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Allie's Reviews > Outliers: The Story of Success
Outliers: The Story of Success
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Didn't exactly read this book - Joe and I listened to it in the car on the way home from visiting family for Christmas. I really enjoyed it, and was very fascinated by certain parts of it, especially the sections about the Beatles, computer programmers and Korean co-pilots.
But my enjoyment of the book was marred by the glaring absence of any well-known female "outliers." By chapter four or so, I noticed it and mentioned it to Joe, and then it just kept getting worse to the point that it was comical and distracting. Man after man after high-achieving man was featured. Any time a woman was mentioned, it seemed she was a wife or mother helping to boost a high achiever to success - or, in one case toward the end of the book, a somewhat slow female math student that a male professor had videotaped trying to figure out a math problem. By the time we got to that vignette, it was so ridiculous that Joe and I both started laughing, and Joe joked that "the only woman in the book is dumb - but persistent."
When we got home, I Googled "Gladwell Outliers sexist" or something like that and found that several female bloggers and columnists also were ticked off about it and had taken Gladwell to task for it. Gladwell doesn't strike me as a raging sexist, so my guess is that he is so used to being a male in this world and constantly hearing about and identifying with male high achievers that maybe he didn't even realize what he was doing. I noticed that he gave a pretty weak response when questioned in an interview about his omission of women - he claimed that he had not omitted women because he mentioned his grandmother's story at the end of the book, in the epilogue, I think. Um, okay.
But my enjoyment of the book was marred by the glaring absence of any well-known female "outliers." By chapter four or so, I noticed it and mentioned it to Joe, and then it just kept getting worse to the point that it was comical and distracting. Man after man after high-achieving man was featured. Any time a woman was mentioned, it seemed she was a wife or mother helping to boost a high achiever to success - or, in one case toward the end of the book, a somewhat slow female math student that a male professor had videotaped trying to figure out a math problem. By the time we got to that vignette, it was so ridiculous that Joe and I both started laughing, and Joe joked that "the only woman in the book is dumb - but persistent."
When we got home, I Googled "Gladwell Outliers sexist" or something like that and found that several female bloggers and columnists also were ticked off about it and had taken Gladwell to task for it. Gladwell doesn't strike me as a raging sexist, so my guess is that he is so used to being a male in this world and constantly hearing about and identifying with male high achievers that maybe he didn't even realize what he was doing. I noticed that he gave a pretty weak response when questioned in an interview about his omission of women - he claimed that he had not omitted women because he mentioned his grandmother's story at the end of the book, in the epilogue, I think. Um, okay.
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Started Reading
December 28, 2008
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Finished Reading
December 29, 2008
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JULIE
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rated it 4 stars
Apr 06, 2009 09:01PM
Right on! When I reviewed the book, I considered whether to ask why he didn't discuss how women are affected by the lack of opportunity and luck that men take for granted, or at least point out the disparity to explain why no women were featured. Would that I had and I'm glad you nailed him on it.
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(I wonder how getting comments to 5 months old reviews feels like)I noticed this as well at some point, but on the bright side, some of the chapters feature the wrong kind of outliers (such as the plane-crash one, or the Chris Langan one). So you could consider these as -1 for the men ... or +1 for the other team.
And you also missed the one about the young KIPP student, who I thought was worth more than two Howards or Turners from Kentucky.
I think that the smaller ratio of female outliers just drives home the points that Gladwell makes about opportunities driving success. It's no secret that women have always had to fight for opportunity in a predominantly "man's world" and it would make perfect sense as to why there would be fewer female outlier examples to cite. He clearly points out that so many of the events in his examples were intertwined with cultural beliefs and shaped by the societal values of the times. Why must anyone feel that he had an obligation to use "equal opportunity" examples? Next people will be complaining that he didn't cover all races and ethnicities. Gender bias was and is real, and is all part of the history.
I really don't understand comments like this.So do you suggest that every book should have the same number of male and female characters?
Homosexuals and heterosexuals?
Russians and Americans?
Exactly, calling someone sexist, just because they didn't use female characters makes no sense at all. What if he didn't use any examples of Latino outliers or Black outliers. Would that make him a racist?
Actually I think the criticisms were simply aimed at pointing out the cultural bias in his case studies. As Laura points out, the paucity of female outliers drives home the point Gladwell makes about opportunities driving success. It isn't that he should have included more female outliers, but perhaps he could have noted their lack and drawn a conclusion from his observation.
I completely agree that it distracted from my enjoyment of the book that there weren't any women success stories out there. And don't say that its because there aren't any women success stories, because there are plenty. I'm glad to know that other women felt the same way. I still read the book and finished it, but was disappointed with this glaring omission.
While I agree it is not right to say that there are not any women success stories, I think it is fair that you offer a few examples you feel should have been included.
I noticed that too, it bothered me, but then there's the epilogue. Daisy, Gladwell's grandmother, to whom the book is dedicated, has a whole chapter and is clearly the outlier who started it all for Malcolm G.
I agree I felt as if his reference to his mother was an attempt at dropping in a token woman. Her story was by far the most unremarkable.
