Gender equity issues at HBS

[Bay]

<p>

I’m sure you’ll agree, Bay, that rating female colleagues’ sexual attractiveness is talk that has no place in the workplace or in college classrooms, and that many women would find that kind of talk made a hostile environment.

</p>

<p>Yes, I agree. I wonder, though, how much of it was sensationalist reporting. Do we know where these students were, when the offensive comments were made? If they were off campus or outside of the classroom, there is not much that anyone can do about it.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>TranquilMind, that may well be true, but I have the strong suspicion that Harvard Business School students of yore were just as much sexist pigs as the current bunch of male students. If not more. The male partners at Highland Capital Partners, the guys William Boyce said didn’t want any women co-workers, would have been HBS graduates from decades ago.</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>

Some male students, many of them with finance backgrounds, commandeered classroom discussions and hazed female students and younger faculty members, and openly ruminated on whom they would “kill, sleep with or marry” (in cruder terms).

</p>

<p>If they were hazing faculty members, that sounds like it was happening on company time, as it were. Because why would those faculty members be voluntarily spending any social time with the pigs?</p>

[Bay]

<p>

The male partners at Highland Capital Partners, the guys William Boyce said didn’t want any women co-workers

</p>

<p>Not defending the statement, but I think there could be more to it than was reported. It is possible that every woman that Highland hired, has quit, or couldn’t bring in business, or something like that, so the track record is not good for them. I don’t like to make negative blanket statements about people without knowing the full story, especially when it is based on a sound bite in a newspaper article that already has a slant.</p>

[lefthandofdog]

<p>Comparing this behavior and the perpetrators thereof to pigs is a real insult. To the pigs, of course.</p>

[Bay]

<p>Didn’t the woman in article say that she was looking for a mate? That implies that she was sizing the men up physically and socially, as well. Is it the specific language used that makes the men “pigs” but not her?</p>

[Cardinal_Fang]

<p>

It is possible that every woman that Highland hired, has quit, or couldn’t bring in business, or something like that, so the track record is not good for them.

</p>

<p>Yeah. Every woman Highland hired had a bad track record. And by the greatest coincidence, every woman all the other venture capital firms hired also had a bad track record. And that explains why there are very few women at venture capital firms. </p>

<p>Or maybe the trend at every venture capital firm is not explained by Highland’s experience with individual women they hired.</p>

[Youdon_tsay]

<p>I don’t feel like joining this fray, but I’m with Fang here. Maybe these women couldn’t bring in business because the work environment was so hostile toward them.</p>

[Bay]

<p>I know a woman partner in a VC firm who has a good track record. But she seems to be stressed out all the time.</p>

[busdriver11]

<p>“I found this article fascinating both as an examination of the challenges women still face in a male-dominated world and also as an insight into how the “1 percent” set themselves up for further success.”</p>

<p>Why bring “the 1 percent” into this discussion of sexism and disrespect towards women?</p>

<p>Did you know that the “1 percent” is made up of doctors, lawyers, small business owners, dual professional couples, sales and tech workers, even some blue collar workers, among others? Not all bankers, there are millions of people in this group.</p>

<p>And some of them are here on cc, working hard, earning their money honestly, and paying large amounts of taxes. It is insulting to try to connect hostility and boorish behavior towards women as having anything to do with being in “the 1 percent.”</p>

[Bay]

<p>^true. The most boorish male behavior I witnessed was when I was a young woman walking past a construction site.</p>

[sally305]

<p>I know that, busdriver, and I certainly didn’t mean to insult anyone outside of the group profiled in the article. I could have been more clear and added “some of” before “1 percent.” But the fact remains that many of the students at HBS are exceedingly wealthy, and they are overwhelmingly male. From the article:</p>

<p>

Turning around its record on women, the new administrators assured themselves, could have an untold impact at other business schools, at companies populated by Harvard alumni and in the Fortune 500, where only 21 chief executives are women.

</p>

<p>

Every year the same hierarchy emerged early on: investment bank and hedge fund veterans, often men, sliced through equations while others — including many women — sat frozen or spoke tentatively.

</p>

<p>

The men at the top of the heap worked in finance, drove luxury cars and advertised lavish weekend getaways on Instagram, many students observed in interviews. Some belonged to the so-called Section X, an on-again-off-again secret society of ultrawealthy, mostly male, mostly international students known for decadent parties and travel.

