Jeffrey Patten
Aug 25, 2017 · 1 min read

Just to identify my perspective, I’m a 59-year-old guy.

I think that the main problem, when it comes to white men, is that they see women and minorities in professional positions (and, every once in a great while, in management roles in those professions), and they think “Hey, well, discrimination is over.” This is, of course, ridiculous. Both the statistics and my observations of men and women interacting in the medical and legal professions (which are the professions in which I have the most experience) make it clear that women are treated as though they were unreliable and inferior, when the truth is, more often than not, just the opposite. I am a big believer in the “twice/half” rule for both women and minorities — they have to do twice as well as white man to get half as far.

Frankly, I don’t have a solution to recommend. It is a real tragedy, and not just for women and minorities. These are, generally speaking, talented, hard-working people, and our business world and our government are not getting the full benefit of what they have to offer.

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