QuoteThe Straight, White, Middle-Class Man Needs to Be Dethroned
By Grayson Perry
Paddle your canoe up the River Thames and you will come round the bend and see a forest of huge totems jutting into the sky. Great shiny monoliths in various phallic shapes, they are the wondrous cultural artefacts of a remarkable tribe. We all know someone from this powerful tribe but we very rarely, if ever, ascribe their power to the fact that they have a particular tribal identity.
I think this tribe, a small minority of our native population, needs closer examination. In the UK, its members probably make up about 10 percent of the population (see infographic below); globally, probably less than 1 percent. In a phrase used more often in association with Operation Yewtree, they are among us and hide in plain sight.
They dominate the upper echelons of our society, imposing, unconsciously or otherwise, their values and preferences on the rest of the population. With their colourful textile phalluses hanging round their necks, they make up an overwhelming majority in government, in boardrooms, and also in the media.
They are, of course, white, middle-class, heterosexual men, usually middle-aged. And every component of that description has historically played a part in making this tribe a group that punches far, far above its weight. I have struggled to find a name for this identity that will trip off the tongue, or that doesn't clutter the page with unpronounceable acronyms such as WMCMAHM. "The White Blob" was a strong contender but in the end I opted to call him Default Man. I like the word "default," for not only does it mean "the result of not making an active choice," but two of its synonyms are "failure to pay" and "evasion," which seems incredibly appropriate, considering the group I wish to talk about.
Today, in politically correct 21st-century Britain, you might think things would have changed but somehow the Great White Male has thrived and continues to colonize the high-status, high-earning, high-power roles (93 percent of executive directors in the UK are white men; 77 percent of parliament is male). The Great White Male's combination of good education, manners, charm, confidence, and sexual attractiveness (or "money," as I like to call it) means he has a strong grip on the keys to power. Of course, the main reason he has those qualities in the first place is what he is, not what he has achieved. John Scalzi, in his blog Whatever, thought that being a straight white male was like playing the computer game called Life with the difficulty setting on "Easy." If you are a Default Man you look like power.
I must confess that I qualify in many ways to be a Default Man myself but I feel that by coming from a working-class background and being an artist and a transvestite, I have enough cultural distance from the towers of power. I have space to turn round and get a fairly good look at the edifice.
In the course of making my documentary series about identity, Who Are You?, for Channel 4, the identity I found hardest to talk about, the most elusive, was Default Man's. Somehow, his world-view, his take on society, now so overlaps with the dominant narrative that it is like a Death Star hiding behind the moon. We cannot unpick his thoughts and feelings from the "proper, right-thinking" attitudes of our society. It is like in the past, when people who spoke in cut-glass, RP, BBC tones would insist they did not have an accent, only northerners and poor people had one of those. We live and breathe in a Default Male world: no wonder he succeeds, for much of our society operates on his terms.
Chris Huhne (60, Westminster, PPE Magdalen, self-destructively heterosexual), the Default Man we chose to interview for our series, pooh-poohed any suggestion when asked if he benefited from membership or if he represented this group. Lone Default Man will never admit to, or be fully aware of, the tribal advantages of his identity. They are, naturally, full subscribers to that glorious capitalist project, they are individuals!
This adherence to being individuals is the nub of the matter. Being "individual" means that if they achieve something good, it is down to their own efforts. They got the job because they are brilliant, not because they are a Default Man, and they are also presumed more competent by other Default Men. If they do something bad it is also down to the individual and not to do with their gender, race or class. If a Default Man commits a crime it is not because fraud or sexual harassment, say, are endemic in his tribe (coughs), it is because he is a wrong 'un. If a Default Man gets emotional it is because he is a "passionate" individual, whereas if he were a woman it would often be blamed on her sex.
When we talk of identity, we often think of groups such as black Muslim lesbians in wheelchairs. This is because identity only seems to become an issue when it is challenged or under threat. Our classic Default Man is rarely under existential threat; consequently, his identity remains unexamined. It ambles along blithely, never having to stand up for its rights or to defend its homeland.
When talking about identity groups, the word "community" often crops up. The working class, gay people, black people or Muslims are always represented by a "community leader." We rarely, if ever, hear of the white middle-class community. "Communities" are defined in the eye of Default Man. Community seems to be a euphemism for the vulnerable lower orders. Community is "other." Communities usually seem to be embattled, separate from society. "Society" is what Default Man belongs to.
