
A Truth About the Glass Ceiling No One Wants to Talk About - redshoediaries
http://throwww.com/a/68c
======
simonsarris
I'm slightly apprehensive (terrified) about commenting on this topic or any
relating to gender/race because it seems like the bar for public crucifixion
is _somewhat low,_ even to those who just want to add data or other side-
points to a discussion.

Anyway, and I apologize in advance if I derail the topic, but I think there's
a semi important distinction to qualify this discussion, because I do think
the discussion applies just as much to men as it does to women.

Casually attraction does seem like less important of a factor for men, but in
data that seems to be because height is vastly important instead. So much so
that a woman's attractiveness is _not_ congruent to a man's attractiveness,
but his height.

I find this to be true casually and it certainly has some scientific
backing[1]. In online forum threads (okay fine, AskReddit) and female friends
have nearly universally expressed less interest in short males precisely
because they are short.

In fact, I think if you replace "attractive women" with "tall men" you have a
slightly better scientific basis for this article, because we can base it on
studies and not the author's perceptions of attractiveness.

10% of Russel 3000 CEOs are women, and similarly 10% of (original source
doesn't say) CEOs are below average height. Wikipedia says[1]:

> A survey of Fortune 500 CEO height in 2005 revealed that they were on
> average 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) tall, which is approximately 2.5 inches (6.4 cm)
> taller than the average American man. 30% were 6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) tall or
> more; in comparison only 3.9% of the overall United States population is of
> this height.[11] Similar surveys have uncovered that less than 3% of CEOs
> were below 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m) in height. Ninety percent of CEOs are of above
> average height.

[1] See especially the "unsolicited messages per week, by height" graph:
[http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-
online...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-biggest-lies-in-online-
dating/)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination#In_busine...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_discrimination#In_business)

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

~~~
wmf
In the developed world I would hope that virtually everyone has good enough
health/nutrition and thus variation in height and appearance is due more to
genetics.

~~~
edouard1234567
Agreed, diet is a poor explanation for developed countries. What seems more
likely is that the discrimination start earlier, in college or high school
where athletic students have an easier time going to the best colleges simply
because they are good at a sport (assuming height is correlated to being good
at a sport popular in college)

~~~
aetherson
I doubt this is very explanatory.

Height is doubtless correlated with athleticism, but it's fairly weakly
correlated. Except in basketball, when you see a group of athletes, you'll
tend to see a range of heights. A little taller than average? Sure. But not
immensely so.

And then, athleticism is doubtless correlated with admission to elite
universities, but, again, only weakly so. The top tier and second tier
universities like to see some extracurricular activities on your record, but
"being good at cross country running" is far from a sure-fire way to get into
Harvard. The REALLY good athletes don't go to top-tier academic universities,
and don't get corporate jobs -- they're on the pro athlete track.

You might get into Harvard due to being a good football player but not good
enough to go pro, even if you were not otherwise academically capable of going
to Harvard. But, first, you're now talking about a small percentage of Harvard
students. Second, I'd like to see some data before I'd concede that IF you're
clearly not elite-university quality academically, BUT you get in on your
athletic merits, AND you go into a corporate track job, THEN you end up with
an elite career path.

So, long story short: Is there probably some advantage to height through the
path you suggest? Yes, probably some measurable advantage. Is it enough to
explain the pretty substantial advantage that tall men enjoy according to the
literature? I can't see how. It's passing through too many weak correlations.

------
john_b
Interestingly, I just spoke with a colleague yesterday who admitted (without
shame) that he recently campaigned (successfully) to have an attractive female
hired into his group. I asked him about her qualifications, and he said she
seemed capable, but not exceptional. He stressed that, at least to him, her
appearance outweighted her abilities.

Incidents like this make me wonder if some sort of anonymous interviewing
could be implemented in certain industries, and whether the benefits
associated with mitigating prejudices would outweigh the intangible benefits
associated with getting to know someone as a whole person during the hiring
process.

~~~
mtrimpe
Not to mention that incidents like this debase the efforts of (possibly
attractive) women whom are trying to compete on merits instead.

As far as I'm concerned blatant positive discrimination such as this should be
treated as harshly as af it were negative discrimination based on race.

