Men Need To Protect Themselves In the Workplace

 

Don't be fooled, guys.

It doesn't matter how relaxed your workplace feels or seems. It doesn't matter what your boss does, what other men do, or what the women do there.

You must always remember that normal adult behavior, including harmless behavior that has gone on in workplaces for as long as workplaces have been a thing, can now get you in deep trouble. Normal behaviors, normal conversations, can lose you your job, your entire career, and more.

Your job, your workplace, is not a place to find a date, or a lay, or a girlfriend, or a wife. It doesn't matter that people have done that for as long as there have been workplaces and are still doing it now. It is far too much of a risk for you. You need to think about you, and covering your donkey.

No, it's not just crude jokes, or lingering hugs, or cheesecake screensavers, or trading favors. The way you look at a woman, even if she is fine with it, can get you into trouble.

So, how do you prevent accusations?

The best way is to work for yourself, or for very small business at which no women work and no women will ever work. Even then a woman who interacts with you as a customer or supplier or whatever can make accusations, but you have more control and protection than if you're working for a large employer, especially one where misandrist feminists are in control, or at least in control of dealing with alleged sexual harassment.

But if you do work somewhere that women also work, you need to be very careful, deliberate, and consistent in what you do:

Keep your interaction with women strictly professional and to the minimum that is absolutely necessary.

What does this mean in practice?

Doesn't Take My Breath Away

 

 

 

Here's something that reinforces the point I made here.

 
A woman posted on Facebook bemoaning that Kelly McGillis wasn't in "Top Gun: Maverick."

Some people are responding by saying the McGillis hasn't had much of a movie career in years. But, really, she could have been brought back for this movie if the producers wanted to do that.

It would have been embarrassing, though. 

 

She played Tom Cruise's love interest in the original. Tom has aged very well, and has no doubt worked very hard at maintaining his appearance. He's recognizable as the same person from the original movie. These pictures of McGillis are how she looked in the original, and her looking her best now. Notice it's pretty much a head shot. You can search for pictures of what she looks like these days, if you want.

This isn't a Hollywood problem. This is reality.

The reality is, time is on the side of men.

McGillis, it turns out, doesn't care about attracting men in her personal life. But her personal life isn't the totality of the movie industry. The woman who wrote this said she wanted to see McGillis and thinks she's beautiful. Well, I don't think McGillis is ugly. But this movie isn't a chick flick. It's a movie targeted at men who like military movies and jets, and targeted at women who want to see Tom Cruise. Most of those women wouldn't want to see McGillis, at least not as Tom Cruise's current or past love interest.

McGillis may be a very decent and sweet person. I have no idea. I've never met her and I've never heard anything about her other than what's out there in the general public.

The writer of that lament wants people to stop noticing that most women hit the wall. Isn't going to happen. She might as well tell women they should marry poor men shorter than themselves (and yeah, I know Cruise is short). This is reality. Most men find younger women who aren't overweight most attractive. And most women won't agree to be exclusive with a man who isn't taller, stronger, and richer than she is. Older women, regardless of appearance, can be very significant members of society, great friends and neighbors, and all of that. But they're usually not going to be the main love interest in mainstream movies, even if men their age are.

Want McGillis featured on the big screen as a love interest or otherwise as attractive? Collaborate with  and produce something for her. "Top Gun" isn't it.

Men Need to Help Each Other But Are Allegedly Doing It Wrong

The Institute for Family Studies published an article by Canadian-based journalist, Ari David Blaff. It is headlined "Saving Men from the Men’s Rights Movement."

For most in North America, the word “Men’s Rights Advocate” (MRA) is synonymous with sexism and hatred. Members are seen as resentful guys projecting their poisonous hatred at a changing world that’s left them behind. That judgement is not entirely misplaced.

To me, "MRA" is almost as useless without clarification, as "feminist." What matters is what people MEAN when they use the term. But of course, the USA is misandrist and Canada appears to be even more so, so things that focus on men, other than to tell them to die in war, fund government schemes, sacrifice themselves in marriage, back up women in parenting, or otherwise serve women is seen as bad. What I call Free Men can be, and often are, happy, not wallowing in hatred at all.