In news stories such as the alleged "Trojan Horse" plot in Birmingham schools and the recent child-abuse scandal in Rotherham, the central involvement of an ethnic or faith "community" skews the attitudes of police, social services, and the media. The Muslim or Pakistani heritage of those accused becomes the focus. I'm not saying that faith and ethnic groups don't have their particular problems but the recipe for such trouble is made up of more than one spicy, foreign ingredient. I would say it involves more than a few handfuls of common-or-garden education/class issues, poor mental health and, of course, the essential ingredient in nearly all nasty or violent problems, men. Yeah, men—bit like them Default Men but without suits on.
In her essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," published in 1975, Laura Mulvey coined the term "the male gaze." She was writing about how the gaze of the movie camera reflected the heterosexual male viewpoint of the directors (a viewpoint very much still with us, considering that only 9 percent of the top 250 Hollywood films in 2012 were directed by women and only 2 percent of the cinematographers were female).
The Default Male gaze does not just dominate cinema, it looks down on society like the eye on Sauron's tower in The Lord of the Rings. Every other identity group is "othered" by it. It is the gaze of the expensively nondescript corporate leader watching consumers adorn themselves with his company's products the better to get his attention.
Default Man feels he is the reference point from which all other values and cultures are judged. Default Man is the zero longitude of identities.
He has forged a society very much in his own image, to the point where now much of what other groups think and feel is the same. They take on the attitudes of Default Man because they are the attitudes of our elders, our education, our government, our media. If Default Men approve of something it must be good, and if they disapprove it must be bad, so people end up hating themselves, because their internalized Default Man is berating them for being female, gay, black, silly or wild.
I often hear women approvingly describe themselves or other women as feisty. Feisty, I feel, has sexist implications, as if standing up for yourself was exceptional in a woman. It sounds like a word that a raffish Lothario would use about a difficult conquest.
I once gave a talk on kinky sex and during the questions afterwards a gay woman floated an interesting thought: "Is the legalizing of gay marriage an attempt to neutralize the otherness of homosexuals?" she asked. Was the subversive alternative being neutered by allowing gays to marry and ape a hetero lifestyle? Many gay people might have enjoyed their dangerous outsider status. Had Default Man implanted a desire to be just like him?
Is the fact that we think like Default Man the reason why a black female Doctor Who has not happened, that it might seem "wrong" or clunky? In my experience, when I go to the doctor I am more likely to see a non-white woman than a Default Man.
It is difficult to tweezer out the effect of Default Man on our culture, so ingrained is it after centuries of their rules. A friend was once on a flight from Egypt. As it came in to land at Heathrow he looked down at the rows of mock-Tudor stockbroker-belt houses in west London. Pointing them out, he said to the Egyptian man sitting next to him: "Oh well, back to boring old England." The Egyptian replied, "Ah, but to me this is very exotic." And he was right. To much of the world the Default Englishman is a funny foreign folk icon, with his bowler hat, his Savile Row suit, and Hugh Grant accent, living like Reggie Perrin in one of those polite suburban semis. All the same, his tribal costume and rituals have probably clothed and informed the global power elite more than any other culture. Leaders wear his clothes, talk his language, and subscribe to some version of his model of how society "should be."
When I was at art college in the late Seventies/early Eighties, one of the slogans the feminists used was: "Objectivity is Male Subjectivity." This brilliantly encapsulates how male power nestles in our very language, exerting influence at the most fundamental level. Men, especially Default Men, have put forward their biased, highly emotional views as somehow "rational," more considered, more "calm down, dear." Women and "exotic" minorities are framed as "passionate" or "emotional" as if they, the Default Men, had this unique ability to somehow look round the side of that most interior lens, the lens that is always distorted by our feelings. Default Man somehow had a dispassionate, empirical, objective vision of the world as a birthright, and everyone else was at the mercy of turbulent, uncontrolled feelings. That, of course, explained why the "others" often held views that were at such odds with their supposedly cool, analytic vision of the world.
Recently, footage of the UN spokesman Chris Gunness breaking down in tears as he spoke of the horrors occurring in Gaza went viral. It was newsworthy because reporters and such spokespeople are supposed to be dispassionate and impartial. To show such feelings was to be "unprofessional." And lo! The inherited mental health issues of Default Man are cast as a necessity for serious employment.
