While out and about in the car last Thursday I was listening to Radio 4 – between REM songs – and I overheard an interview with Catherine Hakim, a researcher in sociology at LSE.  Listen to the chat here.  She was on to discuss and promote her latest book Honey Money: The Power of Erotic Capital, in which she argues that virtues such as attractiveness and vivaciousness play as large a part in professional success as academic qualifications.

This topic attracts – ba-dum tsh – my attention for a few reasons.  First off, it reminded me of the argument made by advocates of emotional intelligence like me.  We assert that success in life is probably more down to non-academic skills such as motivation, empathy and persuasiveness than anything you learned in school.  Your ability to master these skills increases your emotional capital or the value of your personal brand in the marketplace.  Maybe erotic or sexual capital is another application of the emotional intelligences paradigm.

Also, I’ve been interested in the so-called halo effect for some time.  This is a bias in our brains that makes us judge a person or thing better than it is in one area because it seems to be great in another.  So, for example, we tend to think that beautiful people are smarter or more competent than they really are.  Hakim’s work seems to take advantage of this bias.  But it even applies to products.  Because the iPod is regarded well, people tend to overestimate other Apple products.  (Surely that is heresy?  Yes it is, but don’t call me Shirley…)

Since Hakim explicitly argues that erotic capital is a tool women should wield for career advancement, she has raised some heckles in the sisterhood.  For instance, while Elizabeth Day admits that Hakim’s work is “interesting” and “genuinely thought-provoking” in places, in the end she judges it “fairly offensive”.  Anna North is more forthright, dismissing it as “bullshit”.   Guardian writer Zoe Williams seems proud to have clashed with Hakim over lunch.

I suspect in reality that there’s something to it, probably as a subset of social intelligence.  At any rate, read what the lady herself has to say before you dismiss it as so much post-feminist femme fatale.

Have you got erotic capital?  It can be just as valuable as a university degree—especially for women

Erotic Capital in the European Sociological Review

For a more balanced evaluation read:

Catherine Hakim: She’s counting up erotic capital by Kaye Spicer.  Subheading:  ‘The academic with a knack for upsetting feminists has done it again, claiming that sex appeal is as important as brains’.  Also try Erotic Capital by Celia Walden.  ‘Meet the woman who defined the definitive professional must-have of our generation: Dr Catherine Hakim.’

So do women use feminine wiles to their advantage  at work?  My wife says yes.  Do you agree?

There have been a few quality articles written recently about a topic close to my heart – the place of men in the modern workplace.  In this blog, I intend to do two things.  Firstly, I want to provide you with links to them so you can read them at your leisure, and a summary of what they’re about.  And second, since they mention some issues that I’ve touched on before, I’ll provide links to my relevant posts.  Here goes!

The End of Men (The Atlantic Magazine)

“Earlier this year, women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history. Most managers are now women too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same. For years, women’s progress has been cast as a struggle for equality. But what if equality isn’t the end point? What if modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women? A report on the unprecedented role reversal now under way— and its vast cultural consequences”

Issues:

• Feminine management style – post-heroic leadership
• Emotional/Social intelligence
• Learning style of boys
• How pop-culture portrays men

The New Heavyweight Champions (The Globe and Mail)

“Women are out-studying, out-working and out-earning men. And all evidence suggests the shift is permanent”

Are Men Obsolete? Ask Sebastian Junger (CBC News)

Issues:

• war as a distinctly male activity
• the need for male rites of passage

Let me end with some quotes from this last article.  Since this is a blog about me, I’d appreciate a man having the last word.  (The two articles above were penned by women.)

“In today’s modern culture where, Junger argues, there are no rites of passage anymore, going to war provides a simple, stable set of meanings. It gives the participants a purpose and a job, provided they can conquer the fear of being killed. War brings males together in a bond of “love,” Junger says…In combat, Junger tells us, something quite extraordinary happens. You might literally sacrifice yourself for your comrade, even if you hated him…Still, you can’t create this intense bonding in everyday society. That’s the tragedy…So, in the end, it’s not simply the violence that these men are largely addicted to. It’s the sense of belonging. These soldiers believe their simple, structured life, lived with comradely intensity, is easier than the confusions and uncertainties of civilian life. You can see small versions of this sentiment in street cafes right now — the bands of men cheering wildly for their tribe, their World Cup team.”

