"The male advantage"

[4th law of robotics]

1. "Men are smarter than women"

Okay, we're stupider too. In fact, men tend to show up more at the extremes not just for intelligence (geniuses versus dolts) but for a variety of other traits, including height, weight, body mass index, and measures of physical and psychological performance. "Whether we are talking about kindness versus cruelty, curiosity versus close-mindedness, wisdom versus immature pigheadedness, self-control versus self-indulgence, or humility versus narcissism," says Baumeister, "there are more men than women at both the good and the bad extremes."

Given this tendency, it probably shouldn't be so surprising that there are more men at the top of most organizations. And in some fields, the opposite extreme is true too: There are more men at the bottom. (Oddly, women never mention this when they complain that a "glass ceiling" of discrimination holds them down.) In fact, there's a trap door to the sub-sub-basement—and, gentlemen, for us, admission is free. For much of our history, men have quietly accepted that the dark and dirty work of the world—digging the coal, stoking the furnaces, hammering the steel, collecting the garbage—is our lot.

I think this is in particular a good point. Yes men dominate at the top. We also dominate at the bottom. If we go out of our way to achieve parity at the top by moving more women in to high positions but do nothing to move men out of low positions isn't that essentially putting women above men?

We lament how many male CEOs there are. I haven't heard once of any program to produce more female garbage collectors (or fewer males, tomato tamato).