I think Default Man should be made aware of the costs and increasing obsolescence of this trait, celebrated as "a stiff upper lip." This habit of denying, recasting or suppressing emotion may give him the veneer of "professionalism" but, as David Hume put it: "Reason is a slave of the passions." To be unaware of or unwilling to examine feelings means those feelings have free rein to influence behavior unconsciously. Unchecked, they can motivate Default Man covertly, unacknowledged, often wreaking havoc. Even if rooted in long-past events in the deep unconscious, these emotions still fester, churning in the dark at the bottom of the well. Who knows what unconscious, screwed-up "personal journeys" are being played out on the nation by emotionally illiterate Default Men?
Being male and middle class and being from a generation that still valued the stiff upper lip means our Default Man is an ideal candidate for low emotional awareness. He sits in a gender/class/age nexus marked "Unexploded Emotional Time Bomb."
These people have been in charge of our world for a long time.
Things may be changing.
Women are often stereotyped as the emotional ones, and men as rational. But, after the 2008 crash, the picture looked different, as Hanna Rosin wrote in an article in the Atlantic titled "The End of Men":
Researchers have started looking into the relationship between testosterone and excessive risk, and wondering if groups of men, in some basic hormonal way, spur each other to make reckless decisions. The picture emerging is a mirror image of the traditional gender map: men and markets on the side of the irrational and overemotional, and women on the side of the cool and level-headed.
Over the centuries, empirical, clear thinking has become branded with the image of Default Men. They were the ones granted the opportunity, the education, the leisure, the power to put their thoughts out into the world. In people's minds, what do professors look like? What do judges look like? What do leaders look like? The very aesthetic of seriousness has been monopolized by Default Man. Practically every person on the globe who wants to be taken seriously in politics, business, and the media dresses up in some way like a Default Man, in a grey, western, two-piece business suit. Not for nothing is it referred to as "power dressing." We've all seen those photo ops of world leaders: color and pattern shriek out as anachronistic. Consequently, many women have adopted this armor of the unremarkable. Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in the world, wears a predictable unfussy, feminized version of the male look. Hillary Clinton has adopted a similar style. Some businesswomen describe this need to tone down their feminine appearance as "taking on the third gender."
Peter Jones on Dragons' Den was once referred to as "eccentric" for wearing brightly colored stripy socks. So rigid is the Default Man look that men's suit fashions pivot on tiny changes of detail at a glacial pace. U.S. politicians wear such a narrow version of the Default Man look that you rarely see one wearing a tie that is not plain or striped.
One tactic that men use to disguise their subjectively restricted clothing choices is the justification of spurious function. As if they need a watch that splits lap times and works 300 feet underwater, or a Himalayan mountaineer's jacket for a walk in the park. The rufty-tufty army/hunter camouflage pattern is now to boys as pink is to girls. Curiously, I think the real function of the sober business suit is not to look smart but as camouflage. A person in a grey suit is invisible, in the way burglars often wear hi-vis jackets to pass as unremarkable "workmen." The business suit is the uniform of those who do the looking, the appraising. It rebuffs comment by its sheer ubiquity. Many office workers loathe dress-down Fridays because they can no longer hide behind a suit. They might have to expose something of their messy selves through their "casual" clothes. Modern, overprofessionalized politicians, having spent too long in the besuited tribal compound, find casual dress very difficult to get right convincingly. David Cameron, while ruining Converse basketball shoes for the rest of us, never seemed to me as if he belonged in a pair.
When I am out and about in an eye-catching frock, men often remark to me, "Oh, I wish I could dress like you and did not have to wear a boring suit." Haveto! The male role is heavily policed from birth, by parents, peers, and bosses. Politicians in particular are harshly kept in line by a media that seems to uphold more bizarrely rigid standards of conformity than those held by any citizen. Each component of the Default Male role—his gender, his class, his age, and his sexuality—confines him to an ever narrower set of behaviors, until riding a bicycle or growing a beard, having messy hair or enjoying a pint are seen as ker-azy eccentricity. The fashionable members' club Shoreditch House, the kind of place where "creatives" with two iPhones and three bicycles hang out, has a "No Suits" rule. How much of this is a pseudo-rebellious pose and how much is in recognition of the pernicious effect of the overgrown schoolboy's uniform, I do not know.
I dwell on the suit because I feel it exemplifies how the upholders of Default Male values hide in plain sight. Imagine if, by democratic decree, the business suit was banned, like certain items of Islamic dress have been banned in some countries. Default Men would flounder and complain that they were not being treated with "respect."
