
Gay men and lesbian women less likely to be employed in a leadership position - upen
http://exactlyscience.com/archives/11604.html
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Raphmedia
Help me understand this test that they did.

So, they have taken a group of homosexuals, without any history of leadership,
and asked a group to rate how they would do as CEO based on voice only. The
group answered based on sound alone that those individuals were not CEO
material.

Well, I wouldn't pass as a CEO either and I don't have a, I quote, "‘gay-
sounding’ voice".

The leaders I have know -- both male and female -- had huge charismatic
voices. They had presence. They spoke in a room full of people and their voice
would pick up. They would get attention right away.

How is the lack of this voice linked to discrimination against the gay
community?

For this study to have any values in my eyes they would need to test actual
CEOs. Actual people in leadership positions.

~~~
Lockyy
They took men and women who were both gay and straight and demonstrated a bias
in expected leadership ability based on perceived sexual orientation. They are
not comparing charisma, the voice selected where selected specifically to have
a high likelyhood of being attributed as gay or straight.

Arguing that a difference in outcome from this is because CEOs all sound
charismatic and that they are able to pick up attention of a crowd better when
there is a demonstrated bias between the two when the difference involved is
specifically whether a voice is perceived as gay or straight implies that gay
speakers are less likely to have those characteristics. Which is exactly what
the paper's conclusion is, a bias against people who are perceived as gay for
leadership positions based on their voice.

    
    
        We investigated this issue in four studies (overall N = 276), conducted in Italian language, 
        in which heterosexual listeners were exposed to single-sentence voice samples of gay/lesbian 
        and heterosexual speakers. In all four studies, listeners were found to make gender-typical 
        inferences about traits and preferences of heterosexual speakers, but gender-atypical inferences 
        about those of gay or lesbian speakers. Behavioral intention measures showed that listeners 
        considered lesbian and gay speakers as less suitable for a leadership position, and male 
        (but not female) listeners took distance from gay speakers. Together, this research demonstrates 
        that having a gay/lesbian rather than heterosexual-sounding voice has tangible consequences for 
        stereotyping and discrimination.

~~~
pc86
I think the sexuality bit is getting shoehorned in here, though. I'd want to
see evidence that the study used charismatic, "big" voices that were judged as
both straight and gay and _still_ show that there is a bias against those
perceived as gay.

Not only that but especially for CEO, hiring decisions are not made in a
vacuum like this. Were the participants given mock resumes and career history?
In an actual hiring process, again especially for CEO, the folks on Board
responsible almost certainly would be familiar with the candidates' previous
work, and probably know them already.

~~~
Lockyy
Being familiar with the client introduces another area of potential bias,
removing that allows us to compare the specific variable being tested for.

I'm not entirely sure why the big voices thing is important. It's not like
they were saying all the voices had low favourability or that what were
perceived as gay voices had low favourability, they were demonstrating a
_difference_ between the two groups based on that one variable. Whether they
were all high up the rankings or all low down the rankings is irrelevant, you
just need them to be all within the same band. It's the difference that is
what is being tested for.

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wmccullough
I would like to see this study replicated in different areas throughout the
United States and the world. I suspect that different regions will produce
different results based purely upon cultural norms of a given society in an
area. To make the blanket statement that this is true is not acceptable to me.

"Studies show eggs are good for you"

------
hugh4life
Gay men are more likely to be shorter:
[http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/2010/03/03/shorter-men-
mor...](http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/2010/03/03/shorter-men-more-likely-
to-be-gay/24152/) Lesbians are more likely to be obese:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-
eye/wp/2014/09/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-
eye/wp/2014/09/02/why-the-federal-government-spent-3-million-to-study-lesbian-
obesity/)

Whether you like it or not, both of those will be factors in influencing who
gets put into leadership positions.

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djhworld
I wonder if there is study into biases around cultural interests too, e.g. if
a male applies for a leadership position and lists "dance" as his primary
hobby or interest, whether implicit cultural biases or assumptions play a role
as well.

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joestr87
> Participants were not informed of the sexual orientation of the person but
> allowed to freely guess from the voice or face of the individual.

> ‘gay- sounding’ voice

Jesus, it's batshit-insane to me that people still think like this.

~~~
mathw
It's awful. I know plenty of straight guys who have a "gay-sounding" voice,
and I'm gay but people tell me I sound "straight", which at least in my
experience means this is all complete nonsense.

What they really mean is that if someone _thinks_ you're gay or lesbian then
you're likely to suffer from homophobic discrimination.

While a reminder of that is probably useful for the world at large, it's not
new to anybody who identifies outside the straight cisgender categories. Or
actually, anybody who is straight and cis who somebody has decided "looks
gay".

~~~
dragonwriter
> What they really mean is that if someone thinks you're gay or lesbian then
> you're likely to suffer from homophobic discrimination.

Discrimination is always based on characteristics as percieved by the one
doing the discrimination.

