Why bad advice isn’t always wrong

Entrepreneur and investor John Greathouse recently came under a lot of criticism for suggesting that women hide their gender online (and in professional situations as much as possible). His idea was perceived as offensive, sexist and out of touch. One woman called it “Flat out, the worst advice I have ever heard”.

Of course, no one wants to hear that they have to mask their identities in order to get ahead. Women and other marginalized groups have been told this for centuries, and frankly we’re sick of it.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t make John Greathouse wrong. Even though we’re within striking distance of having a female president in the US, women still make less than men for the same jobs. Hillary Clinton’s opponent routinely makes disparaging and disrespectful remarks about women with little apparent consequence. Women are still perceived as less competent than men- in one study of hiring in STEM fields, researchers found that the lesser-qualified male candidate was picked over a female candidate 29% of the time. You can get better odds than that in Vegas.

Knowing something is wrong doesn’t make it necessarily false. Greathouse’s suggestion made people uncomfortable because it pointed out something that none of us want to be true, but is. Yes, it’s regressive and misleading, but it’s not technically bad advice. If your goal was to succeed at all costs, you’d probably be smart to game the system this way.

There are currently lots of examples of smart people advocating terrible solutions to social issues. We live in an age that venerates tech billionaires for their ability to solve complex problems with bold, disruptive solutions. However, there are different kinds of problems that we as humans get to solve. Being good at solving one type of problem does not qualify you to solve all. The key for us as individuals and as a society is knowing the difference.