Hello everyone! Merry Christmas!
Lets dig into this stocking stuffer and see what Santa has left for us. Oh look, it’s an article about the MeToo movement from Prudy Gourguechon at Forbes.
No. I have no idea how to pronounce that name. However, a quick DuckDuckGo search uncovers such pearls as Is Trump mentally fit to be president? Let’s consult the U.S. Army’s field manual on leadership, Trump’s Big Daddy Lie and Could it Be a Mom Issue? White Men Aren’t Voting for Hillary Clinton.
Let’s assume Gourguechon means “The smell your aunt had, that, as a child, you were reprimanded for commenting upon.”
So with that unsettling childhood memory, let us proceed to give this a proper Christmas Fisking!
It’s easy to set aside grossly misogynist responses to the #MeToo movement.
What grossly misogynistic responses? And why are you writing articles instead of cooking a turkey dinner for your husband?!
But recent surveys suggest that a much subtler backlash is occurring and threatens the efforts some companies and organizations have made to support the advancement of women through leadership ranks.
Just tell all the women to self-identify as men. That’s totally a thing now, right?
Three recent surveys arrived at similar troublesome findings: A growing number of men report being uncomfortable or afraid to work alone with a woman.
Mike Pence is chuckling right now in his sleep. And in my mind, he’s wearing one of those old-fashioned night caps with the little tassel on the end. Doesn’t he just look adorable?
Senior men are increasingly reluctant to mentor younger women or include them in opportunities like business travel or client dinners.
Men and women both are a little anxious around one another under the best of circumstances. That is why we have social rituals. Probably wasn’t a good idea to blow those apart over the past 50 years.
One company, KPMG, recently took a proactive approach, jumping on the problem to prevent this backlash from setting back advancements in women being mentored and sponsored within their company.
The article linked describes the efforts of KPMG through their Executive Director for Inclusion and Diversity.
Her name: Barbra Wankoff.
Yes, I’m serious! Go read the article.
If you don’t believe in God, consider this Exhibit A for the defense.
When I told my husband, who led a consulting firm for 40 years and employed, mentored and sponsored many young women, that I was writing about the #MeToo backlash, he laughed, thinking I was making it up.
Admittedly, he was employed during a time when men and women were assumed to be different, took pains to accommodate those differences, and had social tools for negotiating things from one another. Today, even Christmas carols are considered verboten.
I said “No, it’s a real thing. Men are afraid to be alone with women at work.”
And afraid to sing Christmas carols.
“Then they’re jerks,” said my husband, unhelpfully.
Taking time out of the article to criticize your husband is a proforma in all feminist literature. It really doesn’t add anything, but its expected like a sprig of parsley at Denny’s.
If you too are skeptical, here’s the data (the findings are preliminary but shouldn’t be ignored):
- A Pew Research Center survey asked respondents whether they thought that the recent focus on sexual harassment had made it harder for men to know how to interact with women in the workplace. Fifty-one percent of all adults questioned said yes.
It isn’t completely obvious how to treat Abigale Williams when you’re in Salem, Massachusetts.
- SourceMedia reports on trends in the financial industries. Respondents to their recent survey on attitudes towards sexual harassment in the workplace post #MeToo voiced concern that women would be excluded from work situations “in order for men to protect themselves.”
- A darker prediction was made by a woman in her 30’s: “Corporations will discriminate against females and start hiring only male employees since it creates a less problematic environment.” One senior leader in the banking industry reported that several male colleagues had told her they were reconsidering mentoring women.
Same woman: “Now as a well-established investment banker in her 40s, Sarah would never tolerate such behavior. She would speak up, tell the harasser he was embarrassing himself and ask if he would want the women he loves treated that way.”
Good reaction! I applaud Sarah and her no-bullshit approach. This is how you deal with immature males.
