Mustaches Beat Women In Jobs, A Hirsute Correlation

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Men with mustaches more likely to hold leadership positions than women - Women who want to obtain leadership positions at elite medical institutions in the US may want to consider growing a little bit of facial hair, according to a study that found a significantly higher number of men with mustaches than females holding such jobs.

Dr. Mackenzie Wehner, a dermatology resident at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine, and her colleagues analyzed the headshots of more than 1,000 department heads at the top ranked National Institutes of Health-funded academic medical institutions, and noted their sex, medical specialty, institution, and whether or not they sported a ‘stache.
The results, published this week in the special Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal, showed that of the 20 specialties examined, just five had at least one-fifth female department leaders (obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, dermatology, family medicine and emergency medicine) versus 10 where men with mustaches made up 20 percent of leadership.

Even mustached men hold twice as many leadership jobs as women

Dr. Wehner and her colleagues analyzed 1,018 medical departments leaders, examining their websites to determine who was serving as the chair, chief or head of each respective specialty. Their findings match up with the results of an earlier study which analyzed more than 90,000 academic physicians and found that women were less likely to be full professors, according to a statement.

According to the Washington Post, the study authors defined a mustache as “the visible presence of hair on the upper cutaneous lip.” This included both standalone mustaches like the Handlebar and the Pencil, as well as mustaches grown in combination with other facial hair.

However, those with mutton chops or other facial hair that did not cover the upper lip were not counted— and yes—for the sake of equality, they also evaluated the presence of facial hair amongst women. They found that mustached men “significantly” outnumbered females as leaders in US medical departments, and for departments and institutions to “strive for a mustache index ≥1.”

In all seriousness, Dr. Wehner said in a statement that the “lack of women in leadership roles in medicine is well-documented,” and that “despite the eccentricities of the study, our results show that even when you focus solely on men with mustaches... women are still outnumbered across various specialties.”