So now it seems that gay men are discriminated against more at work than gay women. Not that I want to play the victimization game, but it is interesting that for years some lesbian-feminist activists have claimed "double discrimination" as women and as gay (which is why, in LGBT, true progressives insist that the "L" must be first, even though survey data repeatedly shows about twice as many gay men as lesbians).
That it appears that it's gay men who face more salary-level discrimination than lesbians goes against the accepted narrative.
36 Comments for “Male Privilege”
posted by yoshi on
I worked at a certain large bank for a few years. The running joke was that if you were an african american lesbian you could make VP within a month. I quit because my last director (a lesbian) wasn’t effective and was given a pass for simply being a lesbian. She finally “left” a year after I for “personal reasons.” The irony of this situation is that part of the reason I was given top marks was for being gay while more accomplished non-gay peers weren’t. I found the situation appalling.
posted by Alex on
The idea that a lesbian will face more discrimination then a gay white man is not really that far fetched. Lots of people might be more put of by a masculine lesbian then a gay guy especially since there is a trend among gay men to act more guy like and less femme while many lesbians are still acting butch. Also as a gay guy I have noticed gay guys can still get into the old boys club and women still do not really have that much of a chance gay or straight.
posted by Hrmmm. on
I believe the survey. There are more men in management, and gay men are often subjected to the “ick” factor by other men. Unless you’re utterly butch, lesbians tend to fit in just like other women. Straight men tend not to get bothered by “L Word” lesbians as much. But once they think of man on man sex, the “gross” factor kicks in.
posted by ETJB on
A woman is going to face discrimination for being a woman and a lesbian.
A man is going to face discrimination for being gay, but probably not for being a man — depending on their race, ethnicty, class, ability, politics.
In terms of sexual orientation itself, lesbians are sometimes more ‘tolerated’ then gay men. But it depends on the circumstances.
posted by MMMM on
There are many facets to this which the commeters have noted variously. In my experience growing up in the bible belt, the character maxim “be a man” applies surreptitiously to women as well, such that gender-bending women get a free pass and are even revered locally as much as their male couterparts. That secular value lies alongside but overrides the religious values that proscribe big hair and submissiveness: only a few women embrace that ideal as a lifestyle: on the other hand, the gender benders are literally almost all other women, including wealthy married matrons, working moms, single women, hell raising women, married bisexuals in three way relationships, mannish dykes, athletically accomplished women, farm girls, coal miners, teenage sports stars, aggressive businesswomen, county prosecutors, and willful assertive women in any endeavor. All these women had the options and leeway to be just as tomboyish, masculine, mannish, butch, or feminine as they wanted at almost any time on any occasion. It was their prerogative steel magnolias with brass balls. The women were allowed far more gender variance than men, who were still proscribed a very narrow set of mannerisms and allowed just a few personae. For me, growing up male in that place, it was boring as hell. I would say that, in that area, gay men have fewer prospects than lesbians in terms of business, social, and political advancement.
posted by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) on
The real-world realities of corporate life are that upper management treats their capable lesbians as a positive-asset to demonstrate their commitment their “diversity”; but equally-capable men are still “fags” and not-really members of the “Boys Club”. The last time I worked in a publically-traded company the pecking-order was” the Boys Club-members, lesbians and married women, married (straight) guys, the singles, the obvious token minorities, and then the gay men. H-R and the “corporate diversity”-crowd will always point to the lesbians and married women as “proof” of their enlightment; while gay men are still perverts getting as “free-pass” as members of the white-male oligarchy.
Where I was working one of the VP-hopefuls “came-out” at the office after a personal crisis having nothing to do with his sexuality, and suddenly he was sidetracked into a career dead-end. Yet the lesbian head of in-house sales was shifted to the senior exec. fast-track despite being in over her head or abilities, just so they could show her off to the shareholders anmd stakeholders as a symbol of their “enlightenment” and commitment to “diversity”.
posted by Bobby on
Americans like pussy more than dick. That’s what they worship, part of it is because of feminism that has downgraded all things male and elevated all things female.