------
k_kelly
Here are the female CEO's of the fortune 500.

Meg Whitman, HP (#10)

Virginia Rometty, IBM (#19)

Patricia A. Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) (#28)

Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc. (#41)

Irene B. Rosenfeld, Mondelez International

Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin (#58)

Ellen J. Kullman, DuPont (#72)

Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics (#92)

Carol M. Meyrowitz, The TJX Companies, Inc. (#125)

Ursula M. Burns, Xerox Corporation (#127)

Sheri S. McCoy, Avon Products Inc. (#234)

Deanna M. Mulligan, Guardian (#250)

Debra L. Reed, Sempra Energy (#266)

Denise M. Morrison, Campbell Soup (#334)

Ilene Gordon, Ingredion Incorproated (#390)

Heather Bresch, Mylan (#396)

Kathleen M. Mazzarella, Graybar Electric (#451)

Mary Agnes (Maggie) Wilderotter, Frontier Communications (#464)

Gracia C. Martore, Gannett (#465)

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo (#483)

Beth E. Mooney, KeyCorp (#499)

Ironically despite being low on this list Marissa Mayer is by far one of the
most recognisable, probably because as an attractive woman it's a good brand
for Yahoo.

Just in my opinion, but the most interesting thing the article brought up is
the attractive lawyer being fired for being incompetent. It seems like a
company could get great talent by assessing women independently of their looks
and hiring appropriately.

~~~
_mulder_
With image links so you can judge for yourself whether the conclusions of the
article hold true or not.

Personally I don't think so. Whilst I wouldn't describe any of these hugely
succesful women as unattractive, I think they would compare to the
attractiveness ratings of male CEOs (also a bit above average).

Meg Whitman, HP (#10)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Meg+Whitman&tbm=isch](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Meg+Whitman&tbm=isch)

Virginia Rometty, IBM (#19)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Virginia+Rometty&tbm=i...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Virginia+Rometty&tbm=isch)

Patricia A. Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) (#28)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Patricia+A+Woertz&tbm=...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Patricia+A+Woertz&tbm=isch)

Indra K. Nooyi, PepsiCo, Inc. (#41)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Indra+K+Nooyi&tbm=isch](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Indra+K+Nooyi&tbm=isch)

Irene B. Rosenfeld, Mondelez International
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Irene+B+Rosenfeld&tbm=...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Irene+B+Rosenfeld&tbm=isch)

Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed Martin (#58)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marillyn+Hewson&tbm=is...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marillyn+Hewson&tbm=isch)

Ellen J. Kullman, DuPont (#72)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ellen+J+Kullman&tbm=is...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ellen+J+Kullman&tbm=isch)

Phebe Novakovic, General Dynamics (#92)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Phebe+Novakovic&tbm=is...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Phebe+Novakovic&tbm=isch)

Carol M. Meyrowitz, The TJX Companies, Inc. (#125)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Carol+M+Meyrowitz&tbm=...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Carol+M+Meyrowitz&tbm=isch)

Ursula M. Burns, Xerox Corporation (#127)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ursula+M+Burns&tbm=isc...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ursula+M+Burns&tbm=isch)

Sheri S. McCoy, Avon Products Inc. (#234)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Sheri+S+McCoy&tbm=isch](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Sheri+S+McCoy&tbm=isch)

Deanna M. Mulligan, Guardian (#250)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Deanna+M+Mulligan&tbm=...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Deanna+M+Mulligan&tbm=isch)

Debra L. Reed, Sempra Energy (#266)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Debra+L+Reed&tbm=isch](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Debra+L+Reed&tbm=isch)

Denise M. Morrison, Campbell Soup (#334)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Denise+M+Morrison&tbm=...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Denise+M+Morrison&tbm=isch)

Ilene Gordon, Ingredion Incorproated (#390)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ilene+Gordon&tbm=isch](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Ilene+Gordon&tbm=isch)

Heather Bresch, Mylan (#396)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Heather+Bresch&tbm=isc...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Heather+Bresch&tbm=isch)

Kathleen M. Mazzarella, Graybar Electric (#451)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Kathleen+M+Mazzarella&...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Kathleen+M+Mazzarella&tbm=isch)

Mary Agnes (Maggie) Wilderotter, Frontier Communications (#464)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mary+Wilderotter&tbm=i...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Mary+Wilderotter&tbm=isch)

Gracia C. Martore, Gannett (#465)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gracia+C+Martore&tbm=i...](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Gracia+C+Martore&tbm=isch)

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo (#483)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marissa+Mayer&tbm=isch](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Marissa+Mayer&tbm=isch)

Beth E. Mooney, KeyCorp (#499)
[https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Beth+E+Mooney&tbm=isch](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Beth+E+Mooney&tbm=isch)