The most pervasive aspect of the Default Man identity is that it masquerades very efficiently as "normal"—and "normal," along with "natural," is a dangerous word, often at the root of hateful prejudice. As Sherrie Bourg Carter, author of High-Octane Women, writes:
Women in today's workforce ... are experiencing a much more camouflaged foe—second-generation gender biases ... "work cultures and practices that appear neutral and natural on their face", yet they reflect masculine values and life situations of men.
Personally, working in the arts, I do not often encounter Default Man en masse, but when I do it is a shock. I occasionally get invited to formal dinners in the City of London and on arrival, I am met, in my lurid cocktail dress, with a sea of dinner jackets; perhaps harshly, my expectations of a satisfying conversation drop. I feel rude mentioning the black-clad elephant in the room. I sense that I am the anthropologist allowed in to the tribal ritual.
Of course, this weird minority, these curiously dominant white males, are anything but normal. "Normal," as Carl Jung said, "is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful." They like to keep their abnormal power low-key: the higher the power, the duller the suit and tie, a Mercedes rather than a Rolls, just another old man chatting casually to prime ministers at the wedding of a tabloid editor.
Revolution is happening. I am loath to use the R word because bearded young men usually characterize it as sudden and violent. But that is just another unhelpful cliché. I feel real revolutions happen thoughtfully in peacetime. A move away from the dominance of Default Man is happening, but way too slowly. Such changes in society seem to happen at a pace set by incremental shifts in the animal spirits of the population. I have heard many of the "rational" (i.e., male) arguments against quotas and positive discrimination but I feel it is a necessary fudge to enable just change to happen in the foreseeable future. At the present rate of change it will take more than a hundred years before the UK parliament is 50 percent female.
The outcry against positive discrimination is the wail of someone who is having their privilege taken away. For talented black, female, and working-class people to take their just place in the limited seats of power, some of those Default Men are going to have to give up their seats.
Perhaps Default Man needs to step down from some of his most celebrated roles. I'd happily watch a gay black James Bond and an all-female Top Gear, QI or Have I Got News for You. Jeremy Paxman should have been replaced by a woman on Newsnight. More importantly, we need a quota of MPs who (shock) have not been to university but have worked on the shop floor of key industries; have had life experiences that reflect their constituents'; who actually represent the country rather than just a narrow idea of what a politician looks like. The ridiculousness of objections to quotas would become clear if you were to suggest that, instead of calling it affirmative action, we adopted "Proportionate Default Man Quotas" for government and business. We are wasting talent. Women make up a majority of graduates in such relevant fields as law.
Default Man seems to be the embodiment of George Bernard Shaw's unreasonable man: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to make the world adapt to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
Default Man's days may be numbered; a lot of his habits are seen at best as old-fashioned or quaint and at worst as redundant, dangerous or criminal. He carries a raft of unhelpful habits and attitudes gifted to him from history—adrenalin addiction, a need for certainty, snobbery, emotional constipation, and an overdeveloped sense of entitlement—which have often proved disastrous for society and can also stop poor Default Man from leading a fulfilling life.
Earlier this year, at the Being A Man festival at the Southbank Centre in London, I gave a talk on masculinity called: "Men, Sit Down for your Rights!". A jokey title, yes, but one making a serious point: that perhaps, if men were to loosen their grip on power, there might be some benefits for them. The straitjacket of the Default Man identity is not necessarily one happily donned by all members of the tribe: many struggle with the bad fit of being leader, provider, status hunter, sexual predator, respectable, and dignified symbol of straight achievement. Maybe the "invisible weightless backpack" that the U.S. feminist Peggy McIntosh uses to describe white privilege, full of "special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks," does weigh rather a lot after all.
A fun article.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119799/straight-white-middle-class-default-man-needs-be-dethroned
They beat you to it, dumbass.
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 02:12:46 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 12, 2014, 02:11:24 PM
They beat you to it, dumbass.
Who are "they"?
Presumably the powers that be. After all, your thread title could describe Seed's life story.
And I didn't even have get a chance to enjoy it.
Besides Marti, shouldn't you just find an article about just killing off straights? I mean, you're male and middle-class, even for Poland. That's 2/3rds, you fail the drop test, bitch.
