The Pink Plateau

[Cayde]

The term Pink Plateau defines a situation similar to glass ceiling in workplace and educational environments, where queer identified person's advancement came to a halt, in comparison to heterosexual person with the same ability.

As a computer science grad, I experienced a very hyper masculine environment within Engineering School I registered with and Business School where I took elective classes. I pretty much sucked at my own major, but excelled in liberal arts elective/minor classes. I cannot say that, if I were to be straight or didn't need so much helps with mental health issues, I would fair better. In Spanish/Latin American Studies class I was the sole male identify person and yet I felt less threatened. Within my own department conversations with my peers flow more freely, but I often found myself in an awkward places.

"There still isn't a single openly gay person running a FTSE 100 company in Britain," said Ben Summerskill, chief executive of lobbying group Stonewall. per Guardian News and Media.

As universities move more toward team-oriented assessments, in order to combat lack of interpersonal skills amongst various student bodies, I ponder if LGBT Students would be left out thus affects their performance due to purely personal reasons. I noticed that I did spend less time with folks from my classes, comparing to straight identified friends. I sometimes turned down their offer to socialize, in favors spending time with my gay friends.

So what do you think?

[Marc Naimark]

Interesting, the Pink Plateau. The same study needs to be done in the US for comparison's sake.

As for university work, I don't see the problem. It depends on the subject, and in most cases I don't really think sexual orientation comes into it. You could ask the same thing about teams with men and women: will women be less able to assert themselves in a mixed team, for example.

[Cayde]

Sexual orientation isn't an issue per se. But the urge to conceal or other behaviors which are direct results or as reactions toward one's perceived sexual orientation can become a problem.

If I feel the needs to conceal it in certain situation, I would end up having two groups of friends. That I need to divide my time at best equally between two of them in order to fulfill my emotional needs. Unlike most of my straight counter parts, they only have to traverse one World, but I also have to negotiate the gay world and hetero planet. Currently I attend two churches, one liberal mainline and another is MCC.

This can be exhausting after a while. The every recent high profile case Lord Browne of British Petroleum's fame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Browne_of_Madingley) was forced to resigned due to his repeated attempts to conceals his relationships in order to prevent it from interfering with his business dealings (i.e. in Iran, and Middle East).

In my opinion Glass Ceiling or Pink Plateau is partly self inflicted and partly societal pressure. Take Hillary and her perceived lack of femininity, society suggested that woman's professional life is interfered constantly by maternal instinct and family aspiration. So many women adopt a tough-cookie persona in order to keep up with men. Gay men's perceived stereotypes can be demeaning and to counter this is not to be "gay" at least in the eyes of your colleagues.

We'll possibly spend the rest of our lives debating this and we won't find conclusive answer to the situation.