Wow, all you women conveniently skipped the author's epilogue, which focused on not one but two women.Please do your homework before labeling someone sexist
I felt the last chapter about the author's own mother was more about his own success and why he was who he was. His mother achieved many things in life that are similar to what we can all achieve if we look for opportunities: education, successful family, writing a book. She didn't strike me as a Bill Gates but as someone who took advantage of her fate. So I have to agree. . . where were the women outliers?
I agree the Epilogue does pay homage to his mother but I would like to believe that there are female Outliers ie, Oprah Winfrey,Hillary Clinton to name a couple. I am curious why he did not feature them.
His focus, I think, was generationally based. All the big successful generations were in the distant past--a world where women didn't compete. Women didn't start becoming their own official success stories until recently. Therefore there isn't enough data to produce information on a generation of successful women.
I definitely felt the absence of any female outliers. I would have appreciated Gladwell mentioning something as to why he left female stories out. I don't think that would be asking too much. On the other hand, I truly enjoyed this book.
I was born in 1955. Kept waiting for him to note that you could become an accomplished computer nerd if you were born in 1955 and born MALE. I think you areCorrect; he was totally blind to this bias.
wow! I didn't even think about it. thank you for the eye opener.
That never occurred to me either. The end does pay homage to his mother, but I see your point. Thank you for pointing it out to me.
The same thought first came to me when I read this bit " Gate's father was a wealthy lawyer in Seattle, and his mother was the daughter of a well-to-do banker." So typical
I read this, as a woman, and didn't even notice the lack of female outliers. Some people are over sensitive to these things :) great read I thought!
This is such a great point. Thank you for sharing this opinion. I agree that Gladwell fails to include high profile women in his story.
Accuracy aside, disregarding the info because it ignores one's acceptable social standards is kinda why people crash airplanes into mountains...
I think the lack of spoken female accomplishments is actually right on target with why you don't hear about the failures as much as you hear about the accomplishments. The opportunity and chance aspect is already stacked against women born into mostly patriarchal societies, and given the lack of discussion in history classes, technology and other sectors outside of Women's History Month furthers his point. You have to be born at a certain time, in a certain place, within certain environments and with certain attributes that allow success to be "easier" than those who don't have all that stacked up for them.
Great point. I hadn't thought of it, and I am a woman. It would have been nice to see women included. I think the lack of female outliers in this book reflects our society, it has really been only recently that women were given opportunity in the fields of their choice.
What Gladwell fails to mention when he talks about his success stories is that they are male. Being male is the fundamental reason they were put in those situations. It is not lack of female examples that is the problem. Look around you. Most females are not brought up to believe they can succeed and definitely have fewer doors open to them. I explained my opinion to my husband and he said that gender is a part of the bigger picture that Gladwell does not address. Bigger picture including race and class.
I think Gladwell addresses the issue indirectly with the use of the word help. I think he basically used examples of people he had easy access too or those whose stories he knew. He certainly could have gone into more depth on the sex, race side of the issue of Help, but that didn't seem to be the point of his book. So I'm not sure we can criticize him for the scope he chose for his book. I didn't think the point of the book was success. I thought the point of the book was that to succeed in any field, one must put in at least 10,000 hours of intense study and one must have help, no matter what color they are, how intelligent they are, or what sex they are. He's mixed himself. If I remember correctly he discussed his mother, a black woman who received help. Could he have mentioned that help is sometimes harder for women and non whites to receive? Yes, but I don't think that was the point he was trying to make. And I'm not sure he can be faulted for that.
Wholeheartedly agree. Most people do not realize they are sexist or racist. But we all are to some degree
Pretty weird to say he "included" women by including his grandmother, when her big achievement was in a support role - getting her daughters through school. Her daughters don't really seem to be "outliers" either - it's Gladwell himself who's famous, not his mom.
I was glad to see you touched upon this. This entire book is written with only male examples. I’m only 40% of the way through the book and flipped through to see if there were any chapters containing a woman’s name and I saw one. The list of billionaires included only 2 women - Elizabeth I & Cleopatra. The book is interesting but I’m so perturbed about this male only point-of-view that I’m not sure I want to keep going.
My feeling is that, at the time of writing this, that he didn’t even realize his blind spot.
He did mention his mother at the end. A woman he admired.
Taiba wrote: "He did mention his mother at the end. A woman he admired."I mean, you see the discrepancy there, right? When someone is able to name tons of internationally-known men with wide accomplishments, but as far as women, the best they can do is a footnote about how their own mom is great?
Sort of like Shakespeare’s sister. We never hear anything about her.
I listen to audio books all the time. It is still counts as reading a book.
I’m glad I read this comment. Thanks
To be an outlier what you need is less makeup gossip and crying. Most women are quite incapable of that and hardly grow beyond perpetual childhood
I'm reading this book now; only about 3 chapters into it but I am already annoyed by the same thing. Gladwell seems oblivious to the existence of women.
Thank you!! I am on Chapter 4 and am already frustrated by this. Hopefully this will get back to him and he'll be more inclusive in his next books.