Major Retailer and Employeer Announces Male-Friendly Initiatives

Wow, Wal-Mart has announced several initiatives to promote men workers and men-owned businesses, since men have been hit harder by the recession.

These are some of the things included:

It will source $20 billion from men-owned businesses in the U.S. and will double its sourcing from such businesses in every market globally.

It will also offer training, market access and career opportunities to 60,000 men working in factories to help them "develop the skills they need to become more active decision-makers in their jobs and for their families."

In markets around the world, Wal-Mart will work with major professional service firms and merchandise suppliers with more than $1 billion in sales to increase male representation on Wal-Mart accounts.

Wait... wait... Aw, shucks, I got that wrong. I had to go back and read the story by Andrea Chang at LATimes.com again. Switch the sexes, of course. Uh,except that men HAVE been hit harder by the recession.

Female Victims Matter More

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month – so all of you who have been unaware of sexual assault – become aware, okay? At least for the rest of the month. Ashley Herzog wrote a column about the culmination of the month, "Take Back the Night", and rightly calls out someone for saying that men don't have to "take back the night" because "they already have it".

Crime statistics show that men certainly don't "own the night." In reality, they are three times more likely to be victims of assault by a stranger, and far more likely to be robbed, shot, or mugged. Men are carjacked twice as often. Men are 79% of all murder victims, and about three times as likely as women to be killed by a stranger. And while no one wants to blame the victim, we don’t hesitate to judge male crime victim’s choices. We don't tell them, "Yes, go to the ATM on that isolated corner by yourself at three in the morning. If you get held up at gunpoint, it's a societal problem!"

In the interest of fairness, I don't think most Take Back the Night participants would say it is being taken back from men in general - rather, criminals. Also in the interest of fairness... who is perpetrating the vast majority of these crimes?

That's because we know that robberies, muggings, and random assaults are crimes of opportunity - and certain behaviors make you an easy target.

But when it comes to stranger rape, feminists demand that we abandon all common sense. They went into hysterics when Bill O'Reilly aired a segment about Jennifer Moore, a young woman who was raped and murdered by a stranger. Apparently, O’Reilly was a “rape apologist” for noting that Moore was drunk and wandering the streets of New York by herself at 2 AM. The feminist line is that women are raped simply because they’re “in the presence of a rapist.” That’s true, but it begs the question: what kind of choices make you more likely to be in the presence of a rapist?

Right. As I mentioned in my previous entry, there are behaviors that make someone more likely to be raped, but rape is never okay.

What do feminists hope to accomplish by demanding that women “take back the night”? For the rate of violent crimes against women to go up? For the murder rate to be 50/50? “Taking back the night” is one of those feminist ideas that sounds good on paper, but makes no sense when you start looking at the details.

Perhaps they want crimes against everyone to go down? But Herzog's point is that feminists should not discourage people from being cautious.

Interestingly, women tell researchers they worry more about violent crime. Since we’re victimized less often, we’re probably better than men at assessing risk. What feminists call “living in fear,” I call being appropriately cautious.

Maybe, instead of demanding that women be able to walk alone at night, feminists should promote common sense—and encourage men to use it, too.

Women are mistaken if they think that men don't also have something to fear while walking alone at night. The focus on protecting women who are out at night, when it ignores the fact that men are far more likely to be victims, is sexism in one of its worse forms. The focus should be on general crime prevention.

Sexism Holding Career Women Back?

If I was a bettin’ man, I’d wager that Tom Leykis will talk about this one on his show today – provided it isn’t a tape or the time isn’t taken up with some comedian plugging an upcoming gig.

Women are their own workplace enemies when it comes to cracking the glass ceiling, with an international study finding they are less likely to promote themselves and network than their male counterparts.

Surprise, surprise!

I have worked in places where my boss was female and most of my coworkers were female. Many of my coworkers confided that they prefer male bosses.

The 2008 study, part of U.S. behavioral scientist Shannon L. Goodson's new book "The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance," compared almost 11,500 professional women with 16,700 men from 34 countries.