~~~
mnicole
As a whole, I think that's definitely a good-looking group of women.

~~~
VLM
The only way we're going to resolve this is some manner of blind comparison
data gathering like the ancient "hotornot" dotcom from a decade or so ago,
assuming the only people interested enough to provide data aren't already so
interested in the topic that they recognize the CEOs on sight.

------
ggchappell
Is the author here? If so, a note:

> What does this have to do with the glut of female leaders?

"Glut" is the wrong word; it means _too many_. You might replace it with
"lack", "dearth", or "paucity".

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

~~~
j45
These kinds of biases are also interesting and definitely are present
everywhere.

~~~
MartinCron
And yet, people are still so eager to buy in to the (often) self-serving
meritocracy myth.

~~~
j45
Haha, for sure.

I believe in meritocracies, but am well aware that what people do, say, and
say they do is often 3 separate continents.

If you have any thoughts on my other post in this thread, I'd be interested to
read.

------
russell
I recall reading about a similar prejudice in the promotion of men. In the
case of men it's height not prettiness.

EDIT: simonsarris beat me by 3 minutes wit better data, so I'll throw in
another data point. In the past 25 presidential elections the taller or tying
candidate won 19 times. Before that it is more even, perhaps because it was
harder to see the differences.

~~~
erikj54
This is true. There is indeed a biological explanation for many of these
behaviours. We are programmed to believe that tall men would infer strong
mating partners, or someone to avoid in the case of a male.

For females, it is quite similar. Women who possess certain qualities appear
more attractive and we generally look more favourably upon them in society.

This problem is indeed real, but it is perhaps more subconscious then we wish
to believe.

~~~
alxp
Beware of using biology to explain behaviours when those behaviours re-enforce
the status quo. Evolutionary psychology is struggling to seem legit and using
it to make 'that's just how things are' statements sound scientific is not
helping at all.

~~~
davidtanner
You're barking up the wrong tree if you think sex selection for height and
attractiveness are anything but biological in origin.

------
betterunix
Does anyone know of a study on this that breaks down the effect between
different _types_ of leadership positions? In particular, I am wondering if
positions that involve sales or otherwise interacting with the customers or
general public exhibit this phenomenon more strongly than engineering or
"internal" positions.

The reason I say this is that it would help identify where the problem really
lies. If it affects all categories of work equally, then I would be more
likely to say that organizations themselves are basing decisions on
attractiveness. On the other hand, if this is affecting people who interact
with the public to a greater degree than those who do not, I would point to a
broader problem: that perhaps such people are simply more successful at their
jobs, because their attractiveness is an asset in their work (which would make
a solution pretty tricky).

------
bgruber
"What does this have to do with the glut of female leaders?"

"glut" means the opposite of what you think it means.

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

------
clavalle
So the theory presented here is:

=

Attractive women are disproportionately hired and promoted.

Many of these attractive women are not intelligent enough for upper management
therefore there is a limit to how high these women reach in an organization.

At the same time, less attractive women languish in the lower rungs, far below
their intellectual potential.

Furthermore, this phenomena does not affect men because they are judged based
on their ability.

=

Well, there seems to be a lot of assumptions baked into this theory, but one I
think is most likely to sink it is this one: Attractive women are, on average,
less intelligent and capable than their less attractive counterparts. Seems a
bit prejudicial to me.

Edit: You all are right, of course -- I shot from the hip. While it would be
relatively easy to fill a single position with someone who is both attractive
and intelligent, when taken across a workforce (assuming it is a widespread
practice -- widespread enough to skew the curve) you would end up with a
smaller pool when taking anything but intelligence into account.

I've got to wonder, though, how ubiquitous it is when hiring for skilled
positions that can eventually lead to management and how much those types of
factors differ compared to men?