Lesbians are admired because men can relate to them, they both like the same things. Oh, they also have tits, which is very important for the average straight men. I have seen it time and time again how men treat lesbians and women better than me. I don’t know, maybe women’s vaginas emit some kind of radiation that only heteosexual men can detect.
I will compromise and say that a masculine fat lesbian will be treated just as badly as an ubber-effeminate gay man.
Then again, it doesn’t matter. If you’re not discriminated against for being gay, they’ll find another excuse. So give up all hope. We’re fucked either way.
posted by Lori Heine on
Four of the last five companies I worked for laid off everybody in the department (or in one case, the local office) in the process of downsizing. I wish I knew where all this “lesbian privilege” was, so I could get on board with it.
I’m serious — where are these companies, and what do these people do? Your average person with a B.A. and a midlevel corporate job — especially in a volatile field like mine (insurance)– will have no friggin’ clue what you’re talking about. There are only a few women in upper-level positions in any company for which I have worked, and exactly none of them have been anything other than safely hetero and respectably married.
I’ve only worked with gay men a couple of times, and both of them were in supervisory positions. Would they have gone higher if they’d been lesbians? I suppose so, but as there were no lesbians higher on the ladder that they were, it’s hard to say.
Perhaps in some gigantic companies — their corporate culture screwed up by proloned exposure to political correctness — being a lesbian has become an automatic elevator into the stars. Sounds pretty farfetched to me, and to just about any other normal, hardworking lesbian I’ve ever known.
It sounds, actually, like a Rush Limbaugh nightmare fantasy to me: “I lost the promotion to the half African-American, half-Asian, lesbian satanist with muscular dystrophy and a purple Fu Manchu — and they’re laughing behind my back!”
Names — I want names! What are these companies, and where?
posted by Brian Miller on
Stephen, this rush by conservatives into the “no, *I’m* the biggest victim, not you!” game is profoundly depressing.
Suffice to say that smart employers hire the most capable people and compensate them well. Stupid employers discriminate. Stupid employees hang around with employers who discriminate against them.
posted by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) on
….”Names — I want names! What are these companies, and where?”
Look at the corporate cultures of almost every publically-traded homebuildier in the US…or most publically-traded construction companies doing public-sector projects. They operate in the public-eye, yet are home to the most conservative macho-attitudes left in American industry…fueled by a tradition of promoting from the field where holding the respect of the blue-collared workman is a dominant-factor. Most other “minorities” will be tolerated as management by the men in the field (both middle-managers and the workers) since they are either capable, or written-down as “divertsity-promotions” that have to be silently-tolerated if the guy in the field wants to keep his job. But the openly-gay manager is faced with massive disrespect behind his back and ignored or shunned in the field. In-part since of all the other factors, only the “gay guy” is a direct-threat to both their masculinity…and how the manager or worker is viewed by the fellow workers. Take the gay manager’s side in a dispute and you might as well be caught in the field office giving him oral-sex…you’ll be tarred with the same brush.
And while that maybe a steroetype, it’s what they believe in the field and in the upper-management circles….and so the circle reinforces itself. It’s one of the reasons I got out….it’s a dead-end for a gay manager. Everyone else is “tolerated” or aa “diversity-example”, but “out” gay men are openly at a disadvantage.
posted by ETJB on
Yeah! Then people can also boycott food, housing, shelter, health care. All magical things will happen in lonnytarian land.
posted by Lori Heine on
Ted, that may be true, but what do you suggest that lesbians do about it? Turn down job or promotion offers? Would gay men do that in protest in fields in which lesbians are discriminated against?
Somehow I doubt it.
Of course there are still prejudicial notions at work in the minds of many in traditionally “macho” industries. I’m sure that dykes who try to become fashion models, however, would run into a few prejudicial notions themselves.
I agree with Brian. Conservatives who look for ways to be “more victim than thou” are degrading the entire concept of individual responsibility.
As for where “Lonnytarian Land” might be, I have no notion. I suppose it’s on whatever planet ETJB came from. When, pray tell, might we expect him to return there?
posted by Jorge on
I got some questions about how the authors actually know it’s discrimination that’s responsible for the salary discrepancies, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
But how does this fit into the stereotype (which I thought had some basis in fact?) that self-identifying gays have better incomes than straights?
posted by dalea on
Discrimination is shown by comparing income levels with educational attainment. The fairly consistent finding is that gay men earn less than straight men with comparable educations. Self identifying gays, as a group, tend to earn more because, again as a group, gay men tend to have higher educational attainments.
