<p>It alarmed me to hear that female students were shy about raising their hands in class. They are paying $150k for the degree, plus opportunity costs, are allegedly the cream of the crop, and are several years out of college. Yet, they are too intimidated to raise their hands in class even when participation counts for 50% of their grade?</p>
<p>Yes, I feel badly for people in an intimidating environment, but you eventually have to decide if your own reticince is worth risking your career over.</p>
<p>razorsharp: the “legitimate point” is that the culture that prevails in some top business schools puts women at a disadvantage when they graduate. This has been borne out by study after study, even when accounting for the differences in specializations that each gender tends to prefer (i.e., women in marketing versus men in finance).</p>
<p>The women had to choose between being considered attractive and being active in class. Do you want to speak up in class and be considered an ugly harpy? Not so easy. The men had to face no such choice.</p>
<p>And notice who two of the women who prevailed were. The female dean, we were told, went home to her wife and her two little children; the class speaker, one of only two women to try out, had spent her first year at HBS 100 pounds overweight. The dean presumably wasn’t concerned about male sexual attention, and the speaker wasn’t going to get male attention even if she kept quiet in class. So they didn’t have much to lose.</p>
<p>Razorsharp, before HBS made the changes, in 2009, women made up 36% of students but only 14% of the top 5% of students. After HBS tried to make the male students be a tiny bit less jerkish, in 2013 women made up 40% of the student body and 38% of the top 5% of students. That’s a point, if you want one.</p>
<p>If they indeed behave in this way, it may be the main stream culture that still somehow influences them in this “bad” way even today.</p>
<p>If they can not change themselves, they are welcome to pursue the premed and medicine track. No premeds in an orgo class would dare to ask the professor too many questions before being resented by everybody. There is no participation grade at all as premeds. Few med school students or interns/residents dare to raise their voices and dominate the conversation as long as another one who is slightly higher in the “ranking” order (e.g., only one year senior than you) is around. Just follow the instructions/orders if you do not want to get into a trouble. Those students with the the mentality that is a perfect match in the hedge fund/VC career path could hardly survive a day in the medicine career path.</p>
<p>I’ve been in finance for almost 30 years and it’s seemed to me that there’s always a majority of men who are all the same: for them it’s about sex and war. Even the sports analogies are taken from the language of war. I think lots of these guys have more testosterone than real ability. </p>
<p>I’ve been in meetings where an aggressive guy used all the right buzzwords, wore the right suit, and dominated the whole meeting with aggressive war whoops disguised as sales talk. A couple of the women, and some of the more rational men, make comments that actually offered true ideas that might accomplish something. And after the meeting, the head guy turns to me and talks admiringly about what a go-getter the war whoop guy is. What a bunch of BS. </p>
<p>I think the reason more women aren’t more successful is the judging, not the abilities.</p>
<p>I also found it odd that coaching on “hand raising” was being offered, wonder if that’s another way to focus on something lacking in the women, rather than addressing the systemic issues like the hostile environment.</p>
<p>The same happens all the time in advertising/marketing…except without the suits. And the women who seem to do best are the ones who act the most like the men.</p>
<p>I am not in finance. But one mid-level manager likes to call a short meeting in which as soon as anybody opens his/her mouth (even when he solicits the opinion), he will very quickly shut him/her off on the ground that we do not have time for that. But he himself is allowed to blah-blah-blah (blow the horn) all the time during the whole meeting. It is as if he just wants everybody there to nod constantly and admire him.</p>
<p>At one time, right after a meeting, he claimed he could help a female engineer to solve a problem for her. He walked fast toward the lab, with that female engineer barely could catch up with him. When he passed the male’s rest room, he went straight into the rest room withouting saying a word to her about it. He probably expected she of course should wait outside of the rest room until he’s finished there. (BTW, the problem was not resolved. And no resources have been allocated for resolving the problem for a week. The proper way for him to do is to identify one engineer under him who has the ability and experience to tackle the problem and assign him/her to work with her.)</p>
<p>This whole situation reminds me of the Mike Tyson type people. One aspect of his life benefits from being the most violent man in the world, but in other situations he can’t switch it off appropriately. Sociopathic aggression might be good for making money under some conditions, but same the personality traits also can’t be switched off in other situations (leading to sexual violence).</p>
<p>In my MBA class section we had 35 students - only one was an absolute jerk in trying to dominate discussion on everything. The professors did nothing to shut him up, which I think was their mistake. I once asked him, in private, to let other opinions be heard. He was genuinely shocked and offended at the implication that he was a selfish sob. Later I realized he truly thought he was very fair; exactly 50% of participation should come from him, and exactly 50% from all others combined - how much more reasonable could he be?</p>
<p>One of the things I found interesting was that they had stenographers in the classrooms. Where 50% of the grade is based on participation, the women, even if they speak, need to be heard by the guy giving the grade. It was clear that the guys giving the grades did NOT hear the women and their grades suffered as a result.</p>
<p>This happened to me in grad school. I was in a small seminar - 5 male students and me. Not only did the profesor make sexist comments but he clearly did not hear me. I would make a comment. No response. Then one of the male students would make the same comment and the professor would praise the male student’s great insight. It was so frustrating. In my final written evaluation, I was not surprised to see the comment “X does not participate readily in discussions.” Bah. I talked a blue streak . . . someone’s ears weren’t open.</p>
<p>I just want to comment as a woman in a male dominated field. I remember on one occasion where I went to my supervisor with concerns that I was not getting through to certain colleagues when it came to making improvements in our processes. His response was “You do not have enough testosterone in your voice for them to take you seriously”. He wasn’t insulting me, but he was just commenting on the reality of the situation.</p>
<p>Women absolutely do evaluate men in terms of physical desirability and attractiveness. They may not compartmentalize them along the same lines as men do of women, but I hear women saying things all the time, like “he’s too: nerdy, short, bald, hipster, creepy, skinny, fat, dumb, unattractive, old, unathletic, etc.” </p>
<p>What I am guessing is so offensive to some women here, is that apparently at least one HBS male spoke about his rating system in front of someone else, who then reported to it to the NYT reporter. We don’t know anything about the context of his comment. Yet, many are quick to conclude the males at HBS are “pigs.”</p>
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