WP: Percentage of women in executive-level roles declined from 12.2% to 11.8% in 2023

[VBM]

A 0.4% decrease doesn’t seem statistically significant

[VBM]

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

[VBM]

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

[citation needed]

Nature, history, etc.

[VBM]

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

[citation needed]

Nature, history, etc.

Least sexist Atlas poster

I guess most mammal species are also sexist because the leaders of their packs are pretty much always males. It’s not sexist to point out that men and women, when compared as an aggregate, have different preferences. It’d be sexist if I said that men are just straight up better than women overall or women are literally incapable of being leaders, which is not what I said.

[VBM]

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

Yeah I tend to agree with this. My ideal is equality shouldn't be about trying to achieve arbitrary quotas, but to give everyone equal opportunity and access and let the chips fall where they may. We already see this with a lot of lower-tier jobs that aren't super hard to obtain - elementary school teachers are disproportionately female for instance.

One problem in the case of the executive example that could be hard to pick up on is that existing executives being disproportionately male may mean females who are qualified and actually want to become executives face more hardships simply by being in the minority, even if it's a "natural minority".

I feel like many people (left and right) struggle with basic concepts, like equality =/= equity, or men and women being different on average can still mean there are many cases where those averages don't apply.

I wouldn't deny that sexism is probably reducing the ratio of male to female executives by some amount, but I just don't think it's by a very significant amount. Maybe if sexism was just totally removed from society, the % of female executives would be 15-20%.

A bit of a tangent, but it's weird to me how the posters who get most offended by the suggestion that Generic Male and Generic Female don't think exactly alike are also the most pro-trans posters. If there are no natural differences between the male and female mind, then how could trans people exist? You can't be a woman stuck in a man's body if there are no general mental differences between men and women

[VBM]

Is the concept of differing preferences between groups being caused by said groups facing different societal expectations incomprehensible to y'all? There are probably biological differences between men and women psychologically, but AFAIK they appear to be much smaller than the biological differences crowd likes to think and are dwarfed by societal differences that are ultimately rooted in the fact that AMAB people had on average serious physical strength advantages that made them far more important to society in subsistence agriculture societies.

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

Yeah I tend to agree with this. My ideal is equality shouldn't be about trying to achieve arbitrary quotas, but to give everyone equal opportunity and access and let the chips fall where they may. We already see this with a lot of lower-tier jobs that aren't super hard to obtain - elementary school teachers are disproportionately female for instance.

One problem in the case of the executive example that could be hard to pick up on is that existing executives being disproportionately male may mean females who are qualified and actually want to become executives face more hardships simply by being in the minority, even if it's a "natural minority".

I feel like many people (left and right) struggle with basic concepts, like equality =/= equity, or men and women being different on average can still mean there are many cases where those averages don't apply.

I wouldn't deny that sexism is probably reducing the ratio of male to female executives by some amount, but I just don't think it's by a very significant amount. Maybe if sexism was just totally removed from society, the % of female executives would be 15-20%.

A bit of a tangent, but it's weird to me how the posters who get most offended by the suggestion that Generic Male and Generic Female don't think exactly alike are also the most pro-trans posters. If there are no natural differences between the male and female mind, then how could trans people exist? You can't be a woman stuck in a man's body if there are no general mental differences between men and women

Tell me you don't understand trans people without telling me you don't understand trans people.

@bold Explain it to me then.

As I said several times before, sexism probably is lowering the amount of female executives by some amount, but there's no good reason to believe that it's the main factor. Any business which bars a perfectly qualified women from leadership positions based just on their sex is probably not a very successful business

[VBM]

I guess most mammal species are also sexist because the leaders of their packs are pretty much always males.

Why do you guys always make these stupid “muh animal kingdom” arguments? Human beings and animals are not even remotely comparable, because animals do not possess the same cognitive abilities that humans do.

Fun fact: Homo sapiens are, in fact, animals. We may be the best of the worst, but we're still animals. Like almost every other mammal species, our two sexes have evolved to be naturally more inclined towards certain roles. For example, there's a reason why hunter-gatherers almost always had the males be the ones hunting the big game. Males are just naturally stronger than females, and obviously it would be evolutionarily favorable for the male humans to be the members of the species which are more inclined to hunt dangerous prey, since obviously being physically stronger would make them more likely to survive and thus more likely for the species to survive.

