https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/sunday-review/women-ceos-glass-ceiling.html

I think this is a great article about the perspective of the women who almost became CEOs on why they didn't make it to the top. Hearing the experiences of the people affected by a problem is important in understanding it. I have some criticisms.

I come from the perspective of someone who's beliefs are feminism-compatible and doesn't deny that women are treated unfairly in some aspects of life like a lot of anti-feminists tend to.

Intrinsic motivations around sex and success == fulfilled life goals

Sally Blount, dean of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern and the only woman to lead a top 10 business school, noted that data predicts that half or more of the women who earn an M.B.A. this year will drop out of the full-time work force within a decade. The reasons range from family conflicts to placing less inherent value on position or money. That accounts in part for the low number of women who do reach the very top job, because fewer remain in the pipeline. Yet even those women who stay and reach the C-suite are more likely than men to be overlooked, Ms. Blount said.

I have discussed the inherent drive for position and money here before. (https://www.reddit.com/r/FeMRADebates/comments/5y0990/feminization_of_jobs/demliuk/) Women gain nothing but position and money when they obtain position and/or money. Men have whole new kinds of fulfillment opened up to them at that level; trophy wives, nice cars that trigger their adventure-seeking, waving their big financial dick around, envy, etc. Women obtain just the position and money. If women valued trophy pool boys, cars, expensive yachts as much as men do then perhaps they would be more driven to seek money more aggressively.

These things just come down to sex. More money = more and better sex for men, whereas more money != more and better sex for women.

Socialisation of women vs men

What they say: Women are often seen as dependable, less often as visionary. Women tend to be less comfortable with self-promotion — and more likely to be criticized when they do grab the spotlight. Men remain threatened by assertive women. Most women are not socialized to be unapologetically competitive. Some women get discouraged and drop out along the way. And many are disproportionately penalized for stumbles.

(emphasis mine)

I think this socialisation problem along with intrinsic motivators are the biggest problems that are keeping women down.

I agree that women are unfairly penalized for being assertive. I have heard of studies in this area and believe it is probably a real problem. They need to do work to overcome the socialization to be passive while the men are playing golf together.

What are your thoughts?

Brutality, as shitty as it is

“For years I thought it was a pipeline question,” said Julie Daum, who has led efforts to recruit women for corporate boards at Spencer Stuart. “But it’s not — I’ve been watching the pipeline for 25 years. There is real bias, and without the ability to shine a light on it and really measure it, I don’t think anything’s going to change. Ultimately at the top of an organization there are fewer and fewer spots, and if you can eliminate an entire class of people, it makes it easier.”

Along with:

She drew an unwelcome conclusion. “Women are prey,” she said. “They can smell it in the water, that women are not going to play the same game. Those men think, ‘If I kick her, she’s not going to kick back, but the men will. So I’ll go after her.’ It’s keeping women in their place. I truly believe that.”

Being on top requires breaking rules and sacrificing everything else in your life for your dream/goal. The talk around gender parity in C-Suite roles seems to be focused on how to make the ladder more fair, and thus more compatible, for women. I don't think that is ever going to be possible, because the fair company is going to be eaten by the one controlled by a psychopath. Does a young lion play fair when it is killing the aging lion of the pride?

Our world would be a better place if less of the smashy-smashy testosterone drive controlled our world. The C-Suite is the modern day equivalent to the veldt. Controlling billions of dollars is the ultimate test of genetic fitness just like being the lion with the largest pride is for that species.

One's whole being must be aligned with fighting all the way to the top. I've worked at a start-up and the 18 hour days are something that you can only do when you are fully committed, or insane.

I see this as an engineering problem; if you looked at the amplitude of emotion related to success it would probably be higher in men, if you could see the amount of time that men focus on success in their mind and hearts, it would be higher. If it takes 1000 points to become a CEO, the person who can push the button faster is going to get there first. I think my idea about intrinsic motivators is a critical part of this.

Do I think cutthroat corporate ladders are healthy and good for the world? No; I think that the men who make it to the top are uneven people who focus too much on cutting throats.