Put another way: a gay man with a masters degree earns less than a straight man with a masters degree but more than a straight man with a bachelors degree.
posted by Brian Miller on
Look at the corporate cultures of almost every publically-traded homebuildier in the US
You mean the ones who are all going out of business, filing for bankruptcy protection, or posting gigantic losses threatening their ability to trade as a going concern?
Yeah, the biggest priority gay men should have is making sure those winners are perfect work environments for us. It’s not like starting up a well-run competitor who values a man based on his capabilities could successfully disrupt their business model or anything. . .
Discrimination is shown by comparing income levels with educational attainment.
Such a correlation is faulty by design.
Using such a theory, a guy with a PhD in Queer Theory should be earning much, much more than a college dropout.
However, what happens when the guy with the PhD in Queer Theory is writing papers at a small liberal arts college — doing little of real economic value, while the college dropout is a guy named Bill Gates who starts a software company called Microsoft?
Is Bill Gates’s income a result of heterosexist privilege? After all, he’s earning orders of magnitude more money per month than the gay guy with a PhD.
Of course not.
This sort of distortion happens all the time. Lots of people in my business earn far, far more money than people with advanced degrees because while they were hanging out on a sunny quadrangle, we were stuck in a middle seat on an airplane headed to the client-site.
There’s no such thing as “shutting gay men out” if a gay man is a truly capable, best-in-class employee. It might be harder for him to find a job in Opelika, Alabama, but dems da breaks. You go where you’re strong if you want to win.
Losers, on the other hand, wring their hands, complain about what victims they are, and demand a bailout.
Don’t be a loser!
posted by thegayrecluse on
As someone who has spent a lot of time in corporations, my experience is that they are run by straight white men, and everyone else is pretty much an exception to the rule. What’s perhaps more dismaying is that women (straight or not) or gay men or any other minority who makes it to that level has to be even more straight, white, and male than average (sort of like Hillary). For those of us who are out, it’s difficult to “believe” in a system like this, so I think we naturally tend to gravitate toward lower-paying “women’s” industries like publishing, beauty, etc.
posted by ETJB on
Lori;
The right-wing libertarianism is simply divorced from reality. Its opposition to equal opportunity is a good example.
I am not a right-wing libertarian, and thus do not live in the loonytarian land, nor would I want to.
If personal attacks and dodging questions is how you plan on selling your right-wing views, then your politics are not going to go very far.
posted by ETJB on
Brian;
Equal opportunity should be a priority for LGBT people. Not every one has the ability to start up their own company, in fact few peopld do.
“A guy with a PhD in Queer Theory should be earning much, much more than a college dropout.”
No, people with a college degree are probably going to earn more money then people without a degree, simply because most jobs require a highschool and college degree.
Their is a market for people who can teach ‘queer theory’, but not a large one, but it does exist and can certainly be of value. This is not to say that ‘queer theory’, like gay history is always taught propery now.
Their was a large market for computers, especially in the late 1970s and 1980s when the computer and video game industries were begining to move beyond governent/academic projects and tools.
Inequality (and its solutions) is not soley a product of personal or social problems. People who say, “its all societies fault” or its “all the individuals fault” are often full of it.
“There’s no such thing as “shutting gay men out””
This is simply not true. I know of several of my friends who were fired for being gay, and many more who would be fired if they came out.
The reality is that (in the eyes of an employer) an employee is often an expendable person. They will probably suffer little if they deny equal opportunity to some one for being gay or black or Jewish or Catholic.
Yes, things might be better or worse in certain areas, but lots of LGBT people simply cannot pick up and move to some liberal urban center.
One of the many problems with right-wing libertarianism is that it views social problems as solely the problem of the individual. Thus they are not unlike Communists who view problems as soley being a product of the system.
posted by Brian Miller on
loonytarian land… ersonal attacks
Keeping that trollish hypocrisy alive, I see! 😉
know of several of my friends who were fired for being gay
I was once fired for being gay too.
