Is the reason it's sexist because it can be interpreted as "women are less capable than men"? You would say this other statement is false and sexist, correct?
Human discourse does not consist of people stating neutral, truthful propositions in isolation. We are not Vulcans.
When someone chooses to say a particular sentence is as much a part of communication as what that sentence says.
So when someone says "very few women are capable of running a Fortune 500 company effectively," they aren't merely blurting out a fact at random, they are trying to say something.
And depending on the context, and who they are, and who they are speaking to, the thing they are trying to say can be different.
In many cases, if someone brings up that particular fact in conversation, you would reasonably conclude that they are submitting it in support of the idea that it is unsurprising that few women are CEOs of F500 companies; that they believe that is natural and reasonable.
But in other circumstances, say in a profile of a successful female F500 CEO, that same assertion could be being offered in support of the thesis that the subject of the profile is an exceptional individual, deserving of success.
Or, as in muglug's comment to which you're replying, it could be being used to illustrate a point about the fact that very few people are capable of running a fortune 500.
So this is the thing: a fact is neutral. But the facts that you introduce into a conversation are always selected to support a position. And a position can certainly be sexist.
> Human discourse does not consist of people stating neutral, truthful propositions in isolation. We are not Vulcans
Yay.
But also ... there's a sort of idiot's veto over language. If people who are racist say "X", and I also say "X", does that make me racist? Well, no. But as a participant in a society, as a participant in a conversation, I need to be aware of the context. If racist people are saying "X", I should probably take advantage of the insane level of linguistic flexibility in most human languages and find a different way to make the point I was trying to make.
Some will protest that this "capitulation" ("I refuse to stop saying X just some bad people are saying it too") allows the bad people to control our language. I say that if you're not a bad person (whatever that might mean), you can almost certainly find alternative ways of speaking that avoid us wasting time debating whether you're a bad person.
Exactly. Graham gives the impression that he thinks conversations are a set of automata exchanging logical propositions. Rather makes me wonder if he's ever met a human.
I know you didn't ask me, but I just wanted to say that language is nothing without context. "Less capable" is very subjective and context-dependent, so without more specifics it can't really be "true" or "false" except very colloquially. As for "sexist" - in a void with no context, it's apparently sexist, but that doesn't mean the sentence can't exist in a non-sexist context.
"Women are less capable than men" is sexist; "The majority of women are physically and mentally incapable of running a Fortune 500 company" is a neutral hypothesis that can be asserted with anecdotal evidence, sociological studies, and if modern corporate leadership wasn't silent on the issue, there would also likely be firsthand testimony. <--- heresy
But on the other hand, you could likely present evidence to the contrary. The comparison of the opposing evidence, and the careful scrutiny of the facts that provide that evidence, is the most truthful approach to the question.
For the record, the commenter above who casually states that "most women can't run Fortune 500 companies because most men can't either" <---THAT is sexist
Please try not to misquote people you disagree with. The GP did not say most women can't because most men can't - they said most women can't and most men can't. I.e. most women can't because most people can't, which seems uncontroversial. It's a very hard job.
Unrelated: I don't understand what you mean by a "neutral" hypothesis. The hypothesis can be made for neutral or non-neutral goals, by a neutral or non-neutral person, but that's all true of any hypothesis.
> For the record, the commenter above who casually states that "most women can't run Fortune 500 companies because most men can't either" <---THAT is sexist
I think you read your biases into that, too:
> The statement “very few women are capable of running a Fortune 500 company effectively” is factually true, but implicitly sexist (very few men are capable either).
I read the "very few men are capable either" as "the problem is that running a F500 is hard, not being a women". There's also no "because" in there - they don't imply that women can't because men are mostly unable, they just say that it's similarly hard for men.
You're giving too little attention to social context. The latter statement will rarely be interpreted neutrally when uttered in societies where statements denigrating females' capabilities has been (or continues to be) a cultural norm.
When someone chooses to say a particular sentence is as much a part of communication as what that sentence says.
So when someone says "very few women are capable of running a Fortune 500 company effectively," they aren't merely blurting out a fact at random, they are trying to say something.
And depending on the context, and who they are, and who they are speaking to, the thing they are trying to say can be different.
In many cases, if someone brings up that particular fact in conversation, you would reasonably conclude that they are submitting it in support of the idea that it is unsurprising that few women are CEOs of F500 companies; that they believe that is natural and reasonable.
But in other circumstances, say in a profile of a successful female F500 CEO, that same assertion could be being offered in support of the thesis that the subject of the profile is an exceptional individual, deserving of success.
Or, as in muglug's comment to which you're replying, it could be being used to illustrate a point about the fact that very few people are capable of running a fortune 500.
So this is the thing: a fact is neutral. But the facts that you introduce into a conversation are always selected to support a position. And a position can certainly be sexist.