Look-ism is the huge issue that is almost never talked about. In most companies you could probably better judge how successful new hires will be just by how they look in a video of them talking vs a sample of their work or credentials.
Fitting in is not a way to create progress. Adaptability and inclusiveness is. That was the point of diversity training in the first place, not normalization. Cultures function much more efficiently when diversity is introduced into the medium.
The real reason for the stagnation in social order is the fear of being pushed outside the herd if you are too near to the edge. We must become more inclusive, and fight the laziness that manifests itself in regressing to the mean.
The more 'interaction' and 'first impressions' need to be made, the more 'look-ism' is essential.
Lawyers, bankers, execs etc..
Tech is even getting a little bit like this, with some shops getting a little to 'beardy' and 'tuquey' and 'hoody' for me :)
I agree, I know a guy who is head of sales of a company and he has that "Presidential look" and my brain automatically thinks that he is a leader every time I see him.
There probably needs to be a general purpose word for this...
Judging anyone by anything other than what is called for when doing the actual work is inherently superficial and therefore fascist (fascia, on the face). Fairly synergistic connection there regarding the popularity of a certain face-themed webpage.
We can make up labels all day to make it fresh or more precise, but the logos/pathos/ethos of the term 'fascist' is sound in every instance of excluding or including someone based on anything but propensity. It is interesting that we can't acknowledge it, like we are all so wrapped up in finding our niche that when we do, anything that would jeopardize that is immediately regarded as false.
Like, who would you be if you aren't actually as talented as you think you are?
But I digress.
Secondly, are you only talking about the US because you're American? Because there are plenty of other countries in this world, and it's true in all of them.
yep.
for hundreds of thousands of years having your tribe represented by a confident male (selected from the majority of the tribe) was beneficial (at least we can conclude that now based on the survivor bias principle) We still have those cave man instincts with us to a high degree. The point of civilization development is to reign in cave man instincts inside and among us. Seems that it takes time.
Designated leaders probably didn't become the norm until about 4000 bc when early civilizations arose.
Another interesting tidbit noted by many anthropologists is that boasting is strictly forbidden. E.g if a tribesman catches a big prey, he must be humble and can not brag about how good of a hunter he is. It is different from the Western World, in which bragging is expected and necessary for leaders (case in point: Trump).
Are you saying that this applies to every tribe in the world? Because if so, I don't buy it. It's too far fetched that every tribe in the world except everyone who advanced past the hunter gatherer stage would share this cultural trait. Aside from it being unreasonable that all tribes would share this trait, it would also seem to imply that modest people cannot advance to the modern age, which is also difficult to swallow.
I don't think other primitive peoples have designated leadership roles either, like we do, but I'm not sure.
The idea of tribes controlled by women just never happened; not once. It's wishful revisionism motivated by modern politics.
Pinker discusses this a bit in this speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n691pLhQBkw
And of course other have noted the male dominance in pretty much all the similar primate species. Human are brute animals, nothing more.
And no, just because (pre)historically it was this way doesn't mean I'm saying it ought to be this way everywhere and forever. Natural != ideal.
Women in Pictish society were regarded as the equal of men and succession in leadership (later kingship) was matrilineal (through the mother's side), with the reigning chief succeeded by either his brother or perhaps a nephew but not through patrilineal succession of father to son. [0]
Some warrior, sitting on a iron throne and passing down judgment from high in one the houses, or is it the old women of the village who carries the memories of who did whom a favor and is responsible for the community threads that binds the families together. Who has the power to make the decision?
if recent thousand of years of history is any guidance - the warrior on the throne will be asked to punish the witch[es] (some of those old women) for the curse that caused the animal to die, and the property of those witches would be shared between the warrior and the family of the reporter.
Its kind of telling if current view of history is that all elder women was hunted down and killed as witches under a single religion.
Recent? Even gorilla have males bigger (and thus leading the pack) than females and so far prehistoric humans are known to have been that way too.
It is exactly the rise of civilization(agriculture, technology, complex social structure, etc) which allowed for situations with female leadership.
If you're really interested, look up "Sex at Dawn"
When you have a dominant group of people that share an attribute, I think anchoring and other cognitive biases will always play an influential role.
> Seen it many times.
Not sure if being intentionally humorous here, but I think it's funny regardless!
My counter to that is Theranos.
I'd say people use confidence as evidence for competence. Yet, that only make them adjust their priors, and biased people have some extreme priors.