Thesis For The Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

According to Malcolm Gladwell’s, The Outliers, success is measured by richness, awards, and recognition in certain fields. A person who is well known for what they do in their area of work has, in his mind, succeeded. Gladwell seems to view success as simply accumulated wealth. Although he brings up a few good examples of men who have become successful with the help of many things besides natural talent, Gladwell fails to discuss how the effects of hundreds of years of racism and sexism have made it almost easy for the white men he writes about to attain it. It is not unique or astonishing that these white men have become famous or wealthy, it is expected and goes unchallenged.

This book would have been more impactful if it really explored

Girls learn not to value education and not to want it for themselves. We are taught that being pretty is the best thing a girl can be. We are told that being smart is not important, that science and math are for boys who want to build rockets. Being smart is not pretty and boys won’t like you if you’re too smart, so we learn to apply makeup, to style our hair and paint our nails. No matter how much you encourage a girl in school and remind her that she is smart, she’s still going to experience some man dismissing her intelligence or taking credit for her work or being ignored in an office meeting or being interrupted in a classroom discussion. We are bought dolls and learn to love taking care of babies. The skills we are given then put us into jobs like nursing, hair and nail styling, or teaching. These professions generally pay less because they are seen as feminine and easy anyways. From a young age we are conditioned to not want to succeed in higher paying job fields. The few women who do get degrees and enter into these careers are still paid less. Yale recently published a study showing that physicists, chemists and biologists are likely to view a young male scientist more favorably than a woman with the same qualifications, and if they were to hire a woman, the pay would be significantly lessened

A white man earning more than a woman of color can put money away for his kids education, which will in turn give his white child a greater chance to succeed. He can buy a home in a neighborhood with better elementary and middle schools, guaranteeing his white child has more opportunities than the child of a colored woman who is working two jobs to make the same as him, and cannot afford living in the neighborhood with the best schools. This white man can starts saving larger sums of money for retirement. He can afford to teach his children to be confident in themselves and instill the people skills needed to become well liked, which Gladwell brings up as necessary in gaining success. The wealthier white man will have friends like him, rich and white and important. His children will know these kind of people, the right kind of people needed to provide chances for success. All the right set of circumstances for success have been passed down from white father to white son. No form of affirmative action can dismiss the years and years of established racism and socially accepted discrimination that still