Discrimination

The study found that when presented with applications for promotion, women were more likely than men to assess the female candidate as less qualified than the male one.

They were also prone to mark down women’s prospects for promotion and to assess them as more controlling than men in their management style.

Read all about it in The Sunday Times. Let me note that these survey results could have been framed in any number of ways. The newspaper chooses to frame it as debunking the notion that women are held back in the workplace by discrimination by men. As best I can tell, however, the survey actually indicates that men and women were both inclined to discriminate against women candidates, but that men were somewhat less so inclined than were women.

Comments

the survey actually indicates that men and women were both inclined to discriminate against women candidates, but that men were somewhat less so inclined than were women.

Of course. What this shows, as has been shown in studies and, hell, basic social science textbooks too numerous to count, is that discrimination and prejudice are far more pervasive and difficult to uproot than conscious, cognitive assertions that "Women are dumb" or whatever.

Everyone has internalized society's inequalities, and an anti-sexist program needs to acknowledge the pervasiveness of cultural prejudice that can make women into some of the harshest gatekeepers of patriarchal priviledge.

Posted by DivGuy | January 2, 2007 11:05 AM

I don't think this is as much a confirmation of society's sexism as it seems to be affirmation that women are inherently critical of other women. They're certainly more critical than men...

Ask any woman who has worked a variety of jobs and without a doubt, the worst manager she's ever had was another woman. If the subordinate (or interviewee) is perceived as being "more attractive" than the supervisor or person evaluating them for the job, they're doomed...

I'm sure this idea in itself is probably sexist but this article just seems to confirm the anecdotal evidence...

Posted by CaptainTrips | January 2, 2007 11:15 AM

matt, you're missing the point.

it's an article of faith in wingnuttia that findings like this show that discrimination is just fine--in fact, it's a good thing!

look, even black people don't trust black people--what do you want us white people to do, be more tolerant than they are? what, you think you're morally superior? typical liberal.

it's a whole genre, the "it's not us keeping them down, it's them keeping them down" studies.

Posted by kid bitzer | January 2, 2007 11:19 AM

Right. Note also "The Iraqis lost the Iraq war", "the Palestinians fled their homes voluntarily," "the Jews engineered/collaborated in the Holocaust", etc. Might be called the "Why are you hitting yourself?" playground-bully thesis.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 2, 2007 11:53 AM

The finding in the Times is not surprising at all. Girls are intensely socialized to accept traditional gender stereotypes and roles even as they are encouraged to develop their abilities, pursue careers, and the like. My wife and I have two daughters and we've shielded them from a lot of gender socialization by unplugging the cable, not getting women's magazines, and not training the girls to cook and clean. But they still get pressure to adapt the traditional expectations from grandmothers, church, and peer groups.

Posted by Ric Caric | January 2, 2007 12:58 PM

1) Women discriminating against women cannot be a primary cause of gender workplace differences, because that would mean most managers are women. Since that's not true, w-w discrimination is a secondary or tertiary cause.

2) I think it's a good idea to teach both boys and girls to cook and clean, otherwise you'll go hungry living in a dirty house.

Posted by American Citizen | January 2, 2007 1:10 PM

Maybe the women managers assessment is the better. Maybe not. Since we don't know, differences are about all we can look at.

The woman manager and the male manager are in different situations when assessing women. Just as the manager is in a different situation when assessing black men and white men.

Nearly every concern of any size has goals and policies concerning diversity and discrimination. To pretend managers never think of that is folly. Even those trying to be totally fair will consider their own careers when dealing with others.

Posted by k | January 2, 2007 1:43 PM

I guess it works this way: Both men and women tend to imagine women as inferior to men. But women also tend to compete more with other women than with men, so they have an additional motive for imagining deficiencies in other women. Men on the other hand tend to compete with other men and imagine deficiencies in them.

Posted by Gary Sugar | January 2, 2007 1:45 PM

I asked my wife about this. She went on and on about how women are conditioned to view one another as competition from a very young age. And then she told me stories about what she and her friends used to do to girls they hated in junior high and high school. Gave me more gray hairs (and I'm only 27, damn it!). So she was unsurprised that women tended to also discriminate against other women. It's the same sort of thing you see among black police officers.