~~~
eurleif
The assumption is that women selected for attractiveness are, on average, less
intelligent than women selected for intelligence. That doesn't mean attractive
women are less intelligent than unattractive women.

~~~
nathan_long
Yes. More generally, the principle here is _you can only optimize for one
thing_.

------
VLM
Couple hidden assumptions:

1) Intelligence is a single digit number which can be optimized for, and (even
more incredibly unlikely) the interview / hiring process is capable of
properly determining and ranking applicants in a ridiculously short amount of
time and effort.

2) Beauty (see above, although this isn't as strong of an argument).

I would say based on decades of observation, other than eliminating perhaps
the absolute bottom 10% of the population, the overall hiring process
especially the interview process is utterly ineffective at determining
intelligence or effectiveness. On the other hand, internal promotions either
select for that, or brown nosing.

This made the original article rather comical when it claimed hundred of women
applied and they seriously think they'll be able to select the smartest?

Clearly, given the proven ineffectiveness overall of corporate hiring process,
the average IQ of new hires is going to average 100 or so, regardless if the
women are hot or not. So the question becomes given two individuals both IQ of
100 or whatever other ranking system you'd prefer, why do the hot women not
get promoted but the men are promoted?

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

~~~
pbhjpbhj
> _a cognitive bias at play here, whereby men unconsciously overrate the
> competence of attractive women_ [...] //

Only men?

I don't consider it likely but it seems mathematically possible that men are
entirely even handed on the appearance of women but that women are highly
partial to more attractive women. That would mean that as more women entered
higher echelons of companies there would be more bias towards hiring
attractive women [for top positions]. If the effect was greater amongst more
attractive women - like stereotypical high school girl groups of Hollywood
movies - then the effect would quickly magnify until only the most attractive
women were allowed, by other women, to attain top positions.

I'm not at all saying this is the case but just questioning whether there's a
basis in science for your apparently pinning the apparent bias on men [alone].

It also strikes me that perhaps the person writing the story is attracted to
power. That would make those women appear more attractive than they otherwise
might. A further possibility is that after attaining positions with good wages
they then were able to acquire the ability to stay (or become) more attractive
- basically flipping the cause and effect.

~~~
redthrowaway
I questioned whether or not to include women, and elected not to because I
simply don't know enough about how their minds work. In addition, most of the
people making the hiring decisions are currently men, so the influence of a
cognitive bias in women on the overall makeup of the pool of employees would
be considerably less than one in men. It may well be that the same bias exists
in both men and women, but I strongly suspect it does in men, whereas I have
no idea if it does in women.

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

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

------
j45
Born into the most visible of minorities, I grew up comfortably and amongst
the majority while being unable to change how I looked, or pick the family I
was born into, or the color of my skin.

The single thing I've seen over and over:

The only way ignorance is destroyed is when we take a minute to turn a
stranger into a person by first acknowledging their existence as a member of
our human family, and if possible learning a little about them and realizing,
they're not that different than us.

Some truths I've yet to disprove about Glass Ceilings:

You can generally only bet on people to pay attention to glass ceilings that
also affect them. Too many people don't understand, nor can they empathize
very well with those who do.

I've learned to generally ignore every word anyone ever says about diversity
of any kind in an organization and only pay attention to the actions.

If their diversity isn't already reflected in management, there's little
chance they'll get there.

Discovering Glass Ceilings:

It doesn't seem misleading to feel those who are equally capable but an
identifiable minority have to be twice as good in as twice as many ways as
others to get half the respect. You get the idea.

I've spoken as an expert for a particular enterprise and government grade tool
across North America. Imagine the biggest corporations and government
departments in one room. Get some nice exposure, recognition, people even keep
in touch..

Still, my oldest clients are the best, teach me so much about life and living,
and I couldn't ask for anything more as I move forward.

Glass ceilings as fuel:

I figure getting where you want to go with hardwork is fine. It only helps
build my entrepreneurial hustle.

Sometimes there's a few more bridges for me to build if someone hasn't dealt
with someone who is "like them".

On the whole, I find this helps me build my ability to connect to people's
needs that much better

To those who find glass ceilings:

Decide if you want to break through it. You can. (Often if you're not the
first, you will be the last to try).

On the other hand, if you're that high caliber, you can probably start your
own organization (and probably should). It's not to say going on your own is
any easier -- you just have more ability to find the people who see life and
the world like you do. Life is crazy anyways, having better people around
makes the extremely tough balance out with the extremely good.

I understand this may be heavy maybe for some, but life with depth is where
meaning and fulfillment is.

If anyone wants to chat about this and is afraid of being painted as a *-ist,
feel free to contact me offline or reply here. If it makes you feel more
comfortable, I can offer immunity/protection for what may seem like poorly
worded questions (but are often well intended).