.......and you are Irish CdM and I did a stretch as a coal miner...........we are united in wictimhood :w00t:
I say it's time for the transvestite British artist to be dethroned. Or at least have his blog taken away.
the author sounds fat
I'm at a loss to understand why he thinks being an MP or an executive director is "high-status" :hmm:
Most people in the UK think they are bastards.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F4.bp.blogspot.com%2F-Jpm9qEEExK0%2FUcCeEpSBx_I%2FAAAAAAAATWU%2FnDT1Q3gDbfo%2Fs1600%2FPOSTER%2BLENIN%2B5.jpg&hash=7f59c66c3e97ea18caeaa7c01ccee872d2fadaeb)
Can one of you other straight white dudes please PM me where the office is to sign up for these benefits? I must have missed a memo somewhere.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 12, 2014, 02:27:18 PM
Besides Marti, shouldn't you just find an article about just killing off straights? I mean, you're male and middle-class, even for Poland. That's 2/3rds, you fail the drop test, bitch.
I never said I agree with the article in its entirety. I just thought it was thought provoking.
Besides, the missing 1/3 does make a difference. I could tell you some stories from my professional life, but alas I am not a member of the TBR anymore.
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.
I'm not so sure about the white angle there. Public school educated would be a better insert.
Poor white males probably have it worst since they don't have many special programmes to help boost them up.
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?
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 12, 2014, 03:18:08 PM
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). :huh:
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:21:18 PM
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).
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:22:09 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on October 12, 2014, 03:18:08 PM
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). :huh:
He wears women's clothes though, so he is oppressed.
And here is an interesting article from WSJ on this very issue:
QuoteWhere 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.
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:21:18 PM
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.
By all means I hear Sierra Leone is nice this time of year.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:35:59 PM
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:21:18 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 12, 2014, 03:41:28 PM
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?
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:39:26 PM
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.
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.
I read it.
QuoteWhile 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.
QuoteWould 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.
Quote from: Viking on October 12, 2014, 03:55:24 PM
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.
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.
I think public school together with upper class status are either or both still more important in the UK, than race or sexual orientation in the context described in the OP.
I don't mind being "dethroned". Of course I would like to have a throne first. Maybe try it out for a few years.
Incidentally, the Grayson Perry article was originally in the New Statesman and is part of an issue that he guest-edited.
http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/grayson-perry-rise-and-fall-default-man
It's hard being the king. :(
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on October 12, 2014, 04:03:15 PM
Quote from: Viking on October 12, 2014, 03:55:24 PM
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.
Really? :rolleyes:
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on October 12, 2014, 02:29:31 PM
.......and you are Irish CdM and I did a stretch as a coal miner...........we are united in wictimhood :w00t:
lol "wictim".
Quote from: Martinus on October 13, 2014, 12:53:32 AM
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on October 12, 2014, 04:03:15 PM
Quote from: Viking on October 12, 2014, 03:55:24 PM
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.
Really? :rolleyes:
Hey, you are quoting communist mottos in the other thread, and then this article... Plus considering your hard-on for the Pope, and its clear you are fast-way to become the absolute classic Eastern European middle-aged man: bigot and socialist.
So, is Marty a communist in disguise?
The middle class is being destroyed and wages are stagnating and unemployment is high all over the first world. The middle class has not been on a throne for quite some time.
Quote from: Viking on October 12, 2014, 03:55:24 PM
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.
Yeah...why do the losers need to be toppled from their thrones and not the people on the actual thrones? Bizarre. Are the straight white male temp workers or migrant farm hands need to be taken down a peg or two next?
Ed spends a lot of time on the throne.
Quote from: derspiess on October 14, 2014, 09:37:41 PM
Ed spends a lot of time on the throne.
Yeah but he is not Middle Class. Middle Class people work for a living.
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 02:08:44 PM
Quote
A jokey title, yes, but one making a serious point: that perhaps, if men were to loosen their grip on power, there might be some benefits for them.
Ok where is my agency in that? I don't any power and having people who look like me have power doesn't seem to be doing me much good. I mean sure I have the privilege of not putting up with as much bullshit as other people, but putting up with less shit seems like a strange privilege or power. I would rather everybody just didn't have to put up with shit. But hey sure lets somehow erm...loosen my grip on power.
I think people nowadays just like dethroning everybody.
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:21:18 PM
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).
Because CEOs tend to be older? I guess I would be more interested in how many of the junior executives and the people on their way up are gay.
Quote from: Valmy on October 14, 2014, 09:56:31 PM
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:23:18 PM
Yeah. So why so few of Fortune 500 CEOs are (openly) gay? Surely at least 5% should be (the conservative estimate).