Posted by James F. Elliott | January 2, 2007 2:01 PM

From my review of "The Devil Wears Prada:"

"Perhaps you shouldn't mention this around the feminist thought police, but women often hate working for other women. While men compete for status by including as many underlings as possible in their hierarchies, women gain prestige by excluding the maximum number from their cliques."

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/07/devil-wears-prada.html

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 2, 2007 2:53 PM

Why am I unsurprised to see Steve Sailer on a thread entitled Discrimination?

Posted by Petey | January 2, 2007 2:57 PM

this study is interesting i think more for its implications about will happen when more women are managers (ie the 'glass ceiling' weakens) and how this may paradoxically lead to more discrimination against women...also i think Matt underplays the effect of this finding in undermining much of the logic behind aff action and feminist thinking on workplace discrimination...

finally i think the sailer bashing is unnecessary and somewhat ridiculous given that his views are as legimitate as anyone else's in the comments section...

Posted by v | January 2, 2007 3:32 PM

I think it stems from the "inferiority complex". Because of discrimination, a successful woman who has worked hard to get where she is will at times have had doubts that thing were so hard because she was an inferior woman. Men won't have had the same thought, maybe attributing the rough going to personal deficiencies and not gender deficiencies.

Posted by miguel | January 2, 2007 3:58 PM

Perhaps you shouldn't mention this around the feminist thought police

Ah, but you did mention it--and whaddaya know, the knock on the door at 3 a.m. never came. Which might lead you to think that a phrase like "feminist thought police" functions more as a kind of dog whistle to get the attention of your peers than as a meaningful descriptor. But I know I already lost you in the previous sentence when I got to the word "think" so I'll just stop here.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | January 2, 2007 4:45 PM

My first thought was different. If you're familiar with primate research at all, you know that males and females both have dominance hierarchies, but they are separate (see Hrdy's 'Mother Nature' for example). The modern corporation with males and females taking on the same sorts of roles in the same hierarchy is, by that measure, pretty strange (and pretty strange by the standards of past human societies as well).

So it may be that males and females more readily view members of their own sex as potential competitors and not so members of the other sex. I wonder if the same asymmetry holds in reverse?

Posted by Slocum | January 2, 2007 5:31 PM

"Feminist thought police?"

Two words:

Larry Summers

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 2, 2007 5:32 PM

Of course, how could I forget? Poor Larry Summers, the Vaclav Havel of our time. 25 years' hard labor, wasn't it? And I understand none of his kids can get jobs now.

We'd better cut this conversation short--you never know who might be listening.

Posted by Uncle Kvetch | January 2, 2007 5:54 PM

When a man loses the most powerful and prestigious job in academia for pointing out the truth, that has a huge impact on what ambitious people everywhere allow themselves to say in public.

Posted by Steve Sailer | January 2, 2007 7:32 PM

When a man loses the most powerful and prestigious job in academia for pointing out the truth, that has a huge impact on what ambitious people everywhere allow themselves to say in public."

Now you need to watch out for the Yalie thought police.

Posted by daveNYC | January 2, 2007 8:03 PM

When a man loses the most powerful and prestigious job in academia for pointing out the truth, that has a huge impact on what ambitious people everywhere allow themselves to say in public."

I didn't know Larry Summers was vice-chancellor of Oxford. I always thought he was head of some redbrick college in the former colonies.

Posted by ajay | January 3, 2007 5:25 AM

I thought Sailer likes to bitch about Summers and Schleifer and Russia. But the feminazi thought police are the bigger enemy I guess.

BTW, the conservative professors at Harvard couldn't stand Summers by the end. You know, you lose supporters when you overrule unanimous tenure decisions.

Posted by Barbar | January 3, 2007 5:43 AM

dear matt, could you please give me 1)the reference for the original article, 2) which 'times' newspaper, and 3)the date of newspaper reference?

thank you very much. after that i'll write something if relevent.

Posted by michele follen | January 23, 2007 5:05 AM