My last post was about personality traits and how they affected my current relationship – I'll spare you a further rant about how they ended my last one.
But this subject ties into one I've talked about on occasion here, about the differences between men and women. A lot of it comes from where we tend to fall naturally on these spectra.
Women are typically higher in Agreeableness – that's the personality trait I believe has the most impact on us in the working world. A lot of what current feminists think about the unfairness of the world relates to how we are treated/act in the workplace.
So what does it look like when you're much more agreeable than your male counterparts?
You will tend to be less assertive in taking credit for hard work you contributed to, less commanding in respect from your peers, and less likely to ask for a raise/promotion.
All these things combined are a huge factor in the earnings gap. Women are willing to put in a lot more effort for less reward because they tend to be on the more agreeable side. Men are typically more assertive and less compromising. Obviously these have downsides in areas outside the workforce, but it's natural.
Professor Peterson spoke in his interview with Cathy Newman (the first woman in existence to manage making a British accent sound stupid) about how when he sees women in his practice who are struggling at work, he will work with them on assertiveness training. How to get that promotion, how to score that raise or that deal.
Of course, Cathy's response summed up was something like BUt WOmeN ShOULdn'T hAVe tO WORk haRDer juST BECauSe we'RE nOT As GOoD aT SomETHIng
The way he explains it – and this makes so much sense, especially now that I've been in the professional world so long-
More masculine personality traits dictate success in the workplace, as more feminine personality traits dictate success in areas like school and home
The corporate world as it is rewards masculine behaviors – a go get it attitude – more than feminine behaviors such as compassion and empathy and agreeableness. Companies that are founded on these principles tend not to succeed. They pay their employees too much and give away too much product, they're too kind to their workers and lack the authority to put rules in place.
I worked for such a company when I was younger, it was a multi-tiered organization for charity and it had a thrift shop built into it as the source of revenue. It was a mostly female staff and the bosses couldn't control their people, they would put niceness first and screw the rest of us over – there was no accountability and I eventually left because of the bad business practices.
Male-driven companies (or at least, companies driven by masculine traits) are more organized, hold their people accountable, and put the company first.
Agreeableness serves us well in other areas of life like raising children. You need patience, empathy, and kindness to raise good children. Masculine traits are important to hand over as well, but they're not in themselves good tactics.
This is only one example of the repercussions of having the two genders differ in one count of personality. But people won't even listen to the fact that the genders differ at all.