Or specifically, those douche-bags who are always bragging about themselves. Just telling you how great they are. I even talked about them way back in this post.
Clay Shirky, however, gives a very interesting viewpoint on this subject. In her "A Rant About Women" (http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/01/a-rant-about-women/) she discusses the very material benefits that can come from being an arrogant braggart. I encourage you to read the whole piece, its fascinating. For now, I'll give you some of my favorite quotes:
In these circumstances, people who don’t raise their hands don’t get called on, and people who raise their hands timidly get called on less. Some of this is because assertive people get noticed more easily, but some of it is because raising your hand is itself a high-cost signal that you are willing to risk public failure in order to try something...
And it looks to me like women in general, and the women whose educations I am responsible for in particular, are often lousy at those kinds of behaviors, even when the situation calls for it. They aren’t just bad at behaving like arrogant self-aggrandizing jerks. They are bad at behaving like self-promoting narcissists, anti-social obsessives, or pompous blowhards, even a little bit, even temporarily, even when it would be in their best interests to do so. Whatever bad things you can say about those behaviors, you can’t say they are underrepresented among people who have changed the world.
Men, in her argument, often land better jobs and are more likely to take advantage of opportunities because they are comfortable with bragging about themselves.
Food for thought? Maybe. I'm going to get dinner and tell everyone how great I am.
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