The MeToo Movement Is Backfiring Against Women... Again?!
The MeToo Movement Is Backfiring Against Women... Again.The latest from Bloomberg shows how many men are actively avoiding women and even canceling work related social events out of a fear they could be falsely accused or taken out of context.This is resulting in fewer men working with and mentoring women. But in response many women have simply said that its men refuse to work with them they could simply file discrimination complaints.It seems that the push for social justice has no reasonable solution as feminists push from all sides. The only outcome that seems like would be gender segregation.
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Once again, we have a story in the news about the MeToo movement backfiring against women.
The latest from Bloomberg talks about how men on Wall Street have begun actively avoiding women.
Some men cancel one-on-one meetings, or even cancel workplace social gatherings.
Now, the feminists over at Disabel say this because men don't know how to behave themselves.
But I think a more reasonable conclusion is that some men are concerned they could say something and it could be taken out of context, or they could even be falsely accused, because yes, we have seen some men falsely accused in the MeToo movement.
A few months ago, we saw a story from The Economist that public opinion had actually shifted against the victims in the MeToo movement.
And that's rather unfortunate, because there are some pretty awful men who are now facing justice because of what MeToo spoke up about.
So today, I want to take a look at the underlying causes as to why I think we see this phenomenon, and I also want to show some evidence that suggests men are actually between a rock and a hard place.
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From Bloomberg, Wall Street rule for the Me Too era.
Avoid women at all costs.
No more dinners with female colleagues.
Don't sit next to them on flights.
Book hotel rooms on different floors.
Avoid one-on-one meetings.
In fact, as a wealth advisor put it, just hiring a woman these days is, quote, an unknown risk.
What if she took something he said the wrong way?
Across Wall Street, men are adopting controversial strategies for the Me Too era, and in the process, making life even harder for women.
Call it the Pence effect, after U.S.
Vice President Mike Pence who said he avoids dining alone with any woman other than his wife.
In finance, the overarching impact can be, in essence, gender segregation.
Interviews with more than 30 senior executives suggest many are spooked by Me Too and struggling to cope.
Quote, It's creating a sense of walking on eggshells, said David Bonson, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley, who's now an independent advisor overseeing more than $1.5 billion.
This is hardly a single industry phenomenon, as men across the country check their behavior at work to protect themselves in the face of what they consider unreasonable political correctness, or to simply do the right thing.
The upshot is forceful on Wall Street, where women are scarce in the upper ranks.
The industry has also long nurtured a culture that keeps harassment complaints out of the courts and public eye, and has so far avoided a mega-scandal like the one that has engulfed Harvey Weinstein.
Now more than a year into the MeToo movement, with its devastating revelations of harassment and abuse in Hollywood, Silicon Valley, and beyond, Wall Street risks becoming more of a boys club rather than less of one.
Quote, Women are grasping for ideas on how to deal with it because it's affecting our careers, said Karen Alinsky, president of the Financial Women's Association and senior vice president at Wells Fargo & Co.
It's a real loss.
There's a danger, too, for companies that fail to squash the isolating backlash and don't take steps to have top managers be open about the issue and make it safe for everyone to discuss it, said Stephen Zweig, an employment attorney with Ford Harrison.
If men avoid working or traveling with women alone, or stop mentoring women for fear of being accused of harassment, he said, Those men are going to back out of a harassment complaint and right into a discrimination complaint.
Some men have voiced concerns to me that a false accusation is what they fear, said Zweig the lawyer.
These men fear what they cannot control.
Basically, the problem being outlined by Bloomberg is that majority of the people at the top of Wall Street are males and majority of people who are in support staff are female.
Thus, if you want more women at the higher ranks, you need men to work with women directly to mentor them and allow that shift to happen.
But so long as men at the highest levels are concerned about being taken out of context or false accusations, they're going to actively avoid women, as this story has outlined.
But it's not the first time we heard this.
This same phenomenon was reported by Forbes last August.
We saw this story in Forbes, why in the world would men stop mentoring women post Me Too?
The story highlights some data.
They say, a Pew Research Center survey asked respondents whether they thought that the recent focus on harassment had made it harder for men to know how to interact with women in the workplace.
51% of all adults questioned said yes.
Source media reports on trends in the financial industries.
Respondents to their recent survey on attitudes towards 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 30s.
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.
We actually have a recent example of the conflict.
Neil deGrasse Tyson was recently accused of acting inappropriately towards his assistant.
The way the woman describes it, he was trying to seduce her.
The way Neil deGrasse Tyson described it, he was just trying to be friendly, and he didn't realize she was uncomfortable.
Now, Tyson has several accusations, and some of them may be fair.
I'm not trying to credit or discredit them, but I want to point out the potential conflict.
In the ABC News story, they say, Tyson denied claims that he'd made advances towards a production assistant, Ashley Watson, who told Patheos that she quit her job due to his alleged inappropriate behavior.
She was getting up to leave when Neil allegedly stopped her, saying he wanted to show her a Native American handshake he knew.
That involved holding hands tightly, making eye contact, and feeling for each other's pulses.
Later, Watson claimed Tyson put his hand on her shoulders and said he wanted to hug her, but if he did, he'd just want more.
The famed astrophysicist laid out a different version of the story in a statement.
Although he did admit to inviting a female production assistant to his home for wine and cheese as a capstone of our friendship over the summer, he said he apologized profusely to the woman later when she revealed that she was creeped out by the encounter.
She freely chose to come by for wine and cheese, and I was delighted.
Production days are long.
We arrived late, but she was on her way home two hours later, Tyson said.
Afterwards, she came into my office, told me she was creeped out by the wine and cheese
evening, she viewed the invite as an attempt to seduce her, even though she sat across
the wine and cheese table from me and all conversation had been in the same vein as
all other conversations we ever had.