- Lean In partnered with SurveyMonkey to look into the possible negative effects of the #MeToo movement for women’s advancement. Promoting mentorship is one of Lean In’s key priorities. Nearly half of male managers they surveyed reported being “uncomfortable participating in a common work activity with a woman, such as mentoring, working alone, or socializing together.” Senior men were five times more likely to hesitate to travel for work with a junior level woman than with a junior level man.
Believe me, these men aren’t worried about NOT being able to hit on women. That is fully within their control. They’re worried about opportunists using #MeToo to smash their careers.
So why in the world are men afraid to be alone with women at work?
Take a moment and realize that women are human beings, and some of them are liars. If men will lie about harassing women, you can bet your bottom dollar that women will lie about receiving it.
The implication of the surveys is that men are afraid of being falsely accused. But false accusations of sexual impropriety are actually very rare.
And immensely difficult to disprove in court, particularly given the social stigma attached to sexual harassment. Unlike most terminations, this one is universal and a career-killer.
I can’t resist putting on my psychiatrist/psychoanalyst hat to try to answer this question.
My aunt liked funny hats too. She smelled like cat pee.
Let’s consider the reports that men are increasingly afraid to be alone with women at work as a symptom that begs for a deeper look at possible causes.
Let’s also start with the notion that a man who separates or chaperones himself from women in the workplace is the LAST man who will be found flirting with a woman against her approval. A predator wants lots of contact with women in a completely unsupervised environment.
In medicine, symptoms are approached as the beginning of the story. They are just a sign that something is wrong, —there is some disease process going on— but they don’t tell us which one. The next step is to formulate a “differential diagnoses”—what are all the possible causes of the symptom?
I feel like Dr. House. It’s not Lupus. It’s never Lupus.
So, let’s take the symptom of “men are afraid to be alone with women at work as a result of the #MeToo movement” and go through the differential diagnosis process.
Yeah, pretty sure I solved this whole question with two complete sentences. But whatever. Let us see how Prudy can straw-man better than a scarecrow factory.
Differential diagnosis of the symptom
- Women are dangerous. They will falsely accuse men of doing bad things. (Obviously, a man who is not going to harass a woman has nothing to worry about, right, unless women are prone to lying?)
Some women are prone to lying. Ask any woman.
2. Women are dangerous. They will entice men into doing inappropriate things.
Like holding a one-to-one meeting, late at night, in an office where no one else is present. You know, even 50 years ago, most people would agree that this is pretty blockheaded.
3. Women are hypersensitive and unfair. Egged on by the #MeToo movement, they are going to misinterpret men’s harmless behaviors as harmful, abusive or inappropriate.
No, men and women are DIFFERENT. Jokes meant to be jocular are taken differently. Whereas our society used to be OBJECTIVE when judging actions, it is now SUBJECTIVE, meaning the weight of the crime is in the accusation. Accusers of either sex are now more powerful than the accused.
4. Women are hypersensitive and don’t have a sense of humor.
Women have a sense of humor. Human Resource departments do not.
5. Men can’t trust themselves to control their sexual fantasies.
Pretty sure no one has ever been fired for having a sexual fantasy. If they were, then any woman who worked with Nathan Fillion would be in an unemployment line somewhere.
6. Men can’t stop themselves from acting on impulses, so they know they had better not be alone with an attractive female co-worker on a business trip. (See my article on why self-control and discipline is an essential capacity for a leader).
Men who find themselves traveling alone with someone they don’t trust, male or female, are fools.
7. Men don’t know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
Remember what I said about subjectivity? Besides, when did the 3rd wave feminists ever care about context?
Except for number 7, which indicates a need for education, and a shade of number 3, hypersensitivity, which I’ll address below, all this starts to sound pretty ridiculous.
Then why did you write it?
In fact, the rest of the possible explanations are either fantasies of how men and women behave or prejudices–not rational assessments.
Ugh. Her “differential diagnosis” is that everyone is an idiot. {slow-clap}.
Everyone has an unconscious emotional life full of fantasies, wishes and impulses. This often includes insecurity, which can lead to an unconscious wish to dominate or demonstrate power over another person to prove one’s strength.
