this that breaks down the effect between different types of leadership positions? In particular, I am wondering if positions that involve sales or otherwise interacting with the customers or general public exhibit this phenomenon more strongly than engineering or "internal" positions. The reason I say this is that it would help identify where the problem really lies. If it affects all categories of work equally, then I would be more likely to say that organizations themselves are basing decisions on attractiveness. On the other hand, if this is affecting people who interact with the public to a greater degree than those who do not, I would point to a broader problem: that perhaps such people are simply more successful at their jobs, because their attractiveness is an asset in their work (which would make a solution pretty tricky).

dade_ 14y ago

I think change will be exponential. For example, look at the change in the makeup of Canadian provincial premiers. All 10 premiers were men 20 years ago, but now: Ontario: Kathleen Wynn (Last weekend) Quebec: Pauline Marois (September 2012) Alberta: Alison Redford (October 2011) British Columbia: Rita Johnston (1991), Christy Clark (March 2011)

nicarus 14y ago

Explain Meg Whitman...

sheraz 14y ago

250 words and he said nothing. I'm getting so sick of tripe like this that thinks men and women want the same things in their lives and careers. I would like to know: - Of the working men and women, how many actually want these executive positions?

VLM 14y ago

Couple hidden assumptions: 1) Intelligence is a single digit number which can be optimized for, and (even more incredibly unlikely) the interview / hiring process is capable of properly determining and ranking applicants in a ridiculously short amount of time and effort. 2) Beauty (see above, although this isn't as strong of an argument). I would say based on decades of observation, other than eliminating perhaps the absolute bottom 10% of the population, the overall hiring process especially the interview process is utterly ineffective at determining intelligence or effectiveness. On the other hand, internal promotions either select for that, or brown nosing. This made the original article rather comical when it claimed hundred of women applied and they seriously think they'll be able to select the smartest? Clearly, given the proven ineffectiveness overall of corporate hiring process, the average IQ of new hires is going to average 100 or so, regardless if the women are hot or not. So the question becomes given two individuals both IQ of 100 or whatever other ranking system you'd prefer, why do the hot women not get promoted but the men are promoted?

redthrowaway 14y ago

I have a suspicion that there's a cognitive bias at play here, whereby men unconsciously overrate the competence of attractive women and underrate the competence of unattractive women. While I have no evidence to back it up, it does a better job of passing the sniff test than the implicit assertion that men are consciously hiring unqualified women simply because they're attractive.

pbhjpbhj 14y ago
>a cognitive bias at play here, whereby men unconsciously overrate the competence of attractive women [...] // Only men? I don't consider it likely but it seems mathematically possible that men are entirely even handed on the appearance of women but that women are highly partial to more attractive women. That would mean that as more women entered higher echelons of companies there would be more bias towards hiring attractive women [for top positions]. If the effect was greater amongst more attractive women - like stereotypical high school girl groups of Hollywood movies - then the effect would quickly magnify until only the most attractive women were allowed, by other women, to attain top positions. I'm not at all saying this is the case but just questioning whether there's a basis in science for your apparently pinning the apparent bias on men [alone]. It also strikes me that perhaps the person writing the story is attracted to power. That would make those women appear more attractive than they otherwise might. A further possibility is that after attaining positions with good wages they then were able to acquire the ability to stay (or become) more attractive - basically flipping the cause and effect.
- redthrowaway 14y ago
  I questioned whether or not to include women, and elected not to because I simply don't know enough about how their minds work. In addition, most of the people making the hiring decisions are currently men, so the influence of a cognitive bias in women on the overall makeup of the pool of employees would be considerably less than one in men. It may well be that the same bias exists in both men and women, but I strongly suspect it does in men, whereas I have no idea if it does in women.

chimpinee 14y ago

Part of the problem is that we mostly don't know how good managers do what they do (and they don't either). Their knowledge is tacit. And we have to make a tacit judgement when hiring -- which means that memes about gender necessarily exert an unquantifiable influence.

gambiting 14y ago

In my experience, all women that could advance and take a senior/executive/managerial positions declined to do so,because the increased responsibilities that would come with their new position were too much, especially since most of them were young and had a child within the last 5-6 years. It was the case for 100% women I know, both my friends and in my family.

