Why We Should Be More Sexist | Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic | TEDxCambridge

what makes someone

sexist

three things the first is the inability to ignore people's gender I know some of you have this problem you can't stop seeing gender you're even looking at me right now no matter how hard you try you can't ignore the fact that I'm a man, of course, most of you are so open minded that you wouldn't even know what I'm talking about. They're so embarrassed that they've developed this incredible ability to be totally blind to people's gender, that's how they feel. You're also immune to all those horrible gender stereotypes and biases and why you may not even have realized that I'm a man.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I'm also white, the second thing that makes someone

sexist

is rejecting the idea that men and women are equal again. I'm pretty sure that due to your civilized upbringing and expensive education, this probably won't apply to most of you, but I must confess that it does apply to me, sorry after studying the science of sex. differences for some time I simply am not convinced by the idea that men and women are equally talented, competent and honest in relation to the third thing that makes someone sexist is rejecting policies for the equal representation of men and women in society, especially at the top.

I am certainly very sexist because I would not like women to enjoy the same rights as men, for example, being selected for leadership positions based on their aggressiveness, greed or height, being promoted for confidence, even when that means going far beyond their actual levels. They are encouraged to lean on competent people, especially when they do not have the talent to support them, forgive or even celebrate their mistakes and are given license to simply be themselves so that they can behave in an authentic way, without filters, without inhibitions and uncensored, sexist jokes and social behaviors bullying harassment you name it, we would like women to have all of these privileges, so instead of advocating for equal treatment between women and men, what I would like is a sexist world that be

more

challenging for men rather than lowering the bar to allow women to get to the top, let's raise the bar to ensure that incompetent men remain at the bottom, rather than engaging in positive discrimination to help competent women to become leaders, why not practice some old-fashioned negative discrimination to reduce the large number of women? incompetent men who are destined to become leaders to be clear on this issue.

I am a scientist first and a sexist second. Science has made me sexist because sexism is a data-driven bias. I call it feminism. It is seen today in much of the industrialized world. They outnumber men in college, outnumber them, and earn higher grades in most subjects, including MBAs. This is why selecting leaders based on their competence or experience would be sexist, leading to

more

women than men in leadership roles. Wait, you'll say this is just formal credentials or hard skills, what about actual leadership competencies or soft skills? Well, here two women outperform men in most of the traits that predispose people to be more effective as leaders score higher than men emotional intelligence self-awareness humility integrity and coachability if Leaders selected on the basis of these traits at least 70% of them would be women.

Okay, women score lower on most of the toxic traits that get leaders and their organizations into trouble. Machiavellianism, Psychopathy and narcissism, where men clearly excel, according to a recent study from Harvard Business School. demonstrated that it is twice as profitable for organizations to eliminate these parasitic individuals and hire real superstars. In short, selecting or rejecting leaders based on their personality would also be sexist and lead to more women than men in leadership roles, as some have noted, these findings may simply reflect sampling bias; In other words, because women need to be more qualified and competent to be leaders.

Studies that report that women make better leaders may simply reflect that our standards are unfairly high for women. I would reverse the argument that our standards simply are not. high enough for men we are clearly treating men very unfairly, depriving them of the same high quality control mechanisms that allow women to be so competent when they become leaders, fortunately all we need is a little bit of sexism To reverse this problem if the world had more data-driven sexist people, particularly in charge of vetting and selecting leaders, it would be extremely detrimental to the large number of incompetent men who are willing and able to become leaders and quite a win-win for everyone. others of course I may be biased despite being a sexist, in fact if I convinced some of you to be more sexist this is what your critics will say, they will tell you that you are contrarians after all, They get a lot more attention by being provocative, which is easily achieved by going against the status quo.

In my case, this confrontational nature may be due to my own personality as a child. I always had problems with authority. I grew up in a Catholic military family and was sent to a German school. This may explain my inability to accept the de facto view that men rule the world. world because women are simply not interested in being leaders if only women would lean in then we would have many more female leaders when I published my last book why do so many incompetent men become leaders? my critics complained that I use the word man instead of people or even women, there are also some incompetent women who become leaders, one of them pointed out yes, but not that many, but maybe, after all, maybe I had something in mind, from a justice standpoint, surely women deserve the right to be as incompetent as men, sadly, there is simply no objective or clear way to determine if someone is sexist in the good old days of In the 1970s, you could just ask people simple questions like, for example, don't you think it's ridiculous for a woman to drive a locomotive and for a man to clean? his own socks and the fact that these questions seem a little old-fashioned today and are less frequently endorsed even by man suggests that things are changing.

Today's sexism tests present people with much more subtle and discreet statements like, for example, I'm not even sexist. If you have female friends, maybe in 50 years we'll look back at today's seemingly progressive and open-minded statements, like if only women bowed down then we'd have a lot more female leaders and see them as equally ridiculous. "You are what you deny if you say." that you are not sexist then your options are to be neutral or to be sexist in the other direction neutrality may seem like the best option but is it real or even useful or just comfortable because of the moral position that allows you to justify the sexist? world in which we live, one of the disadvantages of living in a liberal era is that domination is no longer explicitly stated but masked under the pretext of equality;

This is why benevolent sexism is much more damaging than overt sexism: it perpetuates the status quo and does not incite people to act, for example, telling women that they are too kind and caring to be leaders. It's far worse than exposing male leaders for their self-centered narcissism. The best way to combat sexism is not to deny it, ignore it or pretend that we live in a meritocratic world, the best way to combat sexism is to fight back and reverse it with a better alternative; that alternative is not false neutrality or false egalitarianism, but rather data-driven sexism rather than demanding a return on investment for women in leadership positions. finally demand it for men thanks