the salt makers

While perusing a very informative blog concerning law firm diversity I came across the following:

"This article from the Harvard Law Bulletin says that female lawyers are second-class citizens in the profession. Why? Because the senior partners at most law firms are white men, and they have a bias against women. That's why so few women become partners, says the article."
http://www.misterthorne.org/blog_lfd/

This article does mention the fact that women are 4 times more likely to take a leave of absence and desire more time with their family.  Certainly, it would hard to argue that doesn't impact their promotional results significantly.  I do question, however, whether women are as ambitious as men.

I came across an article that posited the following:
"For women to become truly equal in the workplace, changes to organizational structures, which place emphasis on long and rigid working hours and overtime, need to take place and options such as career breaks, part time work and flexible working hours must be given more professional credibility by senior management."

This seems to be saying that "women will be equal in the workplace when workplaces start caring less about hard work."  Or even that "women will be equal in the workplace when workplaces become less like workplaces"  That is certainly not a solution to the problem.

The article should also discuss the "taboo" topic of autochthonous intelligence.  Two recent studies have and came up with some not-so-easy to digest conclusions:  men are smarter than women.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=405056&in_page_id=1770

Now, I can't speak for the methodology of these two tests, but they seem, prima facia, legitimiate.  But even someone as anti-feminist as myself finds it hard to reconcile with.  I personally will need more than two studies to convince me of this turn of events.

What I will visit is the well established fact that while men and women have, on average, similar intelligence scores (roughly around 100), the distribution is totally different for the sexes.  Men score more in the higher brackets and also more in the lower brackets.  Women tend to score more in the average range.  What this means is that when you go to a party, a law firm, or a doctor's office you can be pretty sure that the smartest person you meet will be a man, but you can also be sure that the dumbest person you meet will be a man.

The difference, I suppose, is that only the brightest of the bright tend to gravitate towards professions like law and medicine, which puts women at a disadvantage from the get-go.  I mean, certainly the best surgeons are men, right?  I've certainly never heard of a famous female surgeon, though I know this anecdotal evidence is far from conclusive.  Unfortunately though, even if this is true I could never support any preferential policies to ameliorate the problem.  The best man (or woman) should always get the job, regardless of race, color or sex. 

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Zachary Sonnier