~~~
Retric
_have to be twice as good in as twice as many ways as others to get half the
respect_

To have a really open discussion about this I think it's important to mention
the disconnect between what people think is important and what get's people
promoted. One of the least obvious examples is a willingness to leave.

~~~
j45
Absolutely. Great point. It certainly doesn't happen alone in the one scenario
I mentioned, but can otherwise too.

Generating more value than which you are paid is the ultimate measure.

The poisonous corporate cultures of winning favor and loyalty and trying to
silver tounge their way up the ladder on the backs of others.

------
gyom
To me, the main point has to do with the unseen consequences / victims. It's
similar to situations where the government creates winners in an industry,
where people applaud the act of job creations, but nobody sees the lost
opportunities elsewhere because they are not easily identifiable.

>In reality, she was not qualified for the job. Literally hundreds of other
women had applied, many of whom would have been more competent. The real
injustice was not hiring one of them in the first place.

------
ctbeiser
I'm no expert, but this hasn't convinced me yet:

1\. The author shows one anecdotal example of the effect being claimed, and
then claims that it's a large factor based again, on wholly anecdotal factors.
2\. The author uses as evidence that two CEOs _that they can think of_ are
attractive. I don't need to go into the statistics to point out how ridiculous
this is. 3\. Of CEOs who are women, there aren't any exceptional levels of
beauty present, v everywhere else in the world. 4\. There are several more
likely explanations for this effect than this one. 5\. That attractiveness is
correlated with pay doesn't mean that attractiveness is being selected for. It
can also imply that self-confident people are more likely to be successful,
which I believe studies have shown in the past. 6\. While claiming not to,
this article feeds into the narrative of 'attractive women must be stupid,' by
implying that attractive women, having clearly been selected for their
attractiveness, will tend to be less intelligent.

I'm not saying this isn't something that happens. I'm stating that I'm not
convinced attractive women getting hired is a primary problem, rather than,
perhaps, sexism in hiring and promoting practices, which has been demonstrated
at just about every level of employment.

~~~
betterunix
"While claiming not to, this article feeds into the narrative of 'attractive
women must be stupid,' by implying that attractive women, having clearly been
selected for their attractiveness, will tend to be less intelligent."

This is not the right way to read it. The article is saying that if your
promotion process selects the men with the most merit, but where the
appearance of women takes precedence over their merits, the women who make it
to higher levels will be less likely to have strong merits than the men (due
to different selection criteria). It is not saying that attractive women are
less likely to be intelligent, it is saying that they will be competing
against men who were selected for their talents (including intelligence).

~~~
ctbeiser
Perhaps I'm not being clear enough; I'm aware that wasn't what was being
argued,but it did very little to dispel that narrative, which it plays into.
Still, looking back, it seems to be a somewhat overblown critique.

I didn't feel that it explicitly addressed how an individual should be running
their promotion process, but I could have missed something.

------
cjmb
This is a ridiculously hard issue to discuss, especially with anyone who
identifies with a group they feel has been victimized. Which can stretch to
almost anyone these days.

The only thing I wanted to add here is that the article & subsequent
discussion seems to be about whether or not it's acceptable for
men/women/other to be judged based on anything except their competence. I
think that's what can make this topic tricky - because companies, in my
(admittedly limited) experience don't just hire based on competence.

Most people would think it was acceptable not to hire someone because they
didn't "fit" with the company's culture. Maybe they were a jerk, maybe they
were hugely arrogant, maybe they didn't shower, maybe they showed up in a
three-piece suit to your shorts and flip-flops interview, whatever it is. So
really this whole discussion ought to be about what things are acceptable to
discriminate against to determine "fit" and what things aren't.

Which I think requires taking a look at what it means to assess someone for
"fit" - because I can see how easy it is for "attractiveness" to be a part of
that definition. So should it not be? What should - and on what grounds? I
think the discussion becomes subjective quite quickly...which is what makes it
all so hard to discuss.

------
sosuke
The author mentioned only two top females Marissa Mayer and Belinda Stronach.
How about the very successful Chanda Zaveri we just had a post about?
[http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130126/jsp/calcutta/story_164...](http://www.telegraphindia.com/1130126/jsp/calcutta/story_16488020.jsp)

I'm not saying looks don't affect interviews, I think they do, but I'd like to
see a little more investigation and a little less assumption.

