To think the professional world is full of middle aged men of very average abilities who still seem to have gone far

So true. Women and minorities have to be so much better to occupy similar positions. And will then be paid less.

Men will apply for jobs they want.
Women will apply for jobs they think they’ll actually be good at.
That’s the world all over - especially politics as well I think.
Sounds like a sweeping generalisation but I did read something about this. There was some research somewhere that looked at men and women applying for jobs and women are less likely to go for jobs they don’t feel qualified for whereas men are quite happy to apply for things despite not meeting much of the job criteria.

What is it about white middle-aged mothers on the internet who feel justified in making ageist, sexist and racist generalisations because of a few poor work experiences?

(I'm not saying you're white or middle-aged [or indeed a mother] just making the point that this sort of stereotyping is ONLY accepted when the subjects are white men, say this about any other group of people and you're toast!)

Men who come in to lead 'technology tranformation', take systems that are old fashioned but working effectively, replace them with newer systems at horrendous cost and leave behind them new systems that don't work as well with all the shiny new features that made them worthwhile having been 'descoped' because they ran out of time. They move on to a new company leaving behind a shit show that taken several years to fix/recover from

ii remember reading something like men will apply for a job if they can fit 50% of the essential criteria but women will only apply if they can meet all the essential and 90% of the desirable.

Too true, OP.

I also find that men who are actually competent and good at what they do get totally fawned over for it. Women who are equally competent and good and what they do, not so much.

It goes beyond that. If a woman or a POC does get one of those jobs, they'll be held to harsher standards and punished for displaying too much confidence. There's research.

Agree with this thread 100% 😀

They all just move between Trusts and never change anything.

So, despite a long, long, robust, empirical history of experimental findings that women and people of colour are judged much more harshly than white men in professional settings and have to be better to be regarded as achieving the same, saying that many white men have benefited from being white men with white men mates is racist and sexist?

Okay.

I work in a creative industry. I've seen this everywhere I've worked. It's so utterly depressing.

Because we've all experienced it. Which promotes the point that it's ubiquitous.

"Live your life with the confidence of a mediocre white man."

After years as a sahm, I've tried to live by this maxim the past few years as I've gone back into the corporate world, but I get the sense that my senior manager (boss's boss) doesn't actually like my confidence and doesn't see me as having enough experience to warrant it. I'll probably just leave in a year or two, once I have enough projects under my belt, because I can't be bothered with that bullshit.

I don't think it's restricted to sex, race, etc.

I've certainly known plenty of women who've been promoted well beyond their abilities, particularly in the public sector and charities.

But, yes, in the private sector, it does seem to be mostly men who stand out for being nothing special yet in top jobs for no obvious reason.

I've met plenty of men like this. And in more recent times, plenty of women who also fit this description.

You should read "The authority gap" by Mary Ann Sieghart. It's illuminating!

Or nurture, more likely.

Boys are socialised incredibly differently to girls.

There is a book about this: Why do so many incompetent men become leaders. Also an interesting TEDx talk.

its because the people who make decisions about hiring and promotions confuse confidence with competence.

My dad ld trainee - who was a nice chap but abit dim is now head of Asia at my old international law firm earning hundreds of thousands. Mind blowing.

Old not dad!

The thing is that there are also good "white men" who get over-looked and stagnate in low positions because they're not the kind of "Alpha Males" who seem to get promoted on the basis of bluff and bluster as they're seen as weak.

I've certainly worked in places where "quiet" men are basically ignored because they don't engage with the Alpha Males when it comes to talking about football, don't go to pubs with the others, don't chase women, etc. A bit like the way women are ignored really!

In one firm in particular, there was a guy who was, literally, a hard working genius, but he was basically "invisible". He came in, did his job (very well indeed), was helpful and pleasant, but wasn't a "manly man" at all, and as a result, the managers/owners (who were alpha males) basically treated him like shit, just kept giving him the hard jobs as they knew he could do them, but he never got any reward for it, beyond the same pay check as the other staff on the same level who generally did less work and of poorer standard. Inevitably, after a couple of decades, he'd had enough of watching young trainees come in, do a few years, and get promoted, and he beggared off to start his own business! The alpha male bosses couldn't understand why!

YANBU. But yes, I have come across a number of women (in my former profession, law) who would also fit this description. My view is that certain professions attract a certain type of personality (mostly male, but also the occasional female), with a gift for outrageous levels of self promotion, no scruples about going for a job they are fundamentally ill equipped to do successfully in their own right, and zero conscience about appropriating the talents of colleagues/underlings to advance their own careers. I won't go so far as to say sociopath, but certainly something missing.

Absolutely agree. It is depressing. We will have achieved equality in the workplace when women can be just as shit as men.

Yes and quite often they have excellent women working for them who have been overlooked for promotion (often due to childcare/Woking part time/being at an age they might get pregnant). There have been a number of posts where this has happened to women and some mediocre man has been pomoted because they have some 'special' and 'magical' skills that no one else can see. Normally it transpired that they are good at talking themselves up and getting others to do the work whilst taking the credit.

Same. OP, YANBU.