Sounds extensive.

Goodson said professional women in Britain, the United States and China were more likely to promote their interests, whereas women in New Zealand and Sweden are the most timid, followed by Australian and Canadian women.

But overall, women were not doing enough to advance their own careers, she said in a statement.

For both men and women other priorities often interfere with career advancement. However, the fact is, men don’t get pregnant and they don’t nurse. They also don't take time off because of a bad period.

"Being able to draw attention to your contributions and competencies at work has become an important part of modern career management, and it is something most women are still unwilling or unable to do as consistently as their male counterparts," she added.

Sometimes, you have to be aggressive. Plus men, as the sexual pursuers through most of history and across cultures, have had to market themselves. It is more likely to be in our system.

Goodson's research also found that women who had managed to climb up the
corporate ladder tended to "take the ladder with them," sometimes even sabotaging the chances of other female workers seeking promotion.

Sad, but true.

This part of the study, which was conducted mainly in the United States, revealed women executives may not be as encouraging or supportive of female staff.

I’ve heard that complaint.

"This led many women in the study to actually prefer male managers to female
managers, claiming men are more consistent and fair-minded than women," Goodson added.

If a man said this he’d be savaged as a sexist pig. But denying reality impedes progress.

I’m glad that feminism gave women some real choices. But the feminists who tried to convince women that they could have it all were not being honest. The fact is, you must make choices. You won’t be able to take every opportunity before you. Men who want to ascend to the top of the business world need to be cautious about marrying and starting a family, and this is even more true for women. Women who want to scale those heights need to market themselves and sometimes be aggressive. And it looks like it might help to get a male boss.

Checking in on Dear Abby Again

More often then not, I see stuff in advice columns that I want to discuss here. But I run out of time. Couldn’t let this one slip.

LOST IN THE BIG CITY wrote in to Dear Abby:

Nine months ago, my wife, "Marie," left to go shopping and never came back. She took off leaving me and our three sons, ages 12, 14 and 16, without a word.

Wow, that’s very irresponsible of a spouse and parent.

We had been married 25 years.

Which means in a lot of places, she could file for divorce and live off alimony for the rest of her life. Yeah, that's justice.

We had no contact for the first three months, and she has not helped support the kids in any way. She told no one -- including her family -- that she had left.

Sounds like she has a problem with communication.

Marie has recently started talking about coming home, but I have mixed feelings. I asked why she left. She said she was unhappy and tired of living a lie. What lie? Marie refuses to elaborate.

She might expect you to read her mind, and be insulted that you are unaware of her pain and suffering.

Two of our sons don't want her back.

They don’t really get a say. They are minor children. The parents run the home.

They felt abandoned when she disappeared.

They were abandoned by her!

Dear Abby responded:

Under the circumstances, I'd say the feelings you and the boys are experiencing are normal. However, all of you need to come to terms with why your wife and their mother walked out so abruptly. Before she returns, it is important that you understand why she felt that leaving the way she did was her only option.

There is some truth to this. It would be helpful for the husband to figure out what went wrong and what his part was in it – even it was nothing more than choosing the wrong woman to marry and make three children with. He could have been an excellent husband for 25 years, but if he picked the wrong woman, this kind of thing could happen anyway.

HOWEVER, can anyone imagine this would be Dear Abby’s response if it was a wife writing about her husband having left and wanting to come back, but not confessing what he did and why? Regardless of gender, the unhappy spouse should explain the reason for their unhappiness, unless it is something that can’t be changed or was previously mutually accepted as part of their lives. The spouse/parent who bailed out so irresponsibly should confess their error, repent of it, beg forgiveness, and get help. The abandoned spouse should try to determine if there was anything reasonable that they could have done differently, but not excuse the desertion.

The entire family needs counseling together.

The husband should also look into having her sign a post-nuptial agreement and some other paperwork that will protect the rest of the family should she decide to leave again. I doubt that he can legally prevent her from moving back in, which means he probably has no leverage to get her to sign such paperwork, but he should definitely consult with an attorney anyway.