Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
I'm not speaking of Hillary Rosen's idiotic comment, addressed a few posts below, but of this story from The Economist regarding some troublesome data from hiring patterns. Essentially: women don’t stick together.
For men, the results were as expected. Hunks were more likely to be called for an interview if they included a photo. Ugly men were better off not including one. However, for women this was reversed. Attractive females were less likely to be offered an interview if they included a mugshot. When applying directly to a company (rather than through an agency) an attractive woman would need to send out 11 CVs on average before getting an interview; an equally qualified plain one just seven.
At first, Mr Ruffle considered what he calls the “dumb-blonde hypothesis”—that people assume beautiful women to be stupid. However, the photos had also been rated on how intelligent people thought each subject looked; there was no correlation between perceived intellect and pulchritude. So the cause of the discrimination must lie elsewhere. Human resources departments tend to be staffed mostly by women. Indeed, in the Israeli study, 93% of those tasked with selecting whom to invite for an interview were female. The researchers’ unavoidable—and unpalatable—conclusion is that old-fashioned jealousy led the women to discriminate against pretty candidates.
How significant of a problem is this? Have you experienced it personally? What, if anything, can be done about it as a cultural matter?
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Feb '11
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
Franco, I think the tone of your response to my comment is kind of obnoxious. I am not nit-picking and saying that .001% of people in HR are useful; I am saying that a very substantial % of people in HR are useful. I'm not convinced that the % of People of Pettiness in HR organizations exceeds the % in (for example) accounting organizations.
And no, I'm not an HR person but have extensive experience with the species.
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
This study reflects similar findings by Satoshi Kanazawa over the last few years in multiple studies. While Kanazawa is a controversial figure, there is so,thing to this. There is an assumption that being beautiful means 1) Life is super awesome all the time and 2) beautiful women have no feelings because of number one. It's not just about beautiful folks being perceived was less smart, it is that some folks assume beautiful people have no feelings, or have a faster rebound rate because of number one. This is the result, in part, from the entertainment industry's efforts to comvince us how the beautiful live differently than everyone else. Ultimately life and relationships are about character, about making choices in how we treat others. I have witnessed viciousness, directed at a gorgeous man as well as a woman. That behavior said more about the person being vicious than it did the beautiful people being attacked. As the saying goes, Judge Ye Not...
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
david foster: Franco, I think the tone of your response to my comment is kind of obnoxious. I am not nit-picking and saying that .001% of people in HR are useful; I am saying that a very substantial % of people in HR are useful. I'm not convinced that the % of People of Pettiness in HR organizations exceeds the % in (for example) accounting organizations.
And no, I'm not an HR person but have extensive experience with the species. · 1 minute ago
I don't particularly care about this but I do have to agree that HR people have tended to be some of my favorites at the organizations I've worked for. I've gotten great advice from them, found them to be realistic and not overly bureaucratic (which surprises me) and generally nice.
Sep '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
My tone was obnoxious because I feel your response somewhat insulting - not to me personally, but to logic and communication. You used the words "universally true" when I never even implied such a thing. You can disagree based on your experience, and both of us would be reduced to reporting anecdotal experience which would setlle nothing, but to imply that I'm making some blanket statement when I was not, deserves at least some reply, and not a coddled one either.
As to people in HR departments being generally "nice". Of course they are nice. That's all part of it, isn't it? And keep in mind, anyone who works for a company has already been approved by the HR department - they already like you. Don't test them - they might stop liking you.
Feb '11
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
Really, Franco, I'm astonished by your continued tone. My original response had nothing to do with you personally: it had to do with the very frequent critiques of HR people which one sees in the media and blogosphere which are in my view overstated.
Also, I didn't say that people in HR departments are generally "nice", I said that a substantial number of them are "useful", which is something else. And I can assure you that as a manager and executive I have "tested" HR people quite often and sometimes rather harshly.
"anyone who works for a company has already been approved by the HR department"....in a well-managed company, the hiring decision is made by the manager to whom the employee will report, with HR playing an advisory role.
Sep '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
To advance this debate beyond my petty squabbles here about HR departments... I have an extraordinarily beautiful daughter. I have an older daughter who is also beautiful, but in her own way. There is a difference about how these two girls fare(d) in the same school making friends and general popularity.
In Celebrity Apprentice, Lisa Lampanelli (never accused of being a beauty) and Dayana Miss Universe (and IMO justifyably for a change)have been having their issues. Lisa believes that Dayana has been non-creative and not a hard worker sliding by (on her looks) In a way she is right. She is on the show because of her Miss Universe status while Lampanelli has risen in the scrappy world of stand-up comedy.
