The Straight, White, Middle-Class Man Needs to Be Dethroned

[MadImmortalMan]

I was under the impression that gays tend to be higher educated and make more money on average than the rest of the population anyway?

[Martinus]

I didn't find it thought provoking in the slightest.  It reads like any feminist screed from the 1970s, except this time by a homofag.

The author says he is straight (or at least implies so). 

[Martinus]

I was under the impression that gays tend to be higher educated and make more money on average than the rest of the population anyway?

Yeah. So why so few of Fortune 500 CEOs are (openly) gay? Surely at least 5% should be (the conservative estimate).

[Eddie Teach]

I didn't find it thought provoking in the slightest.  It reads like any feminist screed from the 1970s, except this time by a homofag.

The author says he is straight (or at least implies so). 

He wears women's clothes though, so he is oppressed.

[Martinus]

And here is an interesting article from WSJ on this very issue:

Where Are the Gay Chief Executives?
MAY 16, 2014

When the National Football League last week drafted its first openly gay player, Michael Sam, he joined a roster of recent firsts — from the first out nightly news and morning-television anchors, United States senator and pro-basketball player.

But one major realm of society lags behind: corporate America. There are very few openly gay chief executives at the nation's 1,000 biggest companies.

While some might be out in their personal lives or be widely assumed to be gay, none has spoken publicly about it the way Mr. Sam and other public figures have, which signals how far behind corporate America still is.

It may seem incongruous that corner offices trail, say, the testosterone-fueled world of N.F.L. linebackers in their apparent acceptance of homosexuality. But it serves as a reminder of how, even today, the business world is one of the slowest sectors of society to adopt new norms of acceptance — despite the fact that it keeps out some talented people, the lifeblood of companies.
Just look at the progress of women and minorities in corporate America, decades after the women's and civil rights movements. Even today, only 48 of the 1,000 largest companies — or 5 percent — have a woman in charge. The first African-American Fortune 500 chief executive ascended to his job a mere 15 years ago.

And gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender executives face separate challenges breaking through the so-called pink ceiling. Their differences are often invisible. In some places, discrimination camouflaged as business strategy — "We're tolerant, but our customers might not be" — is considered acceptable. Even as the gay rights movement progresses at a faster clip than civil rights movements before it, there is an overwhelming pressure in the workplace to hide one's sexual orientation.

"If we learned anything from the equal rights movements, it's that legislation and policies are not enough," said Deena Fidas, the director of Human Rights Campaign's workplace equality program. "There has to be an actual culture of inclusion."

Policies are certainly on the books. Today, 91 percent of Fortune 500 companies include sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies, up from 61 percent in 2002, according to Human Rights Campaign. (Federal law does not protect against workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.)

Yet even in 2014, it is more common than not for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender workers to remain closeted at work, among both senior executives and junior employees, according to a new survey of 1,700 people by Human Rights Campaign.

Corporate policies do not necessarily translate to office culture, as anyone who has worked at a big company knows well. "It's beyond anti-discrimination policy," said Nancy Vitale, the chief human resources officer at Genentech, who is open at work about the fact that she is a lesbian. "It absolutely goes to — do people feel comfortable being themselves?"

That means little things, like tagging along to happy hour or casually chatting with co-workers.

"When a straight woman says, 'My husband is out of town, I'm stretched this week,' it's just a professional talking about her life," Ms. Fidas said. "When a lesbian says, 'My partner's out of town,' it's deemed unprofessional."

And it is no wonder that closeted employees have difficulty advancing at their companies. They report feeling distracted at work, avoiding certain clients or co-workers, skipping company social events and having a difficult time finding mentors — all of which can have a direct result on career advancement.

"When you look at the root cause, what is the pink ceiling, it's really this unstated demand in organizations for individuals to downplay their identities and to conform to the norms of the organization," said Christie Smith, a principal at Deloitte, the consulting firm, who manages its center for inclusion.

A Deloitte report by Ms. Smith and Kenji Yoshino, a New York University School of Law professor, found that 83 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual people hide aspects of their identity at work, often because they say their bosses expect them to.

At some companies, for example, there is a belief that bringing a same-sex partner to an event like a deal-closing dinner with a conservative client could be bad for business.

And sometimes it could be. Deloitte has assigned gay consultants to work on projects for clients, only to have the clients call and say they do not want a gay person on the team, Ms. Smith said. Deloitte walked away from those contracts, she said.