Yes, I know that in our modern society, these biological differences between males and females are exceedingly irrelevant, but evolution hasn't caught up to technology. Males and females' minds are still wired to be more inclined towards roles due to the advantage it provided in ancient times, even if that advantage no longer exists. There's a reason why like over 90% of elementary school teachers are women, and it's not because elementary schools are just sexist towards men. It's because there are much more women trying to become elementary school teachers in the first place.

Nurture plays an important role, but so does nature.

[VBM]

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

I disagree with this pretty strongly but I am curious what "natural" differences you think are at play here?

I ask because of comments like this:

A bit of a tangent, but it's weird to me how the posters who get most offended by the suggestion that Generic Male and Generic Female don't think exactly alike are also the most pro-trans posters.

How a person thinks is very strongly going to be socially conditioned. Most of these things aren't what I would consider "natural" at all.

In prehistoric times, it would have been evolutionarily advantageous for men to be more assertive, confident, and aggressive than women since men are naturally way stronger than women and thus more likely to come back alive from hunting dangerous prey. Basically, it was better off for our species that one of our sexes had the means (raw strength) and the right mindset necessary to be successful in hunting prey. This is the case for many other mammals too.

As I mentioned to Ferguson, this is obviously obsolete in modern society, but evolution hasn't caught up to technology. Since Generic Male is naturally more hardwired towards being assertive, aggressive, and confident than Generic Female is, it's hardly surprising that a majority of executives are men since those are 3 important qualities for an executive to have.

[VBM]

Risk-taking behavior is actually the exact example I had in mind as most plausibly explaining the difference. But even then, I'm not entirely sure why that would be a particularly favored quality for an executive/leader to have.

I think even with that example (and probably some other small ones) in mind I have a pretty strong prior that it's low on the list of factors at play and that other socially constructed dynamics are much, much more influential here. A pretty obvious one is that professional women pay a penalty for having children (and taking parental leave). Another obvious one is an inertial effect of executive committees being so male-dominant for so long in a way that's very easy to self-perpetuate. These seem much, much more obvious to me as reasons why there are so few women in executive positions than any sort of innate biological differences.

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

I disagree with this pretty strongly but I am curious what "natural" differences you think are at play here?

I ask because of comments like this:

A bit of a tangent, but it's weird to me how the posters who get most offended by the suggestion that Generic Male and Generic Female don't think exactly alike are also the most pro-trans posters.

How a person thinks is very strongly going to be socially conditioned. Most of these things aren't what I would consider "natural" at all.

In prehistoric times, it would have been evolutionarily advantageous for men to be more assertive, confident, and aggressive than women since men are naturally way stronger than women and thus more likely to come back alive from hunting dangerous prey. Basically, it was better off for our species that one of our sexes had the means (raw strength) and the right mindset necessary to be successful in hunting prey. This is the case for many other mammals too.

As I mentioned to Ferguson, this is obviously obsolete in modern society, but evolution hasn't caught up to technology. Since Generic Male is naturally more hardwired towards being assertive, aggressive, and confident than Generic Female is, it's hardly surprising that a majority of executives are men since those are 3 important qualities for an executive to have.

I think even at this there's plenty of evidence that these characteristics, even if there is a biological difference between the sexes, is socially reinforced in a way that exaggerates the differences.

Sure, I never denied that nurture is playing some role here. If sexism was totally eliminated from society, there would probably be a greater percentage of female executives than 12%, but there's no hard evidence that it's the main factor in why the ratio isn't 50/50.

And I think it's worth reminding everyone that we're talking about a measly 0.4% decrease here. I'd be surprised if this was actually a statistically significant decrease instead of just random noise

[VBM]

You have to be a pretty dense idiot to believe that feminism is the belief that there are literally no differences between men and women whatsoever. Unfortunately, Atlas, and this thread, is full of dense idiots, so we have to have this mind-numbing discussion. The concept of "the patriarchy" is not critiquing the idea that men and women are different; it critiques the notion that these differences must be ingrained in every aspect of society.

