<p>Male privilege: Looking the part, according to timeworn and ingrained expectations. Tall, good-looking, well mannered men.</p>
<p>btw, I am a 5’-2" female architect who has not enjoyed any such privilege. Every kudo I get is earned, baby, earned.</p>
<p>Cheers, there are a lot of dumb “suits” in real estate who have success exactly for the reason you state: they look the part…tall, good looking, well-dressed males with a facility for B.S.</p>
<p>You could say the same for the much more common women in single family real estate.</p>
<p>I’m talking about exec, Barrons. The corporate Veeps and so forth…we were talking about the professional level, not Annette Benning wannabes.</p>
<p>I don’t buy the premise of the original article. The author is mixing up all kinds of issues – class, ethnicity, culture – and all kinds of “evidence” – lack of interest in liberal arts education, growing prison populations – all under the topic of gender in the classroom. Do the families that don’t value college education for their sons really value it more for their daughters? Are those the women who are “replacing” the men at college? </p>
<p>It’s pretty obvious to anyone who has had kids that most very young boys don’t sit still as long as most very young girls. But I can also think of many aspects of schooling that favor boys over girls. To name one that has been backed up by studies as well as observation: teachers tend to answer questions and comments from boys more often than from girls. I remember sitting in the back of a high school classroom as a visitor one day as the outspokenly feminist history teacher repeatedly ignored girls with their hands held up quietly waiting for a turn to speak while engaging repeatedly with a couple of boys who never bothered to raise their hands before dominating the discussion. I believe this teacher would have been shocked to see a videotape re-play.</p>
<p>I work and have worked in commercial RE for many years with the top firms. While there are a few brokers as you describe who manage to be successful, most I know that are at the top put in long hours and really learn their markets and negotiating on behalf of their clients. All have college degrees and many MBA or similar education. The day when a smile and a shoeshine would get you by are long gone. Lease analysis and acquisition or development decisions are highly sophisticated looking at tax implications, corporate balance sheet implications, etc.</p>
<p>I appreciate the Benning reference though. Fine film.</p>
<p>Barrons, I’m thinking of the people who run the upper echelons of places like Coldwell Banker (NRT) et alia. Dumber than rocks, some of them. With unbelievably idiotic presentations if one but looked under the surface by, oh, a millimeter or two.</p>