~~~
prodigal_erik
Sounds like she founded the company with money she earned as a talented
student, rather than rising through the ranks of an existing company (where
hiring and promotion bias takes effect).

------
Zarathust
I haven't had a long career but I've heard quite a few times "Hey, we'll have
a girl onboard!". My initial concern is usually, I'll admit (is she cute?) but
I don't like to look like an asshole so I ask "Is she good?". Almost
everytime, someone tells me that "it doesn't matter".

So yes, the article is right, some women get hired for their looks regardless
of what they do.

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

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

------
chimpinee
Part of the problem is that we mostly don't know how good managers do what
they do (and they don't either).

Their knowledge is tacit. And we have to make a tacit judgement when hiring --
which means that memes about gender necessarily exert an unquantifiable
influence.

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

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

------
sheraz
250 words and he said nothing.

I'm getting so sick of tripe like this that thinks men and women want the same
things in their lives and careers. I would like to know:

\- Of the working men and women, how many actually want these executive
positions?

------
ucee054
Anecdotal, but in my experience smart girls are uglier and cute girls are
stupider.

This is verified by comparing 2 groups: nightclub girls and science research
nerd girls.

 _As a group_ the nerd girls are uglier on average, because there are several
severely plain nerd girls, though an _individual_ nerd girl may be very
attractive.

 _As a group_ the disco girls are stupider on average, because there are
several severely ditzy disco girls, though an _individual_ disco girl may have
brains.

I believe the reason for this is that it takes _effort_ to make yourself
_attractive_ , just as it takes _effort_ to make yourself _smart_ , so there
is a trade off.

~~~
davidtanner
You are very off track.

All the evidence I've ever come across points to the opposite conclusion:
there is a positive correlation between beauty and intelligence.

A few seconds of googling turned this up:
[http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-
fundament...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-
fundamentalist/201012/beautiful-people-really-are-more-intelligent)

I've seen actual journal articles on the matter as well. Facial symmetry is
influenced by genetics, the oxygenation of the womb, as well as other factors.
A lot has to go right for a person to have a beautiful face and a lot has to
go right for someone to have a high IQ. It shouldn't be remotely surprising
that they are correlated.

Judging by your incredibly stereotyped conceptions of "disco" girls the
limited dating experience you had was probably a few decades ago. Judging by
your silly, evidence free post you might not be particularly smart or
attractive.

Better put in some effort on both.

~~~
ucee054
'Judging by your incredibly stereotyped conceptions of "disco" girls'

Go down to eg Thai Square nightclub in Trafalgar Square, London UK on midnight
Friday or Saturday and tell me what you see.

'silly, evidence free post'

I never claimed evidence, I claimed anecdotal experience. Go down to the EE
PhD labs in eg Imperial College, London UK, any time of the day, any time of
the week, and tell me what you see. I bet you the girls in there would be
offended by comparison to the Thai Square girls.

'you might not be particularly smart or attractive'

Stay off the ad-hominems asshole.

------
nicarus
Explain Meg Whitman...

------
nvr219
If you do a google image search for "pictures of fortune 500 ceos" you will
see that most of the women coming up are just as ugly as the men. I think this
has more to do with the industry attracting people who are ugly on the inside
and by the time they get to the top they just say "fuck it" and let their
monstrousness show.

~~~
Pwnguinz
What in the bloody heck are you talking about?

~~~
wmf
Sounds like a 19th-century-style theory linking sociopathy with
unattractiveness. Might as well throw in some phrenology while he's at it.