Men, on average, are physically larger and stronger than women, on average. In hunter-gatherer societies, this may have made the division of labor relatively straightforward. Even then, that narrative is hardly universal - or even descriptive of a majority, with the traditional imaginary perhaps a projection of our own gender roles onto the past. Even if it were true, it hardly lends credence to any sort of "natural division of labor" in agricultural societies, let alone industrial ones! The invention of tools and the domestication of beasts of burden meant that the natural average differences in size and strength between men and women were less relevant. The difference in strength between an ox pulling a plow and a human man is likely an order of magnitude greater than the difference in strength between the average man and woman. Industrial machinery further erodes any sort of biological difference; by the time we get to the contemporary economy, and the topic of the original article, the differences between men and women are so abstract and irrelevant to the role of businesses executive (or any other role of "authority") that advocates of it like VBM and TimTurder appear cartoonishly sexy. Indeed, there is no inherent reason we should think a good CEO is aggressive or metaphorically "strong" - but because of how deeply ingrained patriarchy is in society, we are conditioned to believe that a good CEO would share the same traits that make a good hunter, even though logically we understand these are wildly different roles, requiring different skills, and making different decisions. That is the very nature of patriarchy - larger than any one man or any one culture: differences between men and women are artificially exaggerated in society rather than minimized, creating the appearance that the roles each gender is funneled into are "natural" and "inherent". Take for example, the misconception or myth than boys are better at math than girls. There is no scientific, inherent basis for the idea that boys are somehow better at learning and understanding math or analytical thinking in general. But, because this misconception had been frequently repeated over the past century or more, girls have internalized the idea that they are worse at math, leading them to shy away from choosing to take higher level math courses, or pursue careers in mathematical and engineering occupations, or pursue further education in STEM fields, all leading to an underrepresentation of women in these classes, occupations, and fields, creating the appearance that, "yes, boys are just naturally suited to math - just look at who takes math classes, or works in mathematical fields, or publishes academic research in mathematics!"

Furthermore, the idea of women as the homemaker and men as the breadwinner are, again, a creation of, often explicit, patriarchal ideology. Child-rearing duties were not delegated solely to women in pre-agricultural society. In fact, I don't believe there was ever a period of time in which neither child-rearing nor "work" were shared between genders - both men and women contributed to the household. Unsurprisingly, duties that men gravitated toward became more valuable in society, which in turn further pushed out women of those duties and toward "household" duties. My favorite historical anecdote is that of the alewife , a profession common in many medieval societies. When ale was the drink of choice, men and women were both well-represented in the profession; since ale did not keep for long prior to the invention of refrigeration, it had to be made close to the place of consumption. This led to the proliferation of alehouses throughout Europe, and many women were employed as brewsters of ale - hence, alewife. Hops was first added to the brewing process in the Low Countries, and beer made with hops could keep, unlike ale. Suddenly, large-scale production was possible, creating in its wake a male-dominated field. Eventually, as beer overtook ale as the drink of choice, the alehouses gradually faded away, and the alewives with them. Women were shut out of this new profession, in an industry that now was significantly profitable and powerful. Even now, even within industries, the differences between women and men are purposefully exaggerated. Women are shuffled toward the "care" position of nurse while men are funneled toward the "analytical" doctor.  The imaginary of the stay-at-home mom emerges out of Victorian morality and full realized in the 1950s - even when (or rather, because) just a decade prior saw record women's participation in the open economy. In order for men to reclaim their jobs and position of economic power, women had to be pushed back into the home, a societal campaign reinforced by the media of the day. Yet, for some reason this entirely artificial, momentary image of society has become what many today believe is "normal", "natural", and, the worst among them, "desirable".


This is to say that these sorts of beliefs that there are "natural" causes for men and women's differences in roles of authority are based entirely in pseudoscientific feel-goodery rather than historical evidence, reliant entirely on circular reasoning. The difference between sexism and patriarchy is vast - an action can be sexist, an individual or a work of media or a concept can be sexist. A society is patriarchal - a thought rot that penetrates so deep that it predates the society itself, that is beyond one person to resolve or overturn. It is so overwhelming in its grasp on society that people are led to believe that it is in fact inherent rather than constructed.

I almost always regret effort posting on here, and I anticipate Atlas will live down to my expectations.

Idk why everyone keeps glossing over the fact that I've repeatedly acknowledged that sexism likely is playing some role in the large gender gap between male and female executives. I'm sure there's plenty of females who got turned down from a leadership position because some males, consciously or subconsciously, thought that her being a woman made her a worse fit for the job, or there's plenty of females who would be good CEOs but didn't pursue it because they thought that was a man's job. Obviously we as a society should do our best to minimize these sexist tendencies. I'm just unconvinced that it is necessarily a more dominant factor than natural differences between men and women. Even just a small difference in mentality could cause a large gap in the gender ratio of many careers.