Naturally, you're going to find that proponents of Me Too are probably going to believe the
woman, and people who are skeptical are probably going to believe Neil.
The issue here is, for one, I don't know what happened.
I certainly want to sympathize with someone who was taken advantage of, or at least felt like someone was trying to take advantage of them.
But the scenario could be rather simple.
Think about it this way.
If Neil deGrasse Tyson invited his male assistant to his apartment for wine and cheese to kick back after a long day of work, nobody would bat an eye.
That must be a male privilege, I suppose.
There's a conflict.
Because Neil invited a woman, he has opened up the door for this scenario where he's now being accused of acting inappropriately.
Such a situation would not happen to a male.
And there you have it.
A situation where the MeToo movement could actually backfire because, whether you like it or not, interactions between men and women are inherently different and have unique risks that situations between women and women and men and men don't actually have.
There's a different dynamic at play when it's men and women who are having a social gathering.
Because of this, you will probably see more men say, you know what?
I'm just not going to mentor the woman.
I'm not going to invite her up for a drink, for some wine and cheese, because maybe she'll take it the wrong way.
A guy probably wouldn't.
I could invite any one of my male colleagues over for wine or a beer to sit back and enjoy some food, and they're not going to think twice.
It's rather unfortunate that this is what happens.
Now, if Tyson was actually acting inappropriately and trying to seduce the woman, the other issue is...
Is that morally wrong?
Certainly some people are going to say no it isn't, and some people are going to say that it is, and because he didn't actually force himself on her or anything, should she even be bringing up the story?
I guess the only solution then is to make sure before you start the job, everything is laid out front and clear that you don't want a relationship, and this must be strictly professional.
Because if Neil wasn't aware of that, and he did, is he really at fault because he was just trying to engage in activities with a woman?
Now, again, you might think it's right or wrong, but that's not the point I'm trying to make.
The point I'm trying to make is, whatever your opinion, this situation has presented a conflict that would not exist between two men.
I certainly talked about Neil deGrasse Tyson on my second channel the other day, and I also want to highlight some other articles I talked about a couple days ago.
We see this story from the Evening Standard, that one college has switched to using the word WMXN, that's W-O-M-X-N, instead of W-O-M-E-N, to try and be inclusive.
However, as I pointed out in the other video, W-O-M-X-N is actually offensive at the same time.
I wanted to bring this point back up because I think it's a good example of how there is no right way to address the issues of social justice.
If a man says he's going to use the word Wimxen to try and be inclusive, well the mirror says it's actually racist and many people online were outraged.
So if he just says, I'm just going to use straight women, well then he's being exclusive according to another source.
No matter which word he uses, he is wrong.
Now think about what happens if a man wants to invite a woman out to a social gathering, strictly for professional reasons.
Something could be taken out of context, maybe something he does that he thinks is normal is considered not to be normal by the woman, and he can be accused of acting inappropriately.
Could be bad for his career.
Now if he decides to invite a man and not the woman, he'll now be accused of discrimination.
So it seems like there really is no right way to solve these issues.
And as more and more people push for these ideas, the unintended consequences might actually just be gender segregation.
But I think there's an underlying cause as to why there is no right way to actually address the problem.
And this comes from another story that I pointed out on my second channel.
This is from a study called Man Up and Take It, Greater Concern for Female Than Male Suffering, where Tanya Reynolds and many others conducted several studies.
In their studies, they found that people are more likely to believe that a victim will be a woman, and they're more likely to sympathize with female victims.
And these things can present themselves with a predictable outcome.
Some men have been falsely accused.
I don't know if the overwhelming majority of men are who are falsely accused, but we have seen some actual stories where fake accusations damage their careers.
Thus, men are concerned.
We've also seen instances where no matter which word you use, you're still being offensive.
What can you do other than to avoid certain kinds of people?
And now we can actually see the data from actual researchers that in a circumstance where a man is a victim, people are less likely to care.
And if something does happen, people are more likely to assume the woman is a victim.
So, if someone goes up to, say, Neil deGrasse Tyson's room and makes a claim, people are more likely to believe it, and that's going to be bad for men who are just trying to run a business or trying to be sociable with their colleagues.
Now I think the result is 100% predictable, and again, it's rather unfortunate.
I am not surprised to see another story in Bloomberg, where men are talking about actively avoiding women.
How we saw the story in Forbes months ago, that men are no longer wishing to mentor women out of the same fears.
And it's also not surprising that we saw that story in The Economist, where public opinion has turned against victims of Me Too.
I certainly then don't expect men will be willing to buy a lottery ticket that could result in the ending of their careers and damage to their lives.
What I mean by that is, the chances something bad happens is slim to none.
I don't think women are going out there just trying to lie about guys and be offended all the time.
But to these men, they're concerned that even if there's a 1 in 100,000, 1 in a million chance it happens, it's just a lottery ticket they don't want to buy.
Because the upside isn't there, and the downside is massive.
So let me know what you think in the comments below, we'll keep the conversation going.
How do you feel about all this?
Was the MeToo movement overwhelmingly good?
Or is it overwhelmingly bad?
Or do you think it's nuanced?
Because I certainly think it's nuanced.
And I think the good was absolutely worth it to a certain degree.
But there's going to be more backlash.
There's going to be more negative consequences.
And I guess we can only see if it truly was worth it in the end.
So hopefully, it turns out to be totally worth it.
But again, you let me know what you think.
We'll keep the conversation going.
You can follow me on Twitter at TimCast.
Stay tuned.
New videos every day at 4 p.m.
And I'll have more videos up on my second channel.