Beautiful women get a giant pass on a lot of things in life from men and from other women. However they are subjected to envy from other women and sometimes suffer unjustifyably. My especially beautiful daughter has been scolded by a teacher implying she shouldn't try to get by on her looks. She is absolutely not like that at all, and tries hard, and hates to have anything be about "her looks".
Sep '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
david,
You misconstrue my words, including how I explicitly said I was not personally offended. It looks to me that we are talking past each other, and it looks to me that it is mostly your fault.
Since you can't process the meaning of my words, I have no confidence you can accurately asses my "tone".
My comment regarding nice was a reference to Mollies post.
I suppose every corporation needs an HR department for various reasons. I still believe they can result in making a corporation too insular and screen out real talent before anyone in management is even aware. You may well have a great HR department. My experience, and anecdotes I have heard in general, says otherwise.
Aug '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
[deleted because I didn't read the whole post, and my comment was therefore stupid.]
Edited on April 12, 2012 at 5:56pmFeb '12
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
Misthiocracy: [deleted because I didn't read the whole post, and my comment was therefore stupid.] · 3 minutes ago
Edited 1 minute ago
If every comment board had an edit option, I would probably edit more comments to say this.
Nov '11
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
Yes, I just hate being beautiful . . . [sigh], but we've all got our crosses to bear.
Nov '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
I'll respond tangentially. In my conversations with fire-breathing "Feminizes" (as some rather unsubtly refer to them), the topic often turns to popular magazines for women that "socialize" ladies into subservience to a paternalistic, exploitive male-dominated culture.
I have asked "which magazines? Can you name some?" And invariably they name magazines whose Editors in chief and the majority of whose staff and writers are women. When I point this out they comeback with "Yes, and the magazines are owned by ... men!" Implying, of course, that the ladies with editorial control are merely puppets of their paternal slavemasters at whose bidding they labour to placate the distaff hordes.
Also, I'm not so sure about those "men" who own the women's magazines. Are they all really male? And ... when we actually name some of those owners, do we find a cadre of evil chauvinists?
Nov '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
If beautiful women have such a hard time getting hired, how come such babes work here among the chauvinist conservatives at ricochet?
Can we assume that, since the hotness coefficient at Fox (even the name!) is about twice that of any other major network, that they embody the least amount of hostility toward women among their rivals?
Apr '12
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
Totally agreed here. As a woman, having worked in both male- and female-majority teams, I find I tend to fit better and work more effectively with men. The general male communication pattern is more favorable for me. I'm uncouth and an extrovert, so I find it very hard to wait my proper turn like a lady. Men tend to be more blunt as well. It doesn't spare my feelings, but it gets the issue over with much faster, which is more helpful in the long run.
That being said, some of the best managers and teammates I've had have been women. Sadly, that also holds true for some of the worst.
Nov '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
Wow, super-interesting, rollicking discussion, the kind I would hope to see on Ricochet.My wife (who at 50 loves to ask "how old do you think I am?" because a lot of people think she looks 30) work in a clinic at a large hospital. She is pretty low on the food chain (medical assistant) because after raising 6 kids she just wanted to work part-time. She always says it is a good day when she works with male doctors and always complains about working with the female doctors because of many of the issues discussed above: pettiness, cattiness, backbiting, etc.Meanwhile I work as a teacher at a private school where it seems the administration has purposely, consciously not discriminated against beautiful women. As a result we have a notable number of female teachers who are both wholesomely but knockout beautiful. AND intelligent and capable.
Nov '10
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
One day I was eating lunch with a dozen teachers (M & F) at a big table and one of these female teachers started talking about how she would much rather work with men than women, and I chimed in how my wife says the same thing. Well, a different female teacher got really offended and said "Hey, I'm sitting right here, I'm not comfortable with this conversation, would you please stop?"That shut me down right away, but the first women continued in about how difficult it has been for her to work with and especially under women, blah, blah. Needless to say, the rest of that lunch period was a little awkward. But we are all still friends now, it is just a really explosive topic.
Apr '12
Re: Is the Real War on Women Being Waged by Women?
I wonder if they controlled for how "polished" someone looked...
I know I dislike working with many women because they like changing the "rules" on me. When they want to be professional, you're supposed to do that, and when they want to be oh-just-lovely friends, you're supposed to do that. I don't mean the "be polite" type thing-- they want to be treated exactly like a man, except when it's not handy. That kind of thing. Pretty standard issue emotional bullying and blackmail.
Women that do that also tend to use their appearance as an offensive tool.
It also seems reasonable that an employer might think that someone who is highly attractive and sends in a picture expects that their attractiveness would be an advantage on the job. NOT something that you want in a time of sexual harassment lawsuits.
I'm sure if I wasn't tired I'd be able to think of a dozen other possible reasons for the bias they detected, short of flawed design.