[VBM]

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

[citation needed]

Nature, history, etc.

Least sexist Atlas poster

I guess most mammal species are also sexist because the leaders of their packs are pretty much always males. It’s not sexist to point out that men and women, when compared as an aggregate, have different preferences. It’d be sexist if I said that men are just straight up better than women overall or women are literally incapable of being leaders, which is not what I said.

Let me spell it out for you in very simple terms because it seems very hard to understand for the extremely intelligent, apparently leadership-inclined atlas males. First, there are animals where females take leadership roles, and animals where male do. This is a fact. Second, I hope you will agree, humans are unique in how developed they are as a society- it is extremely influential on human attitudes and actions historically. Human society has developed as a patriarchal society, and as these attitudes lessened somehow in recent years, so did women’s roles in many countries radically changed. So far this is factual.

Taking in mind the huge influence of social attitudes on gendered behavior, how the hell can you claim to know exactly what women are naturally inclined for? In a society with zero societal influence you could have anywhere from 0% to 100% female executives, but a society with zero societal influence is impossible. When you try to use preference aggregation, numbers that are painfully obviously influenced by patriarchal norms, you just look ridiculous. So what we’re left with is pushing for equality, because patriarchal society does incredible harm to both men and women. When you come into this thread and claim to know something that is impossible to know- the true, unfiltered preferences of each sex absent society- the message you convey is simply “I don’t want women in leadership positions- here’s why”.

Idk how people keep on missing that I did say sexism probably is also playing a role here. The point I'm trying to make here is that this might not be as much of a problem to solve as many red avatars here think it is, not that I "don't want women in leadership positions".

[VBM]

I already know that I’m gonna get jumped by a bunch of red avatars for saying this, but men are just naturally more inclined towards leadership positions, so even in a society where sexism is nonexistent,  >50% of executives will be men. I’m not saying that sexism isn’t holding any women back from becoming executives, I just don’t think it’s the main factor. I’m also not saying that someone should be held back from being promoted to an executive position just because they’re a women. I’m just saying that Generic Male will be a bit more inclined towards leadership positions than Generic Female. Maybe in a post-sexism society, the amount of females in leadership positions would be 35%, maybe 25%, or maybe even 12%. Idk how much more inclined the male mind is towards leadership than the female mind, but I don’t think the ratio would ever naturally be 50/50

[citation needed]

Nature, history, etc.

Least sexist Atlas poster

I guess most mammal species are also sexist because the leaders of their packs are pretty much always males. It’s not sexist to point out that men and women, when compared as an aggregate, have different preferences. It’d be sexist if I said that men are just straight up better than women overall or women are literally incapable of being leaders, which is not what I said.

Let me spell it out for you in very simple terms because it seems very hard to understand for the extremely intelligent, apparently leadership-inclined atlas males. First, there are animals where females take leadership roles, and animals where male do. This is a fact. Second, I hope you will agree, humans are unique in how developed they are as a society- it is extremely influential on human attitudes and actions historically. Human society has developed as a patriarchal society, and as these attitudes lessened somehow in recent years, so did women’s roles in many countries radically changed. So far this is factual.

Taking in mind the huge influence of social attitudes on gendered behavior, how the hell can you claim to know exactly what women are naturally inclined for? In a society with zero societal influence you could have anywhere from 0% to 100% female executives, but a society with zero societal influence is impossible. When you try to use preference aggregation, numbers that are painfully obviously influenced by patriarchal norms, you just look ridiculous. So what we’re left with is pushing for equality, because patriarchal society does incredible harm to both men and women. When you come into this thread and claim to know something that is impossible to know- the true, unfiltered preferences of each sex absent society- the message you convey is simply “I don’t want women in leadership positions- here’s why”.

Idk how people keep on missing that I did say sexism probably is also playing a role here. The point I'm trying to make here is that this might not be as much of a problem to solve as many red avatars here think it is, not that I "don't want women in leadership positions".

No, you said that men are more naturally inclined to leadership positions than women, something you have absolutely no way of knowing for a fact considering the huge influence of societal attitudes. That you made the effort of making and defending that baseless claim leaves one with the inescapable thought that you take issue with efforts to change these attitudes.

