When I was in Law School in the late 1980s it was reported that Professors were known to call on MALE more then FEMALES and that was true of even FEMALE Professors (And when a Pro Equal Rights female professor disagreed, was shown she did the same, even as she claimed she made a different effort to call on women, the results actual shocked her).
One of the problems is that when looking for assistance, people seem to instinctively go to taller people over shorter people, "Less fat" people over "fatter" people. Older people over younger people AND in the order I use, taller first, amount of fat second, older third.
It is unclear when being female or male fitted into this pattern. The reason being males tend to be taller, AND women tend to be 25% fat while males tend to be 15% if in top physical condition (Thus these two differences may explain why males are preferred over females independent of sex).
A major complication is that at that time (the 1980s) most of the older people in any profession were almost all males (All females did NOT drop out of the work force in the post-WWII era, but the trend was to reduce such female employment, this only changed in the 1960s, so a lot of "older" people in the 1960s to 1990s tended to be males, while less true today still a factor.
The above is known to most people in the Media and people who constantly use the Media. Thus it is NOT uncommon to have a front man being at least six feet tall (mostly men). There is a limit to tallness, it appears to be about 6 foot 4 inches, you start to get taller then that most people view of you as someone who they look up to declines. Similar problems with fat, if you go under the natural limits of fat (25% for Females, 15% for males), people's view as you being a person to be trusted declines, the same with old age, getting to old (80 plus) is more hindrance then a help.
Thus you MAY have an explanation for the above INDEPENDENT OF sex (through interrelated to sex). If that is the case HOW do you resolve the problem? i.e. how do you get people to listen to a SHORTER WOMAN over a TALLER MAN, when the trend is the opposite? Is an organization willing to give the opposition an edge, just because they also want to show they treat women equal to men?
Please note I did NOT mention that men have lower voices then women. While that use to be a MAJOR factor, since the invention of the microphone not much of a factor nowadays. Males lower voices carry further then women's high pitch thus in the days of pre-microphones an important advantage of males over females. Present theory states that males developed lower voices so to communicate over longer distances, while giving up the ability to be more precisely located. Women and children have higher pitch for higher pitch voices are quicker to locate.
Why males have lower voices then women is unimportant for this discussion, just pointing out the differences in HOW far the voice can carry do to its pitch was a major factor in premicrophone days, but is of much less importance today.
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