As is more and more frequent these days, I was contacted this morning with a list of questions from a member of the mainstream media. This time it was Leah Eichler, a weekly columnist for The Globe who is also writing a feature article for Canadian Business Magazine on “Women in Work.” She had some questions for me in relation to her work on that article.
As is also the case with the mainstream media, I never know which of my statements, or in what context they will be used for a finished piece. Regular readers of this site know full well that the MSM has not exactly dazzled us with exactitude, diligence or ethics. So, like many times before, I bring you the questions, unedited, with the complete answers I provided Ms. Eichler. — PE
Clearly, yes, it has, along with the focus on women in most everything else in modern culture.
2. Have you encountered a move toward gender intelligent workplaces and what is your take on this?
No, I haven’t. There is indeed a huge focus on gender, rather sex, in the workplace these days, but I would call it anything but intelligent. In fact, I would guess that what you mean by “Gender intelligent” (the language of social engineers) is actually “Female favoring,” They are not the same thing at all, though I don’t find the latter concept to be any more positive for the workplace. I think actual “gender intelligence” would imply an understanding of both sexes equally, and the knowledge that the workplace has never been particularly friendly to men any more than women. The nature of business is to maximize the utility of any given employee at the least possible cost. It’s about the bottom line, not the genitalia.
What has happened is that the workplace has become plagued by gender politics, pitting men and women against each other collectively, and I think business has suffered for it.
3. Have you noticed any reaction to this emphasis, by men?
Yes, but not within the workplace. Men know that reacting with anything other than support in the workplace for the targeted advancement of women is career suicide. I am not just talking about reasonable measures like making some allowances for pregnancy and childbirth. The problem shows up where qualified men are being passed over for hiring or promotion in favor of less qualified women in order to fill quotas, as well as the liberal use of litigation against men and companies by women, much of it based on false pretense. Attacking men and masculinity is now a culture-wide phenomenon, and it has resulted in a workplace that is overtly hostile to men while granting women the power to successfully persecute with the ease of a pointed finger. Most all of men’s venting about this kind of problem comes to places like my website, where it is often expressed anonymously.
More simply put, the most common reaction from men has been politically forced silence, or an obsequious, fear based lauding of the current state of affairs.
4. Lately, I’ve encountered the term “misandry” which I must admit I wasn’t very familiar with. Do you think the emphasis on women’s advancement has gone too far?
What I think is important is that it is not access to professional advancement for women that is a problem. The problem is how we are going about it. In a just society there would ideally be no barriers to anyone pursuing professional goals based on sex. That being said, quotas and the lowering of standards to accommodate under or unqualified female applicants has had a negative impact on business performance as well as doing no real favors to women, generally speaking. The direct inference of such policies is that women are incapable on their own of competing with men on a level playing field. It diminishes the credibility of all women in the workplace while fostering a culture of under performance and sexual animosity that is completely unnecessary.
Misandry is a large part of the problem. I offer the following article from Degroote School of Business at McMaster University:
http://www.degroote.mcmaster.ca/articles/women-make-better-decisions-than-men/
I invite you to read the article along with the 100+ comments that follow it. In particular the comment by Professor Scott Gustafson. This article is misandry in action. It is an attempt to recruit women into a business school based on biased, even fraudulent scholarship that paints men as inferior. This is the one of the building blocks for your “gender intelligent” workplace.
I would argue that as long as men are bullied into compliance, you will not hear much from them on this in the work environment. But when that gag comes off, as it eventually will, you will see a pronounced backlash against female favoring polices and against women, many of whom do not deserve it. Men, as is customary, will be blamed for this. The fault, however, will be directly in the laps of gender ideologues.
5. Are men disadvantaged by the emphasis to promote women in business?
It is impossible to not disadvantage one group when you favor another. It is simple physics. And this is what is happening because we have lost focus on promoting merit in favor of bowing to identity politics. Worse, we ultimately disadvantage both groups. By favoring the soft misogyny of quotas and reduced standards, we not only undermine men who have earned recognition by accomplishment and merit, we undermine the credibility of the many women who can compete without being given a head start in the race and forcing everyone else to run slower. This is only a formula to undermine the personal competition critical to business success.
I refer you again to the report from the Campaign for Merit in Business.
The best way, in my opinion, to assist women collectively with achieving professional success, is to prepare them to compete under the same diligent standards that men have always faced, and without treating them like children. That means they must make the same sacrificial decisions that men have made for professional advancement for ages. Personal life, comfort and entitlement go out the window, as does a lot attention to family and friends. Money becomes the sole motivator, not the lifestyle choices that have historically led women to lower income positions from which they have demanded to be paid “equally.”
Women, like men have always done, must bend to the needs of the workplace, not the other way around. This is accomplished with education and the matured understanding that professional life means almost unending personal sacrifice. Turning the workplace into a social sciences laboratory and forcing compromises that do not serve the needs of business is a recipe for failure and a guarantee that women’s desire to be regarded as equals will be met with deserved contempt.
6. I would love to learn more about A Voice for Men, why (and when) you started it and why you saw the need for it.
I started A Voice for Men in 2008 as a personal blog. My desire was to simply raise awareness of issues faced by men and boys in modern culture. Many of those issues are cataloged here:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/activism/about/
Since then, the site has grown exponentially into the most widely read online publication targeting men’s issues that has ever existed. We have attracted scores of men and women of every lifestyle, color, creed, sexuality, religion and lack of religion who support the idea that where it concerns men and boys, most of society is getting it wrong.
This is particularly true where it concerns gender ideologues, many of whom claim to “advance the equality of women,” but who instead seek to advantage women over men by any means necessary, including unscrupulous concepts like quotas, reduced standards and fanciful but meaningless jargon like “gender intelligent workplace.”
Hope this helps,
Paul