Yes, we should try to undo societal attitudes which impede or discourage perfectly capable women from pursuing leadership positions. I just think that even with those hurdles removed, we'd still see men outnumber women as executives because males are more often than not the sex which takes up the leadership position in many other mammalian species, and our own history as a species clearly shows that we're not an exception in that regard.

It seems like you and several others here at least agree that even with sexism eradicated, male CEOs may stillslightly outnumber female CEOs (like a 55/45 ratio or something like that). Obviously there's no concrete way of knowing for sure what the real ratio would be, but I would like to point out that there are plenty of cases of there being a roughly 80/20 split in careers where it's hard to see how sexism could really be playing that big a role. For example, like 85% of Uber drivers are men, despite the fact that really the only qualification that you need to be an Uber driver is owning a car and not having a bad driving history. Men actually get into accidents more often than women, so you'd think that there'd be more qualified women, yet it's still heavily male occupied. And  there's also the case of the prison population being 80% male. As far as I'm aware, society heavily discourages males and females from committing crimes, so it seems to me like this large discrepancy is more likely than not due to women being naturally less inclined to engaging in the risky and/or violent behavior which lands you in jail.

[VBM]

I don't get why people like Fergie get so offended at the suggestion that women naturally tend to care more about children than men do. This is one of the most universal truths across the animal kingdom. I'm pretty sure that the only example of males caring more about their young than females do is seahorses, and that's just because male seahorses are the ones that get pregnant. I don't think it needs to be explained why it would be highly evolutionarily advantageous that the sex which has to devote a lot of time and energy to forming the new life would instinctually want to protect and nurture it...

Do you guys think that a supermajority of elementary school teachers are female because schools are discriminating against aspiring male elementary school teachers?

It would be cool if we lived in a world where these almost obsolete primal instincts which developed as the result of hundreds of millions of years of natural selection no longer held any significant sway over us, but the simple fact is that they still do and you can't just close your eyes and cover your ears and pretend like they don't exist just because you wish they didn't.

[VBM]

Do you guys think that a supermajority of elementary school teachers are female because schools are discriminating against aspiring male elementary school teachers?

It’s rather odd that you’re bringing this up as an example in your defence, when perhaps the more obvious way of looking at it is that, within the teaching profession, the more prestigious and highly-paid a job is, the more male-dominated it is: secondary school teachers are more male than primary school teachers, and in turn, university lecturers are more male than them.

It's not either/or. Both factors can contribute to the huge gender discrepancy in elementary school teachers. Anyways, that was hardly the main point of my post

[VBM]

At a certain point, the blank slatist left is going to have to recognize that men and women are not the same. Men care more about money, and disproportionately have skills well-suited to executive roles, while women tend to be more caring, and disproportionately have skills well-suited to parenting and educational roles. A free and just society will thus naturally tend towards an equilibrium in which most executives are men, and most teachers and stay at home parents are women. Government intervention to try and reverse that will only destabilize society and create unnecessary economic and social burdens, with the net effect of making almost everyone less happy and growing governmental power.

I don't get why people like Fergie get so offended at the suggestion that women naturally tend to care more about children than men do. This is one of the most universal truths across the animal kingdom. I'm pretty sure that the only example of males caring more about their young than females do is seahorses, and that's just because male seahorses are the ones that get pregnant. I don't think it needs to be explained why it would be highly evolutionarily advantageous that the sex which has to devote a lot of time and energy to forming the new life would instinctually want to protect and nurture it...

Do you guys think that a supermajority of elementary school teachers are female because schools are discriminating against aspiring male elementary school teachers?

It would be cool if we lived in a world where these almost obsolete primal instincts which developed as the result of hundreds of millions of years of natural selection no longer held any significant sway over us, but the simple fact is that they still do and you can't just close your eyes and cover your ears and pretend like they don't exist just because you wish they didn't.

Actually, this might just be only a Western aspect. The irony is that in other countries, people are actually looking for male elementary teachers, to provide a strong masculine male presence for young boys.

https://en.brilio.net/viral/china-wants-more-male-teachers-because-masculinity-china-wants-more-male-teachers-160208h.html#:~:text=is%20also%20implausible.-,Officials%20are%20actively%20recruiting%20male%20teachers%20and%20as%20local%20media,values%20are%20seen%20as%20masculine.