Like a woman falsely accusing a man, knowing that it will destroy him and his family. Women can tell stories about how a scorned female burned every bridge she could lay a torch to in the pursuit of indignant retribution. They know all about it. You know why? They’ve seen it firsthand. They’ve got the scars to prove it too.
It also includes sexuality.
Bow-chicka-wow-wow!
We take all that with us to work. But the essence of maturity is to be able to control and moderate sexual and power-related impulses in a context where they are not warranted. Like at work.
Yes. Some men do not and harass female employees. Some women do not and falsely complain to HR departments. It’s a problem. Maybe a solution is a degree of separation and third-party monitoring. So why are you against this? Are you saying men should be suckers?
Mature adults can control their emotional lives at work and focus on the job. They don’t have to think about it.
If everyone was a mature adult, we wouldn’t have had #MeToo or a backlash. This is brilliant stuff from a clinical psychologist.
They see their co-workers as just that, co-workers—even friends, even people fun to be around.
She just “friend-zoned” reality, folks. As a quick reminder, this was published in Forbes.
But they don’t spend their workdays thinking about them as sex objects, or about their bodies. Most men are mature adults. And therefore, they have nothing to worry about.
What about immature women? Are they something to worry about, fellas?
Let’s turn this around for a minute. Ladies, you don’t have to worry about workplace sexual harassment. Want to know why? Because most men are very mature. Not all, but most.
There…feel better?
One of the actions KPMG took was to reassure their executives that the processes they have in place for responding to complaints are meant to ensure no one will be tainted by a false accusation.
Bravo! Glad there is at least one company that concedes there is such a thing as a false accusation and takes an objective standard before acting rashly. Let’s hear it for Barbra Wankoff!
That seems to be a good idea, but again, the vast majority of men shouldn’t have to worry.
You keep saying that. Seriously, you’re starting to make me nervous.
I think I’d like you to take me home now. My parents are expecting me back. They said they’d wait up for me. In fact, they’re probably calling the police right now. Did I mention my dad is a Green Beret? Also, your hand is pulling on my hair. I have mace, you know!
In the midst of thinking and writing about these issues, I got a direct message on Twitter. I have a professional Twitter account for my leadership consulting business.
Um…congratulations?
I noticed that I’d been followed by a man who described himself as a general commander in the Army.
General Commander isn’t a US Army rank. Commander is a Navy rank, but it is equivalent to Lt. Colonel everywhere else. You wrote an article about Trump’s mental health according to the US Field Manual on Leadership. Didn’t bother to learn the military ranks?
I like connecting with retired military officers because they are often really gifted leadership consultants.
This is true.
So, I followed him back. Significantly, I didn’t take the time to look at his Twitter account. I immediately got this message in return:
“Hello, dear. Great to meet you here.”
Sounds like you have a fan.
I was startled, confused, angry and acutely uncomfortable.
Um…what?
Why in the world would some stranger call me “dear”? Didn’t he see me as a businesswoman? How about as an equal, or as a human being?
Wait a minute. Let me look back at the strawman list.
Ah, here it is: “Women are hypersensitive and unfair. Egged on by the #MeToo movement, they are going to misinterpret men’s harmless behaviors as harmful, abusive or inappropriate”
But…but that’s just crazy talk!
It was just a tiny thing.
Micro-fricking-scopic.
Would I have reacted differently before the #MeToo movement? Yes, I think so.
My primitive male brain is having trouble keeping up with you. Didn’t you just say we had nothing to worry about?
I think I would have let it slide, and not been as flummoxed nor as angry.
Well, at least you’re being honest about this. Is it okay if we have our chaperones now?
It would have just been one more incident in one woman’s professional lifetime of little incidents.
What incident?! He called you “dear” in a personal Twitter message. Have you ever received a letter that began with “Dear Prudy,”?!?
Belatedly, I decided to look at the man’s Twitter account to try to understand his behavior. He claimed to be on active duty, but no one on active duty would write the tweets he posted.
