Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Sisterhood in workplace

Sisterhood in workplace, a call for women to stop sniping at each other (with other women) – sounds good, no?

Well, not really.

The author make it sounds like as if guys do not do this kind of stuff, but only women do (and they do only to other women), and therefore themselves becoming the last obstacle to gender equality in workplace. But the fact is that, men do it all the time as well.

Then what's the point of the article? Well, to begin with, office rivalry and sniping are not really the nicest thing to do to your colleagues, boss, subordinates, be they men or women. I agree, but then why an emphasis on working women? The true motive of the author's seemingly benign call could only be understood in the framework of a class struggle, a class struggle not between capitalisn and proletariat, but a class struggle between the two opposite sexes.

Let me elaborate; since it is important to break a glass ceiling and into a male-dominant world of corporate boardroom, it naturally follows that all the women of the world must unite. The enemy is not other, more successful, highly placed women, but men.

Only by viewing all men (in workplace) as a class enemy, the author's call will make sense. Office politics, sniping and backstabbing are commonplace in most if not all of workplace, and it happens between men, between men and women, and between women. However, the author thinks only the last case, women sniping at other women to be problematic.

If you replace a woman with another woman in the board, it doesn’t help bring up the percentage of women in the boardroom. The percentage will only go up if you replace a man with a woman. Therefore, immediate ceasefire among professional women is in order, while pretending that the problem concerns only women and let men continue fighting each other to their own detriment.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

UN Children's fund or UN Girls' Fund?

You would think that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) had changed its name to United Nations Girls’ Fund (UNIGEF?), if you take a look at the cover of 8 most recent annual reports published by the agency. All the cover photos of annual reports since 2000, are girls (2000, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2007), except in cases when babies (hard to tell the sexes of them) graced the front pages.

Actually this is perfectly in line with the policies and stances of all other UN agencies, who, informed by man-hating strand of virulent feminism, have determined to remake the world in their image (where women’s and girls’ interest are put first = where women and girls rule) and steadfastly rejected to help boys. In fact, ignoring the needy boys benefits feminists in achieving their aims; it will prevent diverting their precious resources away from its holy mission of assisting girls, and will help buoy girl’s competitiveness against boys in relative terms. The only thing they might worry about boy’s plight, if they ever do, might be its negative effect on girls, in the sense that troubling and delinquent boys may tease, bully, or sexually harass (all of which could be defined be feminists as “sexual attack” against girls) girls. Otherwise boys are not on UNICZEF and other UN agencies radar screen.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Working While Female (WWF) vs.Working While Male (WWM)

Another related post on the same site (my favourite XX blog in Slate)

Feminists have craftily adapted DHB (driving while black) into WWF (working while female).

Well maybe there is such a thing as WWF – such as promoted over other more qualified men (especially Caucasian men) into senior management positions, freedom to pick and choose the male targets of your sexual harassment charges, opportunity to file sex discrimination lawsuits against your company if you are in a mood of buying a new mansion or luxury cars, watches and precious stones, etc. threaten your boss that low performance review for you will bring a big trouble for him, for example, finding his name on one of the defendants of sexual discrimination case, etc.

The moment you start working for a company, all of the above benefits come with you as WWF. You think the above are exaggerated? No, many companies (especially larger ones that could become easy target of feminist lawyers) have de facto gender quota, or numerical target for female representation at senior positions, and evaluate managers performance by how many female workers he have promoted, hired, or evaluated positively. Not to mention many “women-only” career networks, study groups, career orientations, mentorship programs or counseling programs in the industry or inside company that benefits only women. These are certainly beneficial, although to much less dramatic ways than the above, and are mostly or exclusively available for women.

Now let’s imagine the benefits and risks of WWM (working while male)

Promotion being passed over because you are men – companies has numerical target for senior female managers to meet and you are so getting in the way!

24/7 risk of being accused by female workers of sexual harassment/discrimination/assault or whatever convenient charges women can haul against men.

Work in physically dangerous occupation that have much higher risk of getting injured than, say, cleaning hotel rooms, and at the same time vilified by feminists for out-earning blue-color women
.

If you happen to be a manager in a large company, you will be living and breathing in a corporate and social environment that defines you and your presence as the relic of patriarchal past, and view your presence as the evidence of the company's lack of commitment to gender equality at the senior positions and hindrance to achieving women’s full empowerment

Sexual harassment is terrorism?

This should rank quite high in the list of hyperbolic rhetoric by feminists – sexual harassment is a terrorism”. To be sure, the Slate’s XX bloggers are not the first one to employ the term “terrorism” to describe sexual harassment - there are many precedents – after all, feminists are the ones who are particularly prone to this kind of hyperbolic rhetoric among other leftist activists (I think some in-depth study and comparison on this topic would be interesting- who is the most militant in their verbiage – black activists, environmentalists, gay activists, animal rights activists, etc.?).

I guess feminists equate Sexual Harassment (SH) with terrorism since;

1) the trauma inflicted by SH to the women are so horrific and is on par with horror of real terrorism (the kind you see in Iraq and Afghanistan)

2) or just want to grab media attention to promote their cause by using the “T” word

On 1), I wonder if feminists are actually perpetuating “fragile women myth” by saying that women are so fragile that they are just as frightened by a few unwanted sexual advances are as they are frightened by roadside IED, etc.

Or may be it is that the feminsits who heard the story of another women sexually harassed are so shocked and distressed by the story that they are in the same mental state of victims of real terrorism, - who had IED blown off 30 yard away and see torn heads and limb flying in their faces. In other words, they are in perpetual state of paranoia.

Intersting line from the blog post:

“They'(Sexual harassment)re designed to keep women in the lower-paying jobs on the ladder.”

It’s good that you have another excuses or someone else (i.e. men of course) to blame for your low performance and non-competence which is really holding you back. It is also clearly an expression of deranged feminists’ paranoia. Because I’m not sure if these men who made unwanted sexual advances are doing so with a clear intent of keeping those women on lower paying job. If they wish to do so, they are other ways to do that.