And the teaching career in many countries is seen as a prestigious occupation, that a male can enter into.

I don't think that we should be looking to China of all places as an example for how we should treat women...

[VBM]

I don't get why people like Fergie get so offended at the suggestion that women naturally tend to care more about children than men do. This is one of the most universal truths across the animal kingdom.

I do not give a damn about what wild animals do. Get that through your head.

Do you guys think that a supermajority of elementary school teachers are female because schools are discriminating against aspiring male elementary school teachers?

No, but the cultural value that “teaching=women’s job” is problematic and should be done away with. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The fact that this value is both directly and info taught to everyone since birth is results in women going into teaching more, not “natural interest”.

It would be cool if we lived in a world where these almost obsolete primal instincts which developed as the result of hundreds of millions of years of natural selection no longer held any significant sway over us, but the simple fact is that they still do and you can't just close your eyes and cover your ears and pretend like they don't exist just because you wish they didn't.

It’s remarkable the degree to which you confidently speak of a subject that you know nothing about.

You need to get it through your head that humans ARE animals, even if we are the best among them. This anti-science belief of yours is a relic of your Christian upbringing. We are thus prone to many of the natural instincts common among animals, whether those instincts are good or bad. You can't just wish this away. Sure, I agree that it would be great if we could ignore these instincts, but I think the past 8 years of American politics should make it clear to you that that's just unfeasible for much of the population.

[VBM]

You need to get it through your head that humans ARE animals, even if we are the best among them. This anti-science belief of yours is a relic of your Christian upbringing. We are thus prone to many of the natural instincts common among animals, whether those instincts are good or bad. You can't just wish this away. Sure, I agree that it would be great if we could ignore these instincts, but I think the past 8 years of American politics should make it clear to you that that's just unfeasible for much of the population.

The degree to which you are proud of your ignorance is astounding. There is nothing about evolution that says men are better suited to be leaders than women are.

There are plenty of reasons to believe women aren’t cut out for executive positions. You don’t need to subscribe to The Patriarchy to believe this either. Just talk to women: most will tell you they have zero interest in being a CEO or President of the United States.

The hard truth for feminists: most women aren’t deeply interested in climbing the corporate ladder.

Wtf are you even talking about?

Yeah I don’t think this conversation is going to go anywhere lol.

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Well, that's enough Atlas for me. It's been real everyone.

I can hardly imagine why this website has so few female users.

You're leaving a left-leaning website because some people argued that men tend to have a stronger inclination to pursue high-paying executive roles? That reflects a mindset incredibly shielded from the real world, where in my experience such a view is basically uncontroversial.

And btw, I don't think is a male female thing. Maybe women are slightly to the left of men on this overall, but I know plenty of women including relatives who believe that men tend to have greater executive function, ambition, wherewithal etc, and even that there is an average IQ gap between men and women, as some serious authors have suggested. This isn't always a positive thing -- men are strongly overrepresented in prisons for reasons that are also mainly attributable to sex differences -- but it is a part of life and something that should not be denied by any serious person.

Nobody ever actually leaves Atlas unless they're banned. We're here forever. The bolded text is not all that has been said in this thread. My post was made in collective response to all of the lovely statements that have been made over the last 4 pages.

There likely are biological differences between men and women which result in differentials in various professions, but I have not seen any evidence that an 88:12 ratio of men to women is to be expected in generic executive-level roles.

People keep talking about the scientific fact that men and women are different, but has anyone here actually produced a real scientific finding that would explain the fact that there is a 8:1 ratio of men to women in these positions? The closest thing to actual evidence that has been posted here is the risk-taking study, but even that is only weakly linked to topic here.

With regard to Richard Hanania's point, a 1.6 point IQ difference, if accurate, would not even come close to explaining the gap. A standard deviation is 15 points for an IQ test. Even if that one study is accurate we're talking about a difference in intelligence which is practically unnoticeable.

Doesn’t this work both ways though? There’s no scientific study which has been done to show that an 8:1 ratio of men to women in executive roles is unnatural and primarily the result of sexism. It seems like some posters where think that the default explanation for gender imbalance in any role should be sexism, while others like me do not.

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Even if we assume that this CEO gender gap is caused primarily by sexism, what exactly are we even supposed to do about it?