Because CEOs tend to be older?
CEOs tend to be quieter.
Quote from: Valmy on October 14, 2014, 09:56:31 PM
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:21:18 PM
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).
Because CEOs tend to be older?
That's a bit of a shock to me that there aren't many old gay people. :hmm:
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:02:37 PM
Quote from: Valmy on October 14, 2014, 09:56:31 PM
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:21:18 PM
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).
Because CEOs tend to be older?
That's a bit of a shock to me that there aren't many old gay people. :hmm:
When they were growing up being openly gay was more of a barrier to advancement. Old people tend to be lagging indicators on social progress to say the least.
Quote from: Valmy on October 14, 2014, 10:06:24 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:02:37 PM
Quote from: Valmy on October 14, 2014, 09:56:31 PM
Quote from: Martinus on October 12, 2014, 03:23:18 PM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 12, 2014, 03:21:18 PM
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).
Because CEOs tend to be older?
That's a bit of a shock to me that there aren't many old gay people. :hmm:
When they were growing up being openly gay was more of a barrier to advancement. Old people tend to be lagging indicators on social progress to say the least.
Is there somewhere they have to advance past CEO?
QuoteIs there somewhere they have to advance past CEO?
Nope. I did not realize I was being that obscure. Ok I will try again.
The jobs that have older people often lag behind because those people started their career paths in the past when older social structures were in place.
Ah - there are fewer gay ceos because their weakness as it was, was discovered and that prevented them from advancing?
It's also important to remember that it wasn't fashionable to be gay when they were in their formative years. And people didn't crave victimhood in the same way.
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:39:52 PM
Ah - there are fewer gay ceos because their weakness as it was, was discovered and that prevented them from advancing?
Blackmailed by the FBI.
Ok they are not that old.
Quote from: Neil on October 14, 2014, 10:40:59 PM
It's also important to remember that it wasn't fashionable to be gay when they were in their formative years. And people didn't crave victimhood in the same way.
Well yes in the past the proper plan would be to get married have the kids while secreting lusting/festering inside.
Quote from: Valmy on October 14, 2014, 10:45:25 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:39:52 PM
Ah - there are fewer gay ceos because their weakness as it was, was discovered and that prevented them from advancing?
Blackmailed by the FBI.
Ok they are not that old.
:D
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:39:52 PM
Ah - there are fewer gay ceos because their weakness as it was, was discovered and that prevented them from advancing?
Stop being obtuse. You know damned well pillowbiting is a lot more accepted in the workplace than it was 30 or even 20 years ago. Hell, now you get preference points for it in some places.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2014, 10:49:10 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:39:52 PM
Ah - there are fewer gay ceos because their weakness as it was, was discovered and that prevented them from advancing?
Stop being obtuse. You know damned well pillowbiting is a lot more accepted in the workplace than it was 30 or even 20 years ago. Hell, now you get preference points for it in some places.
Sure and many people hid it, had successful careers and have come out now...in more accepting times.
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:45:47 PM
Quote from: Neil on October 14, 2014, 10:40:59 PM
It's also important to remember that it wasn't fashionable to be gay when they were in their formative years. And people didn't crave victimhood in the same way.
Well yes in the past the proper plan would be to get married have the kids while secreting lusting/festering inside.
Those were the days. I spent considerable amount of effort on this project and I wanted it desperately. I cannot believe doing it while being gay. Social pressure is pretty amazing.
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 10:54:46 PM
Sure and many people hid it, had successful careers and have come out now...in more accepting times.
And some can't, for various reasons. You know that.
There is always someone who "can't" do something.
Seedy may be referring to gay CEO's who'd like to come out, but their fear of the affect on shareholder value is greater. :P
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 11:20:18 PM
There is always someone who "can't" do something.
What's your point garbon? That there are no known big shot gay CEO's because of perfidy amongst the 1%?
Quote from: Tonitrus on October 14, 2014, 11:36:17 PM
Seedy may be referring to gay CEO's who'd like to come out, but their fear of the affect on shareholder value is greater. :P
:lol: Precisely.
And I'm sure the liquidation of assets would do wonders for the portfolio in a divorce as well.
