Spar on “One Gender’s Crash”
posted by Frank Pasquale
Reflecting on a risk-mad Wall Street, Debora Spar argues that a finance sector less dominated by men would have been more responsible: “Whether it be from a protectiveness born of biology or a reticence imposed by social norms, women may be less inclined than men to place the kind of bets that can get them in real trouble.” Her insightful piece reminded me of conservative thinker Reihan Salam’s proposal that gun laws recognize differing propensities for violence among men and women:
The idea of treating women and men differently offends our understanding of gender equality at a deep level. But treating women and men as though they are identical—as though women are as violent, dangerous, and abusive as men—isn’t treating them equally. Rather, it is pretending that ignoring their deep differences is the best policy, even if that means that people will die or suffer as a direct result.
Given that “women . . . account for only 17.9 percent of corporate officer positions and none of the chief executive positions . . . at Fortune 500 finance and insurance companies,” the recovery could be a long way off.
January 4, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Posted in: Feminism and Gender
Print This Post
Responses (6)
Me - January 4, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Debora Spar’s argument is hard to refute, not because its true, but because it is impossible to quantify or prove. It would be just as simple to say, monkeys with lasers make better test pilots than humans without arms. There is no way to know if any of that is true.
Men have a propensity to be “violent, dangerous and abusive”, but women have a propensity to be “irrational, emotional and non pragmatic.” Is that necessarily a better combination?
Seth Finkelstein - January 4, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Is she arguing biology is (statistical?) destiny as long as the implications are positive?
moz - January 4, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I missed the bit where she pointed at female fund managers who have done better than average. Forget the “dramatically better than all men”, I’d settle for “significantly better than the market average”. The number of women doing these jobs is non-zero, and if women are inherently better you’d expect that at least some of those women would show up now.
steven - January 5, 2009 at 6:59 am
Yawn. Another American Woman brainwashed by the hateful ideology known as Feminism. The most pampered, privileged women in the history of the world and all they do is complain.
DavidL - January 5, 2009 at 7:34 am
I am a male. I want to see the prototype. So lets have the girls form an all female investment firm. Then when the girls start out performing the market average, all the pragmatic, slow, dim witted males, will invest with the chicks. Voila!
Maryland Conservatarian - January 5, 2009 at 10:51 am
I wonder what Larry Summers thinks about her hypothesis.
Leave a Reply