Any examples? Or we should just take your word for it? How does a man on active duty post his tweets? With the thumbs aligned to the seam of the trousers?
I couldn’t find him in any list of senior military officials actively serving where he claimed to be posted. His Twitter feed seemed vaguely anti-American.
Again, any examples? Is it even germane?
Was it a Russian bot that called me “dear?”
Нет, ты сумасшедшая женщина!
So yes, women are a little more sensitive now I think.
Naaww. Gets a Tweet, is called “dear”, takes offense, believes it’s a Russian conspiracy. Nothing to see here, folks!
Mind you, Prudy is paid professionally by major corporations to figure out how to deal with sexual harassment in the workplace. She has a consulting business! She even has her own Titter account for the business!!! Should men be nervous yet?
That’s not a bad thing, even if we’re occasionally taken in by a Russian bot.
Oh my dear GOD! Men! We have to escape this society! Grab the bacon and the Sports Illustrated and run! Run!! For the love of God, run!!
We’ve woken up and we expect men to have woken up too.
Don’t worry, men are increasingly being taken in by Russian bots…wait, I mean THOTs. Russian THOTs.
But I still contend men don’t have to be afraid.
Based on WHAT?! Your own personal conduct? Because you can FORGET IT!
They can still be sexual people.
What does that even mean? We’re permitted to be sexual in our marriages? Because we already know that. Not in the work environment? We already know that.
We’re just worried we’ll slip up one day and call someone “dear” and find ourselves being questioned by HR, a prosecuting attorney, or in your case, the CIA.
They don’t have to stop mentoring women.
Just don’t do it alone, chaps. Bring a witness. Preferably a nun.
They don’t have to be like Mike Pence and have a chaperone at dinner.
I swear on my soul, I read this right along with you wonderful people. I don’t cheat and look ahead.
Mike Pence is still giggling in his sleep with his little night cap on, knowing he has a 0.00% chance of being accused successfully of sexual misconduct. And his hands are folded together under his cheek as he sleeps. Just freaking adorable!!
Just remember why women are working, what they can contribute and don’t be a jerk.
You just said that was an unhelpful remark from your husband?!! That is what you end on?!
Sigh.
Okay folks, so here is the article in summary:
- Men are nervous because of #MeToo.
- Obviously, men who are innocent, want protections that will benefit both themselves and women at keeping a professional environment. Which means chaperons, third party observation, and less socializing outside of the office.
- This is bad.
- Here are some ridiculous reasons this is bad.
- The reasons are ridiculous. Haha.
- There is a company that is returning to objective standards for behavioral evaluations.
- This is sorta good.
- I got a tweet from a strange man who called me “dear”.
- Russian Bot.
- But men shouldn’t worry about women becoming paranoid or anything.
- Don’t be like Mike.
- Forbes paid me to write this. Yay!
All joking aside, ladies, I want you to know something from the bottom of my heart…
…you are not the problem.
I’ll say it again. You are NOT the problem.
All the Prudys are the problem. Watch out for the Prudys. They’re giving you a very bad, and rather undeserved reputation.
We know you face the same traffic. Same office. Same drudgery as we do. We know you’re just trying to get to the end of your shift and back home to your family. We know you’re every inch as focused and dedicated as we are.
But, as a favor, please remember the Prudys the next time your male boss asks for an assistant when giving you your annual performance review, or books an earlier flight time, or checks into a different hotel on a business trip.
It isn’t your fault. It isn’t his fault. This is…well…this is where we have arrived, thanks to the Prudys.
Men shouldn’t sexually harass women, and women shouldn’t falsely accuse men. But it happens. And when it does, the Prudys are there to cheer it on. One gives them justification, and the other is bolstered by the increasing weight of the regulatory policies they encourage.
So please, try to avoid them. And try to forgive men for being a little dimwitted. We’ll try to overlook the times you become a little emotional. And together, we’ll see our way through this tangle we call Life.
Merry Christmas.