Quote from: Tonitrus on October 14, 2014, 11:36:17 PM
Seedy may be referring to gay CEO's who'd like to come out, but their fear of the affect on shareholder value is greater. :P
Is this a reference to the numerous reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook is gay? :unsure:
Quote from: Barrister on October 14, 2014, 11:44:47 PM
Quote from: Tonitrus on October 14, 2014, 11:36:17 PM
Seedy may be referring to gay CEO's who'd like to come out, but their fear of the affect on shareholder value is greater. :P
Is this a reference to the numerous reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook is gay? :unsure:
I have no reference to anything.
Think about it: You're a late middle-aged, captain of industry CEO worth dozens or even hundreds of millions but secretly gay all your life, living the charade of wife and kids to maintain appearances during your long rise to CEOness.
Are you:
1) Going to sacrifice it all to come out of the closet to be "honest with yourself" or whatever, or
2) Keep doing what you've been doing all this time on the down low, along with all your many millions
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 14, 2014, 11:52:16 PM
Think about it: You're a late middle-aged, captain of industry CEO worth dozens or even hundreds of millions but secretly gay all your life, living the charade of wife and kids to maintain appearances during your long rise to CEOness.
Are you:
1) Going to sacrifice it all to come out of the closet to be "honest with yourself" or whatever, or
2) Keep doing what you've been doing all this time on the down low, along with all your many millions
Not all closeted gay people live the charade of wife and kids. And I am not talking about Tim Cook either as he has pretty much come out already (if you follow that stuff), it's just for obtuse straight people who assume everyone is straight until they are caught in assless leather pants on a big float, "there are rumours". ;)
And besides (and not talking about a situation where we are dealing with someone cheating on their wife etc.), already many of you have implied that it might be a bad decision for a company to appoint an openly gay CEO, because of "shareholder value". How is this any less unethical than refusing to appoint a Jewish, a black or a female CEO for the same reason?
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 01:14:28 AM
already many of you have implied that it might be a bad decision for a company to appoint an openly gay CEO, because of "shareholder value".
No, we haven't. :lol: many companies embrace diversit.
I worked for a Fortune 200 company, and the #4 man on the totem pole (lulz), chief legal counsel was openly gay. Won awards for it.
Quote from: Jacob on October 14, 2014, 11:36:43 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 14, 2014, 11:20:18 PM
There is always someone who "can't" do something.
What's your point garbon? That there are no known big shot gay CEO's because of perfidy amongst the 1%?
I think the point has been clearly made in the second article I posted - the old boys networks are pretty homophobic (despite flowery words about diversity spewed by most corporations these days).
The "protecting the shareholder value" is used as a convenient excuse/cover for that - but it is quite unethical to begin with, and likely overstated (I would think the potential financial backlash for agents/companies managing male leading actors who come out as gay is much greater than for companies run by gay CEOs - but yet there are plenty of openly gay actors out there - which suggests this has more to do with the overall level of homophobia in the relevant professional community than with anything else).
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 15, 2014, 01:18:16 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 01:14:28 AM
already many of you have implied that it might be a bad decision for a company to appoint an openly gay CEO, because of "shareholder value".
No, we haven't.
Check out the first post by Peter Wiggin in response to the article on CEO, for example. He is saying why it is wise for companies not to have an openly gay CEO. Tonitrus also mentioning "shareholder value". Only because you do not think that way does not mean you are not part of a crowd who do. ;)
And that's "many of you"? Stop being shrill again.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 01:23:24 AM
Check out the first post by Peter Wiggin in response to the article on CEO, for example. He is saying why it is wise for companies not to have an openly gay CEO. Tonitrus also mentioning "shareholder value". Only because you do not think that way does not mean you are not part of a crowd who do. ;)
Fuck it, you want to read it that way be my guest.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 15, 2014, 01:26:14 AM
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.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2014, 01:29:01 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 01:23:24 AM
Check out the first post by Peter Wiggin in response to the article on CEO, for example. He is saying why it is wise for companies not to have an openly gay CEO. Tonitrus also mentioning "shareholder value". Only because you do not think that way does not mean you are not part of a crowd who do. ;)
Fuck it, you want to read it that way be my guest.
Ok, how else should I read this:
QuoteHow 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.
If it is good business for a gay CEO not to come out for these reasons, then surely, if someone is already openly gay, it is good business not to make him a CEO for the very same reason. :huh:
The fact that you use words "widely advertising" to describe someone who is openly gay is an icing on the homophobic cake.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 01:29:40 AM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on October 15, 2014, 01:26:14 AM
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.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 01:31:16 AM
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.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on October 15, 2014, 01:49:53 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 01:31:16 AM
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?