I’m writing this blog on the day before the World Cup final.  I remember a clip from the film Black Hawk Down.  As I watch it for the hundredth time, I’m tempted to do something very unmanly, something that starts with ‘c’ and rhymes with die.  Which is kind of fitting, since die is what these articles tell me men do best anyway.

Do you think like a man or like a women when it comes to work?  One way to find out is to examine your attitude towards pay.

According to Marilyn Davidson – professor of work psychology at Manchester Business School – men get more pay in the workplace than women because they expect it, they ask for it, and they (think they) deserve it.

If women want equal pay, they have to think in the same way as men.

Why don’t they?  Here’s what this woman says.

“Partly women fear being too aggressive and feisty – which can be viewed as negative in the workplace – but I think it’s more complex. It is part of our conditioning that men equate money with status and power but women see job satisfaction as more of an issue.”

So some of it is due to traditional stereotypes of the assertive workplace women as a bolshy ball-buster, able to out-drink and out-think her male compatriots.  The superwoman.  Margaret Thatcher.  You want a merit fight?  Bring it on!  And scary with it.

But some of it also has to do with our gender ‘conditioning’ according to which money means more to men.

A man looks at a promotion and thinks – power, status, money, achievement.

A woman looks at the same opportunity and thinks – “Promotion just means longer hours and more stress all with very little thanks.  If you have no free time to enjoy the money you’re earning what’s the point?”

(So says Emma from Oxford.)

I first came across this perspective in one of the best books on gender I’ve read.  It’s called The Sexual Paradox: Troubled Boys, Gifted Girls and the Real Diffrence Between the Sexes by Susan Pinker.  I’ve mentioned her book before. Amazon describes the book’s thesis like this:

“By comparing the lives of troubled schoolboys and promising girls, Pinker turns several widely-held assumptions upside down: that the sexes are biologically equivalent; that intelligence is all it takes to succeed; and that men and women have identical goals.Pinker argues that men and women are not clones, and that gender discrimination is just one part of the persistent gender gap. A workplace that is satisfying to us all will recognize differences between the sexes, not ignore them or insist that we will all be the same. The Sexual Paradox reveals how gender differences influence ambition and success.”

In essence – women get less pay because they want less job.  They have a life.  Men do not.  Work is their life.  Now that the glass ceiling is cracking, women could push on through.  But they (generally) don’t want to!  Why?  Because maybe we’re asking the wrong question.

It’s not, How can women think more like men about their pay?  Rather, how can men think more like women about their job?

Quality of life is not quantity of remuneration.  Or even close.

Men need to wise up to this fact.  Money can’t repair your shattered family, your shattered health or your shattered dreams.  Money leaves you wanting more.  Always.

Take the gender pay test here.

Image credit: fuzzbabble.

This was the sort of insight I shared with my class of women last Saturday. They got it straight from the stallion’s mouth. It was a great day with plenty of frank views exchanged, stories shared, and a wicked humour revealed… often at my expense. We looked at the place of gender in self-help literature, the latest research on the science of brain difference, and how this plays out in communication and conflict between the sexes.

I was busy this week with radio interviews to promote the workshop. As a topic, it certainly tickled the fancy of a lot of punters in the province. I think we’re starting to get to a situation now where we can talk about the differences between the sexes as well as the equalities. This is healthy, exciting and useful.

Women have led the way in this new openness. Only last week the Daily Mail ran an interesting article about a new book, The Sexual Paradox by Susan Pinker. The review was written by a feminist and challenged the traditional view that women don’t get the top jobs because of male prejudice; rather, they simply don’t want them due to a preference for a decent quality-of-life. Click here to read it: Why Women Don’t Want the Top Jobs, by a feminist.

My favourite writer on this topic is a Cambridge Prof called Simon Baron-Cohen (the cousin of Ali G and Borat, believe it or not!). He has conducted major work on the typical psychological sex differences in terms of ‘empathy’ (for women) and ‘systemizing’ (in men). He is also known for the theory that autism is an extreme form of the ‘male brain’ behaviour. Check out his articles in The Guardian They Just Can’t Help It and the New York Times The Male Condition. You can also take his brain test.

What I’m especially interested in is how all this applies to the workplace. Thoughts, anyone?