But instead of hanging around in the Dakotas or Minnesota and whining about it, I found an employer who actually valued me for what I do rather than who I love.
Net result? The new employer did very well — the old employer ended up going out of business.
Like I said — winners take setbacks in stride and do what it takes to overcome them. Losers make themselves into victims and demand that other people fix their problems.
Don’t be a loser, and you’ll be fine.
posted by Brian Miller on
Equal opportunity should be a priority for LGBT people
We have equal opportunity. We live in a free society and the only thing holding us back from pursuing our dreams is our own fear — and government regulations.
posted by ETJB on
I said: I know of several of my friends who were fired for being gay
One ended up losing her apartment and having to relocate to Minnesota, which has decent civil right laws.
Again, for many poor, working class, disabled LGBT people it is not practical for them to move away to some place where an employer is going to “value” them.
Also, the “boycott” solution that right-wing Libertarians often promote would not work. One of my friends was fired for being gay from a major employer, but they will deny it and thus I cannot even name the company here.
Again, the entire right-wing Libertarian notion that social ills are all personal problems is just as silly as the Communists who always claim that they are a social injustice.
“We have equal opportunity.”
No, we lack equal opportunity in the public and private sector, absent of a state civil rights law.
posted by Bobby on
You don’t get it, ETJB, a homophobic employer will find ways to get you fired for non-gay stuff, such as the quality of your work, at what time you show up, a single spelling mistake in a presentation, your attitude, etc. The law only helps truly excellent employees, like Tom Hanks in the movie “Philadelphia.” Not everyone is that perfect, most people are very easily fireable, many keep their jobs because of good qualities that make the bad qualities easy to ignore. But if an employeer wants to pay attention to the bad qualities, then you’re screwed.
posted by Lori Heine on
What should be done is for the regulatory burdens on entrepreneurship to be lifted. Were that to happen, many more small companies could be started and successfully established — a number of which would certainly hire gays.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
The liberals are phonies. They ride around on their white chargers and declaim against corporate gigantism, but it is their own zealous over-regulation of business that has enabled huge corporations to take over America. The Hillarys and John Edwardses are in bed with big-corporate America. Only an idiot could take seriously that they support free enterprise for all.
All this flummery, from ETJB, about “liberal” or “right-wing” libertarians is sheer nonsense. Libertarians are neither left nor right, because left and right are statist political designations.
Capitalism and free enterprise are not always necessarily the same thing. Big-government-enabled capitalism is actually hostile to free enterprise. Encouraging corporate monopoly is little better than promoting communism.
posted by dalea on
While it may be possible to find individual examples of persons having ‘unmarketable’ degrees, studies tend to be about large groups of people. In the long run and on the average, people with bachelors degrees make more than people without them. This is a fairly standard form of statistical and economic analysis.
What the researchers found very consistently was that gay men with more education made less than straight men with less education. And the difference was statistically signifigant. Since the only variables were education, income and orientation, the conclusion that the cause is anti-gay prejudice is sound. This is very standard method, used in all sorts of analysis.
And since it involves several hundred people, arguing against that conclusion means finally saying that each and every one of the gay men is somehow a looser. And each straight guy is a winner. Unless you regard gay men in general as being inherently defective, I don’t see how you can explain this away.
Additionally, education is frequently a proxy for intelligience, discipline and energy. Gay men have to be better on all three fronts to compete with straight men. Which certainly shows the effect of prejudice.
posted by dalea on
Just what barriers to entrepreneurship are we dealing with? What regulations are not needed? Maybe we should do away with all the pesky accounting rules. Let a thousand Enrons bloom.
posted by Lori Heine on
Barriers to entrepreneurship include all regulations that big corporations can afford to get around and small ones cannot. Big companies have armies of lobbyists in Washington to plead for their interests, while Mom and Pop have none.
If real competition is reintroduced into the marketplace, there will still be big corporations. But the small frys will be better able to compete with them.
As far as prejudice against gays is concerned, there is plenty of room for reeducation. But if I own a company, and I learn that one of my employees is harassing his or her gay coworkers, I want to be able to fire that person.
