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

[CountDeMoney]

And that's "many of you"?  Stop being shrill again.

Well, given that you guys are sort of tag-teaming in this discussion against garbon and myself, I think it is a fair assumption that you share the same views, unless expressly stated to the contrary.

Christ, you're a drama queen.

[Eddie Teach]

The fact that you use words "widely advertising" to describe someone who is openly gay is an icing on the homophobic cake.

Yes, clearly somebody's not "openly gay" unless they're talking about it in Forbes articles.

[Martinus]

The fact that you use words "widely advertising" to describe someone who is openly gay is an icing on the homophobic cake.

Yes, clearly somebody's not "openly gay" unless they're talking about it in Forbes articles.

I am not sure you realise that what you are doing right now is a very homophobic trope (most pure bred homophobes prefer to use the words "flaunting" or "ramming down our throats" instead of "widely advertising" though). I just checked bio notes of several CEOs of big companies - most mention that they have wives and kids. They also take their wives/partners to company events and the like. Are you expecting a different standard from gay CEOs when you are talking about not "widely advertising" the fact they are gay? Is a CEO who has pictures of his wife and kids on his desk "widely advertising" that he is straight?

[Martinus]

Incidentally, here's an interview in Forbes with Warren Buffett. And of course, he had to "widely advertise" his sexuality by mentioning his wife offhandedly several times (that old perv always wearing his sexuality on his sleeve like that). God forbid a gay CEO does that. 

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/1011/rich-list-10-omaha-warren-buffett-jay-z-steve-forbes-summit-interview.html

[MadImmortalMan]

It's a question of probability. It's easier for women to complain about having fewer CEOs (thank you Meg Whitman) because they are half the population. This is a bell curve fallacy.

Now Marty asserts 5% gayness. That might be high but whatever. Your likelihood of being a CEO is about 0.005% in the USA. Counting the traded companies since including every s-corp would be dumb. So say you rolled a 100-sided die three times and had to get a perfect #1 every time to be a CEO. Great. Now roll that one more time to see if you're gay or not. Five or less makes you gay.

Every time you roll, your probability of being a CEO or gay gets lower and lower into near nonexistence. The probability of rolling three 1s and then rolling five or higher on roll four is insanely low but still billions to one higher than rolling gay on roll four after getting the first three.

So, if gays are 5% of the population, then what can we reasonably expect them to be in the CEO population under a fair and equal environment? Maybe 0.005%?

Now, keep in mind that equating it to a game with predictable rules like dice is also a fallacy. Real life has no rules and infinite variables. This is just for the sake of explanation.

[Siege]

Are gay people pro free market?

Just trying to figure out wheather they are really evil or not.

[Martinus]

Are gay people pro free market?

Just trying to figure out wheather they are really evil or not.

[frunk]

It's a question of probability. It's easier for women to complain about having fewer CEOs (thank you Meg Whitman) because they are half the population. This is a bell curve fallacy.

Now Marty asserts 5% gayness. That might be high but whatever. Your likelihood of being a CEO is about 0.005% in the USA. Counting the traded companies since including every s-corp would be dumb. So say you rolled a 100-sided die three times and had to get a perfect #1 every time to be a CEO. Great. Now roll that one more time to see if you're gay or not. Five or less makes you gay.

Every time you roll, your probability of being a CEO or gay gets lower and lower into near nonexistence. The probability of rolling three 1s and then rolling five or higher on roll four is insanely low but still billions to one higher than rolling gay on roll four after getting the first three.

So, if gays are 5% of the population, then what can we reasonably expect them to be in the CEO population under a fair and equal environment? Maybe 0.005%?

Now, keep in mind that equating it to a game with predictable rules like dice is also a fallacy. Real life has no rules and infinite variables. This is just for the sake of explanation.

I'm not sure you quite understand the probabilities involved.  You are calculating the probability that any given person is a CEO and gay.  Nobody is arguing that the US should have a large population of gay CEOs, or that the chance of any given person is a gay CEO would be remotely likely.  However, if you take a sampling of a population you expect it to reflect the population at large, unless there are factors within the sample that would cause it to be different.  Fortune 500 CEOs is one such sample.  If it was the same as a random sample of the population it would be ~50% female and ~5% gay.  It isn't, so clearly there is some reason or reasons for why it is different.  I'm sure part of it is bias within the companies, but there could also be other cultural or sociological reasons for the difference.

[Malthus]

It's a question of probability. It's easier for women to complain about having fewer CEOs (thank you Meg Whitman) because they are half the population. This is a bell curve fallacy.

Now Marty asserts 5% gayness. That might be high but whatever. Your likelihood of being a CEO is about 0.005% in the USA. Counting the traded companies since including every s-corp would be dumb. So say you rolled a 100-sided die three times and had to get a perfect #1 every time to be a CEO. Great. Now roll that one more time to see if you're gay or not. Five or less makes you gay.

Every time you roll, your probability of being a CEO or gay gets lower and lower into near nonexistence. The probability of rolling three 1s and then rolling five or higher on roll four is insanely low but still billions to one higher than rolling gay on roll four after getting the first three.