Giving up

Her turning point came when she was outmaneuvered by male colleagues during a corporate reorganization. Believing she was not going to rise further, she asked for an exit package.

Looking back, she is convinced that being a woman hurt her. “I rewrote the entire strategy for the company, doubled its share price,” she said. “We had a little bit of a dip. All of the guys had missed their numbers more. There’s a guy positioning himself as the successor. He hasn’t made his number in seven years. He’s tall and good looking and hangs around the right circles.”

She drew an unwelcome conclusion. “Women are prey,” she said. “They can smell it in the water, that women are not going to play the same game. Those men think, ‘If I kick her, she’s not going to kick back, but the men will. So I’ll go after her.’ It’s keeping women in their place. I truly believe that.”

Is this article is about giving up? The person who ends up in the top spot, regardless of whether they deserved it, is probably the last to be outmaneuvered or kicked when they are down. Men also face shitty treatment, but those men have societal pressure and reward systems to not let someone "keep them in their place." The men who end up at the top are the ones who kept kicking back. Perhaps women may get there because of higher performance and the men get there because they're fighters who don't back down.

Perhaps men treat the men around them with more respect because they can form friendships with those men more easily than with women. Imagine a group of 100 business people, most of the candidates will be pushed and kicked to the curb along the climb. The men and women may face similar levels of disrespect from their non-friend peers. The men have a secret weapon, though, they can befriend and bond with the other men and possibly prevent some of the worst shit from getting to them thanks to mutual respect.

Everyone who talks about the men at the top fails to see all of the men lower on the totem pole who were treated just as poorly as the women in question (not counting any sexual harrassment that men don't have to deal with very often). They only see the alphas at the top and assume that men don't recieve the same kind of shitty treatment. Perhaps the ones right at the top look like they don't get shat on, but at that level, male confidence requires taking your punches and not letting it affect you.

Male comraderie problem and poor optics of socialising with women on the team

“You’re the only woman,” she said. “It’s very lonely. I was at a high level playing in a golf foursome with all high-level men. One said, ‘I didn’t know you knew how to play.’ I said, ‘You never asked me.’ I never drank with them. I never tried to be one of the guys. I spent more energy on performance.”

As discussed in the article and elsewhere, women are unfairly penalized for seeking pay raises, promotions and being assertive. They face backstabbing and being kicked to the wayside on the corporate ladder.

If women face excessive amounts of backstabbing and kicking (this is plausible), perhaps it has something to do with the easy comraderie of men. The golfing and social drinking outside of the office are important for team building and are easier for men to participate in without the presence of women. The potential flirtatiousness of socializing with women outside of work is a good example of how good intentions, or not wanting to be assumed to have bad intentions, could be part of the problem.

The difficulty of men mentoring women

Dina Dublon, who retired in 2004 as chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase, said male colleagues sometimes told her they were reluctant to have dinner or drinks with female subordinates — important bonding activities in the corporate world — because it might be seen as flirtatious.

A personal example, a woman started at my company a while ago right when we were taking a week to work on personal passion projects in adhoc teams in a kind of simulated start-up incubator. I was one of the first people she met at the company, so I didn't think anything of asking her to join my team because she was qualified and expressed an interest in my project.

As someone who strongly believes in equality and have beliefs that intersect with feminism, I did some internal checking to make sure I wasn't treating her any differently than I would a man; no mansplaining, not cutting her off or making assumptions, actively deferring to her expertise, in doing so I was treating her differently, but perhaps in a more fair way that I should extend to everyone.

As we work in an open concept office, I was accutely aware of the physical logistics of not wanting to be perceived as "taking a liking to the new girl." I had to treat the physical space around her differently than I would with a man. I made sure to never enter her personal space even if it would be appropriate or make some aspect of pair-programming easier.

This is a simple example. We had a great time and did great work on our project, so I call it a success, but there were parts where I was worrying about the perception of other people. I'm not "that guy" and I never want people to think that.

If after-hours socialisation were a more important part of our jobs, I feel like I would have to put up an even stronger barrier so as to not be assumed to be flirtatious. Those walls make comraderie much more difficult.