"This is the leadership issue of our time," she said.

At the highest levels of companies, the same insular culture that has made it hard for women and minorities to reach the executive ranks also keeps out gay people — even if they are older white men.

"Old-boy networks get maintained by social connectivity, and when you're closeted it's harder," Ms. Fidas said.

That is one reason that having a gay chief executive, or one who publicly talks about inclusion, would make a difference, said Jennifer Brown, the founder and chief executive of Jennifer Brown Consulting, which advises companies on diversity.

"Employees notice every move at the top of the house," Ms. Brown said. "They will notice when a person says a single sentence about diversity, and it signals to people that they are supported by the company."

"If people are still making a choice to hide, people know that as well in certain corners," she added. "That can send a troubling signal, which is, 'I don't feel safe enough and I'm an executive at this company, so why would you feel safe enough?' "

Right now, Ms. Smith said, that is still the signal many companies are sending gay employees at work, where this is not just a civil rights issue, but an economic one — it is the companies that lose when talented people don't apply or leave because they feel unwelcome.

But if change can happen in football, it seems possible in corporate America.

[MadImmortalMan]

I was under the impression that gays tend to be higher educated and make more money on average than the rest of the population anyway?

Yeah. So why so few of Fortune 500 CEOs are (openly) gay? Surely at least 5% should be (the conservative estimate).

You're falling for a bell curve fallacy, I think.

[Legbiter]

By all means I hear Sierra Leone is nice this time of year.

[Martinus]

I was under the impression that gays tend to be higher educated and make more money on average than the rest of the population anyway?

Yeah. So why so few of Fortune 500 CEOs are (openly) gay? Surely at least 5% should be (the conservative estimate).

You're falling for a bell curve fallacy, I think.

Elaborate.

[Eddie Teach]

How many Fortune 500 companies don't have any dealings in countries like Russia or Uganda? Seems like good business for gay CEOs not to be widely advertising the fact.

[Martinus]

How many Fortune 500 companies don't have any dealings in countries like Russia or Uganda? Seems like good business for gay CEOs not to be widely advertising the fact.

Have you read the (second) article I posted?

Would you consider it acceptable for a corporation to refuse appointing a woman or a Jew as a CEO because the company has dealings in the Middle East, for example?

[MadImmortalMan]

Elaborate.

I think CEOs, and maybe even gays too, though less so, are outliers. The kind that must be disregarded in order to form a clean Gaussian distribution. If indeed 5% of the male population is gay, then it can't be expected that 5% of CEOs will be gay. There would be an order of magnitude fewer gay CEOs than gay men, since such uber-high achievers would necessarily be outliers of outliers.

[Viking]

How the hell does "middle-class" get included in this power ranking? Perhaps only to get the numbers up.

Middle class men work in offices in thankless often pointless jobs usually victims of the seemingly directionless random whims of fortune as the UPPER CLASS twits who run the world play their game of directorships.

Marty, this way only communism.

[Eddie Teach]

I read it.

While some might be out in their personal lives or be widely assumed to be gay, none has spoken publicly about it the way Mr. Sam and other public figures have, which signals how far behind corporate America still is.

In other words, there may be a proportionate number of gay CEOs. We just don't know because they don't talk about it to reporters.

Would you consider it acceptable for a corporation to refuse appointing a woman or a Jew as a CEO because the company has dealings in the Middle East, for example?

This is a much more complicated issue than I'd care to get into. But I was talking about self-censorship and not about companies denying positions to gays.

[Darth Wagtaros]

How the hell does "middle-class" get included in this power ranking? Perhaps only to get the numbers up.

Middle class men work in offices in thankless often pointless jobs usually victims of the seemingly directionless random whims of fortune as the UPPER CLASS twits who run the world play their game of directorships.

Marty, this way only communism.

He's from a Communist country.  He grew up that way.  Probably believes in it.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think he is attacking a strawman. If one delved into the private lives and backgrounds of the supposedly monolithic "powerful" there would be many with backgrounds that depart from that stereotype in one way or another.

I first saw him some years ago on Have I got News for you and assumed he came from an upper-middle class background, turns out he regards himself as working class. He is the best judge of that perhaps, but should also bear in mind that many of the people he assumes are clones in fact have complex personal histories.