Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Two More Gender Studies Links

Tags: gender studies, networking, reading
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  • 2 comments
the_s_guy

the_s_guy

December 15 2010, 16:49:24 UTC 10 years ago

21 Companies That Have Excluded Women From Leadership: 24/7 Wall Street

I'm leery of the way this is presented. Without knowing how many people are on the management team of each business in total, it's hard to say what level of bias we're talking about. For example:

a) A company has one manager, of a given sex. Is the company automatically biased against members of another sex in management? Of course not, that's just stupid.

b) A company has two managers, both of the same sex. Biased? Highly unlikely, it's probably just coincidence.

c) A company has 100 managers, all the same sex. Yeah, there's probably some kind of bias going on there.

However, the article completely fails to mention where the listed companies lie on the (a) - (c) spectrum. I for one would feel pretty stupid taking a company to task for gender bias in management if they only had two managers.

In addition, there's no historical context. What if a six-manager company had all males on the board this week - but for the majority of its existence, it had been mostly females in those positions? Again, anyone trying to take them to task for bias would be laughed out of town.

Now if they only showed companies which had (1) a definite gender bias in management, (2) a large enough management team to be pretty sure it wasn't just a coincidence or natural variation, and (3) a history of similar bias, then the article might have some traction. Until then, for all we know, half the names on the list could be nothing more than invitations to be publicly mocked for a lack of knowledge.

Is it too much to ask for a little rigor in what passes for journalism these days?
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

December 15 2010, 23:21:14 UTC 10 years ago

>>I'm leery of the way this is presented. Without knowing how many people are on the management team of each business in total, it's hard to say what level of bias we're talking about. <<

Eh, that's a point.

>>A company has one manager, of a given sex. Is the company automatically biased against members of another sex in management? Of course not, that's just stupid.<<

... but if there are 100 companies, each with 1-2 managers, and all of those are the same sex? Wide-scale bias.

>>Is it too much to ask for a little rigor in what passes for journalism these days?<<

From what I've seen, yes. It's hard enough just to find anything written on some topics. Finding anything with really solid scientific or journalistic standards? An occasional pleasant surprise.