cjmb 14y ago

This is a ridiculously hard issue to discuss, especially with anyone who identifies with a group they feel has been victimized. Which can stretch to almost anyone these days. The only thing I wanted to add here is that the article & subsequent discussion seems to be about whether or not it's acceptable for men/women/other to be judged based on anything except their competence. I think that's what can make this topic tricky - because companies, in my (admittedly limited) experience don't just hire based on competence. Most people would think it was acceptable not to hire someone because they didn't "fit" with the company's culture. Maybe they were a jerk, maybe they were hugely arrogant, maybe they didn't shower, maybe they showed up in a three-piece suit to your shorts and flip-flops interview, whatever it is. So really this whole discussion ought to be about what things are acceptable to discriminate against to determine "fit" and what things aren't. Which I think requires taking a look at what it means to assess someone for "fit" - because I can see how easy it is for "attractiveness" to be a part of that definition. So should it not be? What should - and on what grounds? I think the discussion becomes subjective quite quickly...which is what makes it all so hard to discuss.

ucee054 14y ago

Anecdotal, but in my experience smart girls are uglier and cute girls are stupider. This is verified by comparing 2 groups: nightclub girls and science research nerd girls. As a group the nerd girls are uglier on average, because there are several severely plain nerd girls, though an individual nerd girl may be very attractive. As a group the disco girls are stupider on average, because there are several severely ditzy disco girls, though an individual disco girl may have brains. I believe the reason for this is that it takes effort to make yourself attractive, just as it takes effort to make yourself smart, so there is a trade off.

tedunangst 14y ago
There is a flaw in your methodology. You are comparing a group of preselected smart girls with a group of preselected pretty girls. Neither is a representative sample of the population.
- ucee054 14y ago
  3 Questions then: A) Do you disagree with my position on effort? B) How else is one going to encounter this phenomenon in real life? C) How should I correctly test the hypothesis?
  - tedunangst 14y ago
    Gather an unbiased representative sample of the population. Rate their intelligence and appearance. Plot a graph. I'll also make the following observations. Girls in a club may appear dumber than they are because they're drunk and having silly fun. Girls in a research lab are quite possibly wearing less makeup than they would wear to a club. It's entirely possible you're looking at the same set of girls, but aren't recognizing that fact because the effects of environment and context are so transformative.
    - ucee054 14y ago
      "Girls in a research lab are quite possibly wearing less makeup" Well I think that's my point. The girls in the club put in quite a lot of effort in makeup and dress, and are tottering around in high heels, to make themselves more attractive. (I've seen girls put themselves through comical levels of suffering merely for the sake of wearing heels.) The girls in the research lab are probably instead putting that effort into reading research papers to make themselves better informed. They may well be wearing lab safety gear. "It's entirely possible you're looking at the same set of girls" Maybe, somehow I doubt researchers have the time to get out of lab though.

stanleydrew 14y ago

I feel compelled to include a link to Roy Baumeister's "Is There Anything Good About Men?": http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htm. It is possible that there are fewer women in the upper echelons of business because evolutionarily women didn't have to take as many risks as men in order to reproduce. So men are biologically programmed to take risks, and either spectacularly succeed or spectacularly fail. Hence there are more male CEOs, but there are also more male homeless, for example.

saranagati 14y ago
how dare you bring biology into a gender debate. it was well established decades ago that a billion year old evolutionary trait is no longer relavent.

lexarchy 14y ago

There are only 18 female CEOs within the fortune 500. The number for the Russell 3000, is a bit better, at about 10 percent. Why are there so few women in senior leadership positions? A deviation from a 50/50 gender split is not by itself evidence of unjustified gender discrimination. For example, there are about as many current NBA players as there are Fortune 500 CEOs. Since virtually every top university has a women's basketball team, approximately half of NCAA Division I-A basketball players are female. Why then are there so few women (none!) in the NBA? Of course, the lack of women in the NBA is principally due to gender differences in the aptitude and inclination needed to play basketball. Based on these differences, the natural split between between men and women in the NBA isn't 50/50—it's 100/0. In particular, if (say) 10% of NBA players were female, women would be over-represented in the NBA. It's entirely possible that, based on the aptitude and inclination needed to be a Fortune 500 CEO, the natural gender split is the same as the split in the NBA. In other words, women may very well be over-represented among Fortune 500 CEOs. Indeed, given the current official policy of the United States Government for gender-based (pro-female) affirmative action, this would even appear to be the null hypothesis. One might just as reasonably ask, "Why are there so many women in senior leadership positions?"

boboblong 14y ago

There's a simpler explanation. Women clump toward the mean on many metrics, while the distribution for men is much more spread out.