This is a passage from “Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women” by Virginia Valian that addresses some issues from a longstanding conversation with Star

Gender Schemas at Work:
“Keeping in mind the obstacles to ensuring fairness, we can consider the story of a university department. During the past ten years fifteen men and three women were added to the faculty. When he is queried about the ratio, the chair of the department explains that his only interest is to hire the best, most able, people in order to build the strongest possible department. He makes it clear to search committees that quality is the only issue, and informs them of his views of the candidates. He is sincere in his belief that he is gender-blind and confident of his ability to judge others’ competence. And, since the people he chooses *are* able, he has no reason to dobut his judgement or leadership. Even if he were to track the careers of the women he failed to hire, he would probably not question his decisions. Those women are likely to have been undervalued by other prospective and actual department chairs and to have, as a result, careers that are on average less stellar than those of the men he hired.
For the chair to see that the facts call for more self-doubt, he needs an education in social cognition and gender. He needs, first, to learn that people are likely to misperceive men and women in professional settings to overrate the former and underrate the latter. Clear marks of prestige, ranging from having a degree from an elite institution to sitting at the head of a table, are interpreted differently, depending on whether the person is a man or a woman.

…

He needs in short, to see that his confidence is misplaced, that it is the product of ignorance. .. He is unlikely to be exempt from the processes that affect everyone else, unlikely to have equally high expectations of men and women, and unlikely to know how to change his perceptions and decisions to adjust for the advantages men have incorrectly received. He believes he is different, but that is what everyone thinks — just as we all think we are above average. Even those who are actively concerned about gender equality are affected by gender-schemas; the odds are that he is, too. As a good scholar, he should entertain the possibility that his judgements are skewed and consider what steps he can take to make them more accurate.”

also, from Schemas, Exceptions and Fairness:
“A second problem in the attempt to ensure fair evaluations is that people find creative ways to justify their perceptions. To take one example, to reassure themselves — and others — that they haverejected stereotypical attitudes or acn judge fairly in spite of them, people point to professional women they admire and respect. For another example, people point to women who are successful as evidence that hiring and promotion practices are based on merit. Finally, people use examples of icompetent women to explain women’s overall lack of success.
Such examples, however, are irrelevant if they are not representative of the general population. My claim is that they are not. They are atypical–exceptions to a general rule confirmed by the preponderance of the evidenc. Examples that represent exceptions do not refute general findings. For instance, on Wall Street in 1996 only 8 percent of the managing directors wer women (Truell 1996). Each of the women in tha 8 percent is an exception someone might cite as evidence that women can succeed in the investment business. Invalidtion of the general rule, however, requires proof that the rule typically does not hold; it is not good enough to show that it occasionally fails to apply. The existence of successful women shows that *some* women are evaluated positively *some* of the time. Fairness demands much more: the guarantee that there is no consistent advantage for members of one group relative to another.”

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Boy, I bet lobsters love Boards of Canada.

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“No, no, I’m not hungover. I’m just stylish.”

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When I meet someone who is clearly a maniac rambling wildly about incoherent conspiracy theories I think I can just ask them a simple series of basically logical questions that will elegantly highlight the flaws in their thinking. In my mind, I see them saying “You’re right, the weight of evidence *does* show that Mr. Obama was born in this country and thank you for helping me understand the complexities of politics and immigration law!”

For some reason, I continue to employ this broken ideology based on the ultimate triumphalism of clear headed rationality.

I really don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. Seriously, I am walking away from more conversations.

++ From the Comments ++

Amy LeBlanc
your inability to learn and change behavior based on the series of failed attempts means perhaps that YOU are the maniacal one.

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but it probably isn’t a good idea to go to a party with an open absinthe bar. God, who’s idea was that anyway???

—

him: “it isn’t real absine you know, just pernod”
me: “at least these people are being subjected to a blunted variety of unmitigated madness”

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is the price we pay to not step in dog shit on Saturday, Feb 20th while walking to a wine tasting in the mission.

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Voodoo Knickers has been a long time supporter of the Global Lives Project and if you’re in San Francisco this is a do not miss event.

I’m working beneath the grey skies of brooklyn and still learning to be an international man of mystery. I don’t have quite 100% control over my schedule yet but I’m hoping to be there if I can.

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When I first stumbled on the web site for New England Personality Disorder Association (NEPDA), I thought “finally a diagnosis!” Then I realized it was for psychiatric services IN New England – not a condition called “New England Personality Disorder”. Back to work.

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