Easy for you to say now. Because there is no power behind it.
But what if the traditional venue for making business contacts was baby showers? What if for hundreds of years the real inside deals happened on trips to the nail salon? What if the best way to really get in with your boss was to spend a weekend morning with her at a spa?
What if time and time again, you saw yourself getting passed up for promotions, not in the know for opportunities, and generally left out of the fast track because you were not welcome at these events? This stuff wasn’t that long ago. It happened to my mother.
Women put up with this for decades. Our society has been slowly and steadily working hard to increase equality- be it finally admitting women into golf clubs or simply inviting the women at the office to join the after hours boozing. I think you can understand a bit why it upsets some people to see us drifting back to these archaic highly-gendered patterns in the world place.
So what next? We all know that for smokers, bonding over a cigarette is invaluable. So ban people from smoking during work hours?
The fact of the matter is that you can’t regulate the sports people like to play or their interests, and you shouldn’t try. That way lies disaster. It is not “patriarchy” if the president likes to play basketball anymore than it is “matriarchy” if there is a sewing circle in the workplace.
If you’ve read the article, you’ll notice it is only marginally about basketball. The basketball game was just a little story hook leading into a lightweight editorial. The meat article is questioning (not even accusing!) if Barrack Obama’s administration is running on the same “men’s club” model that has been a well-known and documented obstacle to successful women (and especially female politicians- do I really need to spell out the history and current reality for women in politics) for decades (unlike your silly smoker’s hypothetical, which lacks the crucial aspect of “being reality.”) The article points out evidence that there is a bit of a regression to male-biased practices, as well as evidence that the Obama administration has worked hard to give opportunities to women.
Yeah, I know, not quite as sexy as “the feminazis want to kill basketball OMG!!!1!”
Except then the article points out that 50% of Obama’s administration is female. And then quickly follows it up with “But they don’t get to play basketball.”
The article itself doesn’t even know what it’s complaining about. Frankly, pull out your favorite cliche saying… “much ado about nothing”… “full of sound and fury yada yada yada”… “tempest in a teapot”… etc… etc… etc. They all describe this article perfectly. Because even the points about female exclusion in the Obama administration are undermined by facts and figures quoted by the article itself.
But they still don’t get to play basketball. :rolleyes:
Oh come on! Obama can’t chest bump a woman after he’s made the winning three point shot of the game.
Not only would he knock her on her ass but think of the scandal. And think of poor miss Obama and her children. God wont somebody think of the children?
Indeed. This is all just bubble-blowing in absence of real news.
I can’t give details, but let’s just say this December will bring a “White House Christmas card list” scandal that’s gonna make Wrightgate look like Obama-bumps-his-head-on-helicopter-doorgate!
Behind the boss lady going out with some favoured twats of her own in management circles for a bit of female networking.
Why I daresay that there is power in networking. I’m also adult enough to realise one can’t make every bloody event into something to yammer and cry on about like weepy little twit.
What if?
Well, I’d say that the making of business contacts happens in the circles where business contacts exist. That may be at time gender specific, in which case tough luck, or gender non-specific, in which case there we go.
As for the Spa, well, as I don’t do spas, then I am just shit out of luck, eh? There are always a number of routes to “in” with the boss, as you would know if you actually spent any time in management instead of reading weepy books about it.
Presuming your mum is of an age over 60, that was a rather different era. Yammering on as if we still are in 1960 is bloody stupid.
And guess what, plenty of lads get excluded for non-merit reasons from such events. The non-sport oriented in instances of a very sport oriented boss.
What I see is not fucking drifting, it’s excessive whining about trivialities, based on the American culture of permanent victimology and Woe is My Identity Group, regardless of whether the facts have changed.
There are doubtless real gender discrimination issues out there, but informal sports pick-up games around physical equals are not backsliding archaicisms. Next we’ll be hearing how the American president has to include fat twats and clumsy geeks in his games, to avoid discrimination against the differently sports-abled.