I can’t very well protect my right to fire bigots unless bigots are also allowed to fire me.
posted by Samantha on
I’m glad to see from most of the responses that nobody bought the deceiving headline of gay men being discriminated more than gay women. The article did not say that. and it compared lesbians to straight women, not lesbians to gay men or straight men. Do that and lesbians come out on the short stick. I’m sorry Stephen, but women of all ilk make less, and are less represented in upper management. And while we’re counting, male domination exists in the gay industry as well. Your tagging of women who discuss the inequities as “lesbian-feminists activists” is a cheap shot and a nod to conservative skullduggery. Want to discredit someone? Call them an activist. Want to discredit a woman? Call her a feminist, feminazi, or better yet, lesbian feminist. Roll it all up into one jelly donut and you’ve earned yourself a ticket on the(swift)boat express.
In my own corporation, women are almost non-existent in upper management. Yet, a gay man is the vp of my department. Men defer to other men, and when I’m standing at the elevator, some execs won’t even glance at me much less talk to me. They are more inclined to make conversation with the gay man next to me, even if he’s lower in rank.
This has always been so. And as one poster quietly pointed out, it’s looking even better for gay men in the workforce now that the line of masculinity is blurring, and gay men get more butch while straight men get more metrosexual.
posted by Herb Spencer on
Ah, the Battle of the Minority Superstars continues. Interesting how we strive to stifle competition with affirmative action, however thinly disguised, but find that the “reconstructed” playing field remains a competitive one nevertheless, making AA and all other efforts to level it only obstacles to competitive efficiency.
Missing from the discussion: the rank of hierarchy in government, especially big government, as found in the feds and in the larger states. My experience, as an out gay man, is not so much that I’m discriminated against, but that the “stacking” of characteristics traditionally meriting protection does indeed give the capable – or ruthless – lesbian of color an express elevator at least from the ground floor, if not always to the top.
posted by Lori Heine on
Evidently Herb failed to notice that at least one lesbian has already made an argument, here, for something other than affirmative action.
I realize that shorts the circuits of stereotypical expectation, but some of us really would prefer to rise the old-fashioned way. There are at least as many women who take pride in competing for the best jobs, under the stigma of affirmative action (however undeserved, in many individual cases, it may be) as there ever were men who took less pride in grabbing all the best jobs all those years when women weren’t even allowed to compete for them.
Again, I see little in the way of an “express elevator” in huge corporations, where their near-monopoly gives the company little incentive to compete for the best employees — and employees very little to choose from in competing for good jobs.
And again, as I have already stated here, removing government obstacles to entrepreneurship would give the best people access to the best jobs. It would even give those of us so inclined the chance to launch out on our own and employ the people we chose.
Let a thousand flowers bloom. And whether those flowers would be something other than Enrons would be up to us.
posted by Bobby on
“In my own corporation, women are almost non-existent in upper management. Yet, a gay man is the vp of my department.”
—Could it be that those women have husbands and kids to come home to while the men are married to their jobs? At my advertising agency, we have several women who are upper management, they work as hard as the boys and sacrifice their personal lives for the sake of the company.
Now, if a woman is gonna get pregnant every other year, and take time off, her chances of success will be limited. At one company there were two traffick managers, one got pregnant and got a leave for 6 months I think. When she came back, the company saw that one traffick manager could do the job of two, so she got canned.
posted by Samantha on
In an answer, Bobby, – No.
The few women who did make it to upper management in my company were present and accounted for. They worked as hard as the males. I’m sure that is the case in most companies, because there is no shortage of women around (as you seem to infer) who are driven to succeed. One in particular I can think of, well liked, very efficient and successful, was canned. I suspect due to her salary not her gender. However, there was no thought to considering another qualified woman to replace her, because a male with connections within the company took her position. (As a side note, the dept went swiftly downhill, he was shuffled out, and the position was filled by another male from a different dept.)