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. :rolleyes:
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/1011/rich-list-10-omaha-warren-buffett-jay-z-steve-forbes-summit-interview.html
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.
Are gay people pro free market?
Just trying to figure out wheather they are really evil or not.
Quote from: Siege on October 15, 2014, 06:45:33 AM
Are gay people pro free market?
Just trying to figure out wheather they are really evil or not.
:lol:
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 15, 2014, 04:40:51 AM
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.
Quote from: frunk on October 15, 2014, 09:11:16 AM
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 15, 2014, 04:40:51 AM
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.
Quote from: Malthus on October 15, 2014, 09:35:19 AM
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. ;)
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. :lol: :frusty:
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". :P
Quote from: Malthus on October 15, 2014, 09:35:19 AM
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.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:43:42 AM
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. :lol: :frusty:
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". :P
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.
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.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:56:29 AM
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.
QuoteThe 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.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:56:29 AM
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.
I don't know why you would equate lack of an advanced degree with lack of intellectual capacity. If you are already making the monies, no need to get the degree which acts a signifier to get you the monies.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:56:29 AM
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.
Alternately, it suggests that being "well educated" is not nearly as big an asset as is commonly portrayed.
I'm pretty sure there's an old boys network going on in upper level corporate management, but I don't think it can be concluded from the level of education the members have.
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:56:29 AM
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)?
If you are associating above average height with good health and affluence, then you should probably associate it with intelligence as well.
I thought the connection between height and being successful in all sorts of things was well documented. :unsure:
Quote from: frunk on October 15, 2014, 09:11:16 AMFortune 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.
I guess the point I was trying to make is that it would not be the same as a random sample of the population because CEOs are an extreme outlier. You would expect the math to work such that the outlier population has a skewed membership with small minorities like gays being a far smaller percentage than they are in the population.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on October 15, 2014, 01:21:28 PM
I guess the point I was trying to make is that it would not be the same as a random sample of the population because CEOs are an extreme outlier. You would expect the math to work such that the outlier population has a skewed membership with small minorities like gays being a far smaller percentage than they are in the population.
Being an extreme outlier isn't necessarily indicative of anything. If I looked at the population of left-handed, near-sighted midgets I wouldn't necessarily expect it to skew male/female or gay/straight. It might, but that would indicate there was an underlying cause for it, not just merely being an outlier.
Quote from: Barrister on October 15, 2014, 12:22:47 PM
I thought the connection between height and being successful in all sorts of things was well documented. :unsure:
Yes, but is this causation or correlation? People who are well nutritioned throughout their childhood are usually taller. This could be a correlate to affluent background.
Quote from: Jacob on October 15, 2014, 11:53:50 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:56:29 AM
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.
Alternately, it suggests that being "well educated" is not nearly as big an asset as is commonly portrayed.
Oh, noooooo. That can't possibly be the case.
Quote from: Ideologue on October 15, 2014, 03:31:35 PM
Quote from: Jacob on October 15, 2014, 11:53:50 AM
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:56:29 AM
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.
Alternately, it suggests that being "well educated" is not nearly as big an asset as is commonly portrayed.
Oh, noooooo. That can't possibly be the case.
Well, there is an exception for law degrees. Those are a
guarantee of success and high status.
;)
Go jump at a window. It's okay! The glass is unbreakable.
Quote from: Ideologue on October 15, 2014, 03:39:33 PM
Go jump at a window. It's okay! The glass is unbreakable.
:lol:
One of the two great legends of Toronto law.
Peter is right.
Quote from: Malthus on October 15, 2014, 03:42:40 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on October 15, 2014, 03:39:33 PM
Go jump at a window. It's okay! The glass is unbreakable.
:lol:
One of the two great legends of Toronto law.
And the other?
Quote from: Barrister on October 15, 2014, 03:56:26 PM
Quote from: Malthus on October 15, 2014, 03:42:40 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on October 15, 2014, 03:39:33 PM
Go jump at a window. It's okay! The glass is unbreakable.
:lol:
One of the two great legends of Toronto law.
And the other?
The night of the Torys merger party - the night Torys did *not* become Tory Haythe. ;)
Quote from: Martinus on October 15, 2014, 09:43:42 AM
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. :lol: :frusty:
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". :P
Again I would be interested to see the stats on the VPs and people on their way up. This older generation was playing under the old rules. Only looking at the head people does not tell the whole story, only what the story was twenty or thirty years ago.