So, if gays are 5% of the population, then what can we reasonably expect them to be in the CEO population under a fair and equal environment? Maybe 0.005%?

Now, keep in mind that equating it to a game with predictable rules like dice is also a fallacy. Real life has no rules and infinite variables. This is just for the sake of explanation.

I'm not sure you quite understand the probabilities involved.  You are calculating the probability that any given person is a CEO and gay.  Nobody is arguing that the US should have a large population of gay CEOs, or that the chance of any given person is a gay CEO would be remotely likely.  However, if you take a sampling of a population you expect it to reflect the population at large, unless there are factors within the sample that would cause it to be different.  Fortune 500 CEOs is one such sample.  If it was the same as a random sample of the population it would be ~50% female and ~5% gay.  It isn't, so clearly there is some reason or reasons for why it is different.  I'm sure part of it is bias within the companies, but there could also be other cultural or sociological reasons for the difference.

We can tell the population of CEOs isn't 50% women. It is more difficult to tell what percent gay it is, given that, because of societal prejudice that still exists, many people who are gay still do not announce the fact publicly. 

My uninformed and uneducated guess: it has to do with the ages of CEOs. CEOs are typically at the older end of the working spectrum (naturally enough, as usually one wants a CEO with many years of experience). A CEO who is 60 today would have already been an adult in the 1970s, which was when the notion of being openly gay was just starting to be possible; it wasn't until the mid-80s, or even the 90s, that it was common for people in many fields to be openly gay - at least, in big business in some parts of North America. In some places here of course it is still a problem to this day.

In short, an older population of CEOs means most grew up at a time when being openly gay was a big problem. Wait a generation, and you will see the population of openly gay CEOs rise dramatically. 

[Martinus]

Wait a generation, and you will see the population of openly gay CEOs rise dramatically.

Not if the likes of Peter Wiggin have their way and these CEOs, heaven forbid, talk about their husbands in a Forbes interview.

[Martinus]

Here's an interesting page with statistics of CEOs:

http://www.statisticbrain.com/ceo-statistics/

Apparently the median age for Fortune 500 CEOs is 55.

Only 12 out of Fortune 500 CEOs are female. 

52% declare themselves as Republican, 2% as Democrat, 17% as Independent and 29% declined to respond (aka Nazi).

Average height is 6'.

So apparently, CEOs are tall old male Republicans. The author was not that far off the mark - he should have said "tall" instead of "middle class".

[frunk]

We can tell the population of CEOs isn't 50% women. It is more difficult to tell what percent gay it is, given that, because of societal prejudice that still exists, many people who are gay still do not announce the fact publicly. 

My uninformed and uneducated guess: it has to do with the ages of CEOs. CEOs are typically at the older end of the working spectrum (naturally enough, as usually one wants a CEO with many years of experience). A CEO who is 60 today would have already been an adult in the 1970s, which was when the notion of being openly gay was just starting to be possible; it wasn't until the mid-80s, or even the 90s, that it was common for people in many fields to be openly gay - at least, in big business in some parts of North America. In some places here of course it is still a problem to this day.

In short, an older population of CEOs means most grew up at a time when being openly gay was a big problem. Wait a generation, and you will see the population of openly gay CEOs rise dramatically.

As I said, other cultural or sociological reasons.

[Malthus]

Here's an interesting page with statistics of CEOs:

http://www.statisticbrain.com/ceo-statistics/

Apparently the median age for Fortune 500 CEOs is 55.

Only 12 out of Fortune 500 CEOs are female. 

52% declare themselves as Republican, 2% as Democrat, 17% as Independent and 29% declined to respond (aka Nazi).

Average height is 6'.

So apparently, CEOs are tall old male Republicans. The author was not that far off the mark - he should have said "tall" instead of "middle class".

It is pretty easy to see why so few major CEOs are female - first, there is the age thing (such CEOs would have to have begun careers at a time when sexual inequality was far more ingrained than now); but also significant - there is the having children thing. Without a very hefty social investment in equalling the scales, taking time off for having children impacts women far more heavily than men, physically, mentally, and in terms of distractions from work - making it less likely that a women will reach the CEO level. 

[Martinus]

What about the height, which is clearly higher than the average populace? "Tall people having more authority" or rather a bias to select people from affluent backgrounds (which correlates with good health/above average height)?

The fact that they are, on average, not extremely well educated (at least in terms of degrees, if not schools), suggests we are having an old boy network of rich frat boys who do not necessarily represent a lot in terms of intellectual capacity.

[Malthus]

What about the height, which is clearly higher than the average populace? "Tall people having more authority" or rather a bias to select people from affluent backgrounds (which correlates with good health/above average height)?

I suspect the authority thing.

The fact that they are, on average, not extremely well educated (at least in terms of degrees, if not schools), suggests we are having an old boy network of rich frat boys who do not necessarily represent a lot in terms of intellectual capacity.

That, or it suggests that actual work experience plus personality is more significant than having an impressive set of education credentials for top positions. 

Personally, I suspect that educational credentals and the old boy's network are both useful tools for getting in the management track - but to get higher within that track, you need to have the right sort of personality.