Compulsory Gender Disclosure for Business School

#38 - Privilege of Scions

In Short:
Heirs to power and property are almost entirely male, and have been for thousands of years. The benefits of inheritance -influence, safety, security, and ability to shape the destiny of one's family- continue to be denied to women to this day.

Derived From:
#50 - Privilege of Ownership
#46 - Privilege of Family Fortunes
#37 - Baby Einsteins
#36 - Privilege of Having Potential
#28 - Privilege to Network
#10 - Marriage

Exclusive to Men Because:
Only 150 years ago, women were not allowed to own or inherit property in the United States. In fact, women were considered property themselves. Even today, years after the laws were finally changed, economically capable women continue to be made into social outcasts, and nearly all heiresses are reviled.

Harms:
Men are pressured with being the sole welfare for their families. Sheltered boys with the perception of a guaranteed futures often fail to launch their lives.

Women with no personal wealth become dependent on their husbands for income, and have little or no recourse against a physically abusive husband, a substance-abusing husband, or even a fiscally irresponsible husband.

Since women cannot traditionally inherit power and money as men can, the lives of female children are undervalued by their parents.

If You are a Good Guy:
If you have a son, you will not be afraid to have him compete with women on a level playing field, and you will make it a point to teach him feminism. If you have a daughter, you will value her future plans as much as your son's, and you will get involved in them. And you will teach the ideals of merit-based advancement to all of your children.

If you are having trouble relating to your daughter's future, try reading A Room of One's Own. When you're done with that, get involved in your daughter's life. Spend just as much time, energy and money on her after-school activities, internships, college prep, and tuition as you do on your son's.

And no, giving a daughter an elaborate wedding is NOT an acceptable alternative to paying for her college education [See: #10 - Privilege of Marriage]. So a good guy will not give the "education or wedding" ultimatum to their daughter. Such an ultimatum goes beyond unfair: it is a Patriarchal non-choice that daughter can make in only one way [See: #54 - Privilege to be Single].

And don't freak out if your successful wife wants a prenup! Realize that the law won't protect her property the same way that it will protect yours in a divorce suit. If you truly love your well-off wife, you will let her marry you in a way that lets her avoid going through a "civil death" to do so!

Part 1 - Gender Disclosure for Business School

Privilege of Scions (Part 1):
Compulsory Gender Disclosure for Business School

"You have neglected to fill in the following required fields: Gender."
~From every business school application you will ever see in your life


Here's some quick trivia questions for you:

Of the 290 Best Business Schools of 2008, how many of the top schools (schools with an average GMAT score above the threshold of illiteracy) are near parity? How many have a near-equal number of men and women on campus?
The answer? None.

How many of the Top Twenty Business Dchools are at least one-third women?
Four: Harvard, Yale, Columbia, U. Penn, and none of them reach 40%.

How many press outlets have covered the gender inequality of business schools?
One, and it ignores the fact that 20% of women MBA students are not leaving business school once they arrive, they are not getting admitted in the first place!

How many web sites covered this inequality?
You're looking at it.


"But FM," you say, "Women aren't in competitive MBA programs because there aren't enough qualified women applying in the first place, right? It can't be due to a systemic denial of women into business school, right?"

Allow me to introduce you to the Scion Form:

You will find the Scion Form at very top of nearly all business school applications, and all Scion Forms look surprisingly similar to this one. They all start with the infamous gender binary question. Gender is always the first question you will receive on the application. In some cases, schools will ask you for your gender even before your home mailing address. And for all schools, the question is presented as a male/female binary, and is mandatory to fill out.

Yes, mandatory! Business school applications are all online these days, and the programmers make it impossible to submit the application without selecting one of the two genders. And while schools are very careful to point out that providing ethnic background is voluntary, and disclosure may even make you eligible for scholarships, so such luxuries are afforded to gender.

Yes, gender is still the gate of opportunity under our Patriarchy. You won't be asked to list how many kids you have (that's anti-family), you won't be asked for your marital status or your sexuality (don't ask, don't tell), you won't be asked for your ethnicity (that's racist), you won't be asked about your health or handicaps (that's ableism), and you won't be asked for your age for programs that are closed-off to minors. But asking for your binary sex assignment is NEVER sexist, as patriarchal institutions have doggedly maintained society's belief in the biological determinism of gender.

And yes, transphobic programmers actually make it a point to limit gender selection so that you can only assign yourself to one gender. (There are no transgender, bigender, intergender, or questioning people in business school!*)

With all this security placed around the choice of gender, one is left wondering: if gender information is collected for statistical purposes only, why wouldn't they make its reporting voluntary in the same way as ethnicity? Why do they care so much if you pick both genders, or neither? It's not like students who tried to game the system by creatively answering this question would be able to affect their chances of admission, right?

But don't worry, the business schools have put all such fears to rest by including "sex" in their nondiscrimination lists, so selecting the female gender button won't hurt your chances of admission into the 36% of class seats normally afforded to your button.

Then again, despite the assurances of nondescrimination, there are fewer women in MBA programs today than a decade ago, even though women earn undergraduate business degrees at near equal rates to those of men. Are we to believe that half of women with baccalaureates in business just give up on their degree mere minutes after successfully pursuing it for four straight years? The answer that business schools give us is a resounding "Yes!", because any other answer might lead to discrimination suits.

This gender inequality is further skewed by the Patriarchal heredity section of the Scion Form [see: #46 - Privilege of Family Fortunes]. Once you've mapped yourself to the proper scion gender (or reluctantly assigned yourself to the gender that is non-participatory in the family fortune) you are given a chance on the Scion Form to show off your legacy chops. All business schools follow the single question about your gender with detailed questions about your family:

"Please provide information on your mother and father. Please include name, address, colleges and degrees, positions and current employers, and whether they are retired or deceased."

"Please list names and class years of parents, grandparents or siblings who have attended our school or other schools. Please distinguish MBA graduates from other graduate programs."

You may be tempted to think that the employment of one's parents is superfluous information that detracts from a business school candidate's own achievements. Your feelings would be justified by the fact that most business school candidates are in their late 20s, do not live in their parent's basement, and no longer rely on their parents to pay the freight. But before you jump to logical conclusions, let me just say that a business school candidate's GMAT score is statistically correlated to the wealth of their parents:

"The extraordinary generosity of our alumni and other contributors to this [fundraising] campaign reflects the importance of the role HBS has played in their lives and the world of business...It also demonstrates their commitment to providing that same opportunity for tomorrow's leaders."
~From Harvard Business School (Emphasis added)

And by "GMAT score", I mean, "future donations to help get their own son through the door in 20 years."



* The one exception that I have found is the Wharton School of Business which, in a display of enlightenment and tolerance rare for business schools, allows you to (optionally) answer yes or no to the following question: "Do you identify as a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered person?" They also you to (optionally) select "partner" as your Marital Status. Of course, these more enlightened options are only offered after you make your (non optional) choice on the dogmatic male/female gender question.

Copyright June 2008 by F*ck M*sculinity