A Small World Without Men

Samantha Brick via Vox Popoli:

I had headhunted to achieve my utopian dream - a female- only company with happy, harmonious workers benefiting from an absence of men.

It was an idealistic vision swiftly shattered by the nightmare reality: constant bitchiness, surging hormones, unchecked emotion, attention-seeking and fashion rivalry so fierce it tore my staff apart.

Matriarchy FTL!

The office was like a Milan catwalk, but with the competitiveness of a Miss World contest - and the low cunning of a mud-wrestling bout.

A beautiful comment at the end by a reader:

I am sorry to hear the author's company went bankrupt despite her hard work. However, she claims life in TV is notoriously tough for women, there is a robust glass ceiling and the men are misogynist. Does it not occur to her, after this experience, that life in TV is tough for everyone, and that the kind of behaviours she has described could be what hold women back and make men hesitate about trusting them?

"The Patriarchy is holding me back" is a lot more soothing than accepting responsibility for one's moronic actions.

Comments

[SnoopyTheGoon]

Er... touchy subject. I better be quiet then.

[Mike T]

What women like this don't get is that men find it easier to just write women off as coworkers rather than sort out the 10-20% of the female population that is good at what they do AND not a social disaster in the office that's just waiting for an excuse to explode.

[Laura(southernxyl)]

I think it's very like the Ward Churchill thing. You start out with an illogical hiring choice (only women, (fake)Native American) instead of hiring the best person for the job, and then cry about the consequences.

It's like, excuse me guys, but it's like men who select women based on their looks and then complain about their behavior. After getting their feelings hurt and slamming all women for being shallow or whatever, they go about selecting the next bit of arm candy so they can be shocked by HER behavior. Best to think ahead about what you really need and want and be open-minded about what that will look like, and not try to make other people into cardboard cutouts that you stuff your projections into.

Mike, maybe it's because I've been in laboratories and not offices for my >25-year work life, but I've seen as much or more drama from men than I have women. It's men who do the screaming, wrench-throwing, hard-hat-throwing tantrums because something didn't go right - yes, I have seen it. We wouldn't get by with that crap. Men shouldn't get by with it either but they do.

[Mike Austin]

Dear Isaac:

Men are made to work together; women are made for other things. Examples abound: Firemen, construction and the Marine Corps are perfect illustrations of Men At Work.

[Laura(southernxyl)]

Yes, I had that Lego set too.

At my last job, I had two male and two female techs in the lab. My boss told me that my lab ran like a well-oiled machine.

I'm seeing an uptick of "women are worthless" comments various places lately and I wonder where in the world it's coming from. Didn't used to see that. Hopefully it's just an internet blogwave that won't translate to the real world. I've not had to deal with a lot of sexism in my worklife and I don't want to have to start now.

I'm reminded of a time about 20 years ago when I was putting together some kits to do air sampling. I had some pumps on the floor and was attaching copper tubing to them with nuts and compression fittings, and kind of struggling because the pumps were heavy and so forth. One of my male coworkers was sitting on his butt (that was cool, I didn't need or ask for his help) and he would NOT SHUT UP about how that was the kind of thing women always wanted men to do. After I pointed out mildly that I was in fact doing it myself, and he said women always blah blah, and I mentioned that I was not asking him or anybody else to help me, and he said but women always blah blah, I finally snapped and invited him to shut up. It gets old, guys.