In regards to the pregnancy issue, FMLA laws are clear, and a mother or father can take off 3 months without penalty. If the employer fires them or demotes them (even due to elimination of the position) they are breaking the law. Obviously taking off half the year, whether you’re a man or a woman, is a different story, and a poor example of the norm.
posted by dalea on
From what I have seen, one obstacle to advancement for pretty much everybody is the short term outlook of management. One major high tech firm had a way of upping the bottom line. In the middle of each quarter, management would come up with a figure needed to make the quarter look better. HR would then go through each pay grade. The higher earners in each grade, the ones who had distinguished themselves by hard work and effort, would be fired. When enough were eliminated to make the figure needed, hiring would begin. But the new hires would not come on until into the next quarter. The stories have been pretty consistent, coming from all over the place about this practice.
Decoupling reward from achievement is not a good idea. I tend to think Libertarians do not put enough emphasis on looking at how corporations are run. There are a lot of problems which depart from how Libertarians say busineeses are conducted.
One other obstacle for entrepreneurs is the major corporations have a practice of buying up successful owner operated companies. One I know of had an innovative product line and good distribution. The owner got an offer he could not refuse. The company was integrated into a major firm, most employees lost their jobs and the owner now leads a life of leisure.
posted by ETJB on
Lori;
Libertarianism does indeed have a right, center and left-wings to it. If you do not know that, then I would consider reading more about the philosophy, beyond a few right-libertarian tracts.
posted by Lori Heine on
ETJB, I have certainly read more than “a few tracts.” Not that you — with your obviously limited knowledge — would have any way of discerning that in what I’ve already said here.
There are indeed differences in where various libertarians stand on social issues. I was a progressive Democrat most of my life, so I certainly don’t need you to lecture me about the difference between “left” and “right,” either. Back in the Nineties, I was the affirmative action chair of my local Democratic precinct, and helped to recruit the delegates for the ’92 presidential election. I didn’t just fall off of the turnip truck yesterday.
It has been precisely my involvement with the Left that has led to my dissatisfaction with leftist politics, and my impatience with people who think as you do. Had I not such extensive experience with these people, I would have no reason for such dissatisfaction.
As far as the differences between social left and right in the libertarian movement, because libertarians do not believe that ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING ought to be controlled by the government, our differences on social issues shouldn’t matter. A number of my fellow libertarians hold beliefs about issues I hold dear — especially on women and gays — that I find quite obnoxious. But since they aren’t trying to run my life, I’ve simply chosen to chill out about those differences.
Too bad you find it so impossible to chill out about anything.
posted by ETJB on
Lori;
Hows it coming with your evidence that the US Constitution and Thomas Jefferson believed that private property cannot be regulated by the government?
I have read and written about libertarianism; its history, philosophy, and beliefs. I wager that I know more then you about it anyday.
Their are left, right, and center wings of libertarianism. Get used to it. I suspect that you been reading mostly right-wing libertarianism which loves to pretend that it is the one, true, faith.
The Libertarian Left was the original libertarian movement and their are some notable scholars today who promote the philosophy. The major splits between the different factions, are economic and not social.
Left-Libertarians generally feel that certain conditions had to exist for capitalism/free markets to work and that the concentration of power (public or private) is wrong. They have an extensive list of economic-property theories and beliefs.
Right-Libertarians generally believe that the concentration of power in the public, is bad. But that their no preconditions required for capitalism to work, that free market principles should apply to all economic behavior, and they tend to be heavily influenced by Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.
posted by Lori Heine on
ETJB, as the “Right” Libertarians, as you describe them, do not believe exactly the same as I do — while the “Left” Libertarians do believe somewhat the same as I do, you are wrong again. Again. How surprising.
I do not believe — and cannot be induced to believe — that ANY libertarian believes that private employers should be forced to hire people they do not want to employ. Cite a reliable source that says otherwise, kindly, please.
The U.S. Constitution did not enumerate, under the limited powers it gave the government, the right to regulate private property. How am I doing with that? Just fine, thanks. Find me somewhere where — as you keep claiming — it does.
While you’re at it, find where Jefferson can be quoted as stating that the government has a greater right to one’s property than oneself. Good luck with that. When, pray tell, do we get to see that jig?
As for your loopy idea that the “Libertarian Left” was the original libertarian movement, a slight and very gentle correction is in order. What is now libertarianism was originally known as “classical liberalism.” I believe it is the presence of the word “liberal” that is confusing you. Until you leftists hijacked it, it was indeed regarded by libertarians as an honorable term.