One of the small (very small) pleasures of travel (we’re still in California) is that I get/have to read USA Today, given away free in most motels, which I rarely do when I’m home.
Today I was interested to see, in the lower left corner of the first page of the Money section, a fascinating USA Today Snapshot — a graphic purporting to portray the extent of “Discrimination at Work.” The “survey of 331 executives” by TheLadders.Com claims to have found that
Race was the most commonly cited basis of discrimination among 42% of respondents. It was followed closely by discrimination on the basis of gender (38%) and age (31%). Just 9% of respondents cited sexual orientation as a common basis for workplace prejudice.
….
Moreover, 54% said that discrimination in the workplace is no less prevalent now than it was 10 years ago.
But wait a minute. What kind of discrimination, and against whom, did high percentages of these 331 executives actually witness? Maybe this finding provides a clue:
When asked about their personal encounters with discrimination, 56% of execs said they were discriminated against in the interview process and 56% felt they had been the victim of workplace discrimination at some point in their careers.
TheLadders.com describes itself as “the world’s largest online service catering exclusively to the $100k+ job market.” If we assume that the surveyed executives held these high-paying jobs, and that a number of them had been with their companies long enough to have an opinion of conditions ten years ago, then it seems to me that a great deal, perhaps the preponderance, of both the racial and gender discrimination they experienced and witnessed was not against blacks and women but against whites and men.
TheLadder.com’s press release does not provide any information on the racial and gender composition of the “331 executives” surveyed or the race and gender of the victims of the discrimination they witnessed, nor does it provide a link to the actual survey. Without that information these “findings” are worthless, and USA Today should not have trumpeted them.
I have sent a copy of this post to the person at TheLadder.com listed as press contact for the survey. I’ll post her reply if I get one.
UPDATE
Maria Schiller of TheLadders.com replied that “Unfortunately, we did not collect the information you have requested in our survey.”
Somehow, I just don’t believe Ms. Schiller’s statement.
Your position that the discrimination (if occured is your insinuation) occurred against white males is ridiculous. You base that on assuming the surveyed had an opinion 10 years ago and what, were in a position to say and do something about it? You can twist that any way you want to. Where were you 10 years ago? Were you realizing you had to work harder then non-minorities just to get a chance? 10 years ago I was not in an executive leadership position earning 6 figures. I am now (at least last year). I had an opinion and experienced discrimination 10 years ago but either was not aware of a venue to address or was in SURVIVAL mode and so had to endure it. You can only be white AND lacking reality or insight to think racism and discrimination doesn’t exist anymore. Today, 2007, how many females and blacks do you see in major multinational organizations, less than 1%. After working so hard, dedicating myself to an organization, attaining the education, skills, experience, proving myself over and over above and beyond what non-minorities have to do, I am still dealing with the prejuducies and discrimination even at the executive level. Minorities are making progress but it is SLOW and not without much preserverence. Not looking for special treatment or to be the “token”, just fair access based on abilities. A cabable person first and a woman, black, hispanic or any other descriptive word later. The white male is not the enemy, ignorance is.
Ruth – If you’ll re-read my post, you’ll see that I never claimed there was and is no dsicrimination against minorities and women. What I said was that the study’s claims of discrimination were much more widespread than would have been the case had the only victims (actual or witnessed) been minorities and women. Thus I also said, and repeat now, that in the absence of having knowledge of the demographics of the sample and of the victims of witnessed discrimination, the study is worthless, or worse.