</p>

<p>

The students said they felt overwhelmed by the wealth that coursed through the school, the way it seemed to shape every aspect of social life — who joined activities that cost hundreds of dollars, who was invited to the parties hosted by the student living in a penthouse apartment at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Boston. Some students would never have to seek work at all — they were at Harvard to learn to invest their families’ fortunes — and others were borrowing thousands of dollars a year just to keep up socially.

</p>

[busdriver11]

<p>"I know that, busdriver, and I certainly didn’t mean to insult anyone outside of the group profiled in the article. I could have been more clear and added “some of” before “1 percent.”</p>

<p>You could have left out any reference to the “1 percent”, because it doesn’t even make sense. With there being millions of people in that category, and probably less than 1,000 graduates per year from HBS (with some not even in that group), it’s not even an appropriate reference.</p>

<p>It would have been logical if you said “extremely wealthy people” or something like that. Referring to them as the “1 percent” is purely class warfare speech, and probably evokes a negative reaction that you didn’t intend.</p>

[Bay]

<p>Notable in your quote, Sally, is the “mostly international” phrase. Seems like Harvard would have a lot of work to do in order to bring those students up to speed with our PC expectations.</p>

[sally305]

<p>No, I certainly didn’t intend it. It’s too late now to edit my original post. Again, sorry.</p>

<p>Bay, I agree that the challenges would be greater with international students who come from a culture that is even less accepting of women as equals than ours is here in the U.S.</p>

[katliamom]

<p>Article makes HBS sound like a MOST loathsome place. Eye-opening and, frankly, somewhat sickening.</p>

[Pizzagirl]

<p>What strikes me is how odd it is that people seem to idolize people in finance. </p>

<p>And the way they talked – it’s just so incredibly dated. God, get with the program. </p>

<p>Glad the b school I attended is “only” top 5. It’s nothing like this. Nothing.</p>

[cobrat]

<p>

What strikes me is how odd it is that people seem to idolize people in finance.

</p>

<p>Funny. People in Finance/banking/related fields were pilloried heavily by many non undergrad MBA/pre-professional majors at many places…especially at my college.</p>

<p>At other colleges, the common phrased used to describe them was “money sucking scum”. At my LAC, they were dubbed “Bourgeois Capitalist Tools”. :)</p>

<p>Incidentally, I ended up having those labels applied to myself when I ended up working for a financial services company after working for some internet startups. To me, it’s all very humorous. :D</p>

<p>Never understood why so many others get so riled up about such labels/insults. It’s not like the ones inclined to use such labels have any power over your life and livelihood. If anything…the SES equation is such that the one being labeled/insulted in this context is much more likely to have that power over those hurling the labels/insults. </p>

<p>

Glad the b school I attended is “only” top 5. It’s nothing like this. Nothing.

</p>

<p>Similarly, an older cousin-in-law’s experience at a top West Coast MBA program was nothing like that. Then again, she’s exceedingly sharp intellectually and will rip classroom browbeating hazers to shreds as she had to do on occasion as an HYPSMC STEM undergrad*. </p>

<p>I have heard many similar type horror stories from law school students/graduates…especially those who attended 20+ years ago. The latter recommended watching “The Paper Chase” and said their law school experience was just as brutal/worse than that. </p>

<ul>
<li>She also wasn’t the type to rank prospective mates on social status markers. Man she married was a graduate of a state school known much more for their wild out of control parties when he attended than academics.</li>
</ul>

[Bay]

<p>

I have heard many similar type horror stories from law school students/graduates…especially those who attended 20+ years ago. The latter recommended watching “The Paper Chase” and said their law school experience was just as brutal/worse than that.

</p>

<p>I attended law school 20+ years ago, and while my law school (not top tier per CC) experience was not as described, my Big Law (we didn’t call it that then) firm experience (including M&A practice) was very much in line with the description. That is why I am, on the one hand, not at all surprised by it, but on the other hand, disappointed that it is still happening this way.</p>

[razorsharp]

<p>So much of the article seems to rely on unique examples and opinion and speculation. Does this article really establish any legitimate point?</p>