The complicated dance of gender and work

Or, “Does the Glass Ceiling make any f’n sense?”

The “Big Issues” Series

Masculinity

Fertility and infertility

Empathy

Life’s bullshit

Failure

Sexuality

Friendship

Being performative

Convenience

Gender and the workplace

Productivity

Purpose

Being busy

Burnout

Onboarding

How does “woke” relate to “work?”

Let’s actually commence by discussing the Glass Ceiling and how much sense it makes

Here’s The New York Times being “goofy” and comparing the number of companies run by guys named John (just the name John) to the number of companies run by women at all. It’s maybe a little bit awkward at parts, but this chart is something else:

So … 5.3% of the S&P 1500 is run by someone named John (a popular name, but hardly the only thing you can name a male baby) whereas 4.1% of the S&P 1500 is run by a woman at all (all names, not just “Cathy” or something). That’s a miserable train wreck, eh?

Here’s the final paragraph of the NYT article. I added the bold:

The Glass Ceiling Index is a fun but quite imperfect way of measuring the permeability of the glass ceiling. (Especially because in a few decades, the millennial Jacobs, Tylers and Zacharys will outnumber baby boomer Bills and Bobs.) But it does point to an important truth — that in many…