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An article was recently published which found that the reason women aren't as represented in leadership roles as much as men are is that they simply do not aspire to leadership roles as much. I cannot describe how annoyed I am at this. Over the past, say, 10 years, the notion that sexism is infused into corporate structures has dominated and been a key battle cry, and it was said that evidence for this was clear using an equity lens (that, simply put, women are proportionately less present in leadership roles which necessarily means that the structure is sexist). How the fuck did no one think to ask 'could it be that women simply do not aspire to leadership roles?' This strikes me as a real face palm moment for feminists. At the outset, it's a valid criticism that the research just hadn't been done prior. But
A. it's a widely known and uncontested fact that testosterone promotes status seeking behaviors. Why was that not the null hypothesis?? I'm not an academic researcher, but I question the intellectual integrity of anyone performing research in this area that failed to extrapolate out such a basic and widely known fact, even at a superficial level.
B. Given that women are, naturally, the most ardent students/researchers in academic studies, how the fuck did none of them, when thinking about the reason there are less women in leadership positions, think to observe the basic fact that they themselves do not aspire to a leadership position??
I think this really highlights the inadequacy of identity lenses and equity as an analytical tool, as they systematically and by design fail to consider endogenous factors. This is a perfect example of why causal forces cannot be easily inferred based on inequitable outcomes. Reverse causation is a serious and, at least conceptually, easily avoidable flaw. This really highlights the risk of low quality research for bodies of thought driven by identity and ideology.
I hate to have this ranty tone, but this is quite literally someone railing against the system for years and years claiming it is corrupt because it will not give them something, while failing to disclose that those people actually don't really want that thing.
In general, empirical psych / social science is not something you can just read a bloomberg article about a meta-analysis and conclude it's accurate. A meta-analysis concluding priming worked or growth mindset worked would've had similarly positive articles written about them ten years ago.
In this case, it's accurate in a sense - although less that 'women aspire to leadership roles less', as women, moreso although like men, aspire to whatever other people think they should aspire to - so if you polled people who are raised to say 'im a woman women can do leadership yay' they might just answer leadership on the poll at the same rate as men (i dont think they do but its possible). But men are generally going to put much more effort and independent effort into anything in general, are more interested in leading / being on top, etc, be more aggressive in getting it, etc.
"status" is not a useful way to approach this, way too general. Women also seek status, status might just ... mean something different than men seeking status. maybe a high status man is shaman or strong warrior, a high status woman is ... desired by many men, the wife of high status man, idk.
well, they did! They were actually quite mad about not having leadership positions, oppression, etc. This doesn't mean the same thing as 'directly and aggressively pursuing it', though. Not that their claims make any sense, but they did think that at least a bit.
A. the research found that women desired leadership roles more in high school and less after college, once they faced the actual prospect of being in leadership positions.
B. it seems like you could apply this 'you only think or desire that because you've been conditioned to' argument to whatever you want endlessly and, by virtue of its nebulous and speculative nature, never have to provide evidence to back it up. At some point evidence that someone genuinely does not desire something has to be enough; who is to decide what someone should and shouldn't desire.
I think it was defined appropriately and to a sufficient specification in the article I linked to. "Testosterone is associated with status-seeking behaviors such as competition, which may depend on whether one wins or loses status, but also on the stability of one's status." I think you have a point, but not to the extent that status seeking is defined as desiring a higher position within a hierarchy.
... well it's literally something that happens. Why do so many kids say they want to be astronauts? Also I didn't say "conditioned", which means what, skinner boxes, positive reinforcement, I said 'what other people think they should aspire to', and also what the most popular / best people do.
and I agree that's happened for women and leadership positions or independent aggressive agency, you can tell just by interacting with one woman for like an hour. Just arguing that social science methodology and the way in which people pursue things is complicated.
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