He should spend some of the time he was going to use to date women from his company on activities where he might get to know someone who wont be at a disadvantage if the relationship gets rocky (if the company has no policy preventing him from dating an underling) or who won’t have power over him (if the company policy only recommends firing the higher ranking employee).
My addition to the consensus is you don’t ‘crap where you eat.’ If they are in a direct line report to him, then it’s off-limits. Seems simple enough to me. If they are in someone else’s department, then it’s not. I don’t feel sorry for the guy, people have been meeting people in places outside of work for a very long time, I have faith that this imaginary guy can do it too. Maybe join the rotary club or volunteer or run a marathon or literally anything else other than hit on subordinates. You’d be surprised at the number of women in the world who do things other than work that men can also do and when they both do those things, well-balanced individuals can even say ‘Hello’ and inquire of some of those women where they are from and whether they enjoy their current activity and if one of those women then shows some interest, a man can even go so far as to inquire as to whether she would like to get a cup of coffee sometime. If she says yes, then the man has just made a date with someone without there being an imbalance of power or a consent issue. It’s really not that difficult.
Frankly the whole premise of the OP is sexist. Why are you assuming that the person in the position of power is male, while the underling being protected by these policies–I suppose, the OP would add, like a soft wee little baby kitten wrapped in cotton–is female?
Nice stereotyping, dude. Or Dudette.
But I suspect Dude.
Brian Krzanich resigned his position because he violated internal company policy. To say that’s a bad thing, you cite articles on relationships in academia. You don’t give any indication that the two are connected in any way. You don’t even provide any evidence that Intel’s policy against fraternization centered on power inbalances rather than the many other reasons why such relations might be bad.
To shorten your post. “Look, shiny object. Look, other shiny objects. Women, amirite?”
There’s nothing to debate here. It’s not an argument in any way. At best it’s an incoherent rant.
I could say far more cogently that your post infantilizes men by making their brains seem tiny and undeveloped.
On the other hand, a lot of the responses give hope.
People tend to overlook this side of things when talking about boss-employee relationships, and it really should be more at the forefront.
Resolved: This has nothing to do with MeToo and has been the policy at many companies forever, that you don’t have a relationship with a direct report. At a lot of companies, if you got your spouse hired, through nepotism or because said spouse was the most qualified person, they still had to be in different chains of command. Professor-student relationships were verboten at every college I went to. (They also happened at every college I ever went to, because the forbidden is sexy.) I’m talking 50 years ago. (!) But thus: if I’m a graduate teaching assistant, and I want to date a freshman, I can date a freshman. Just not a freshman who’s in a class I’m grading. And I’m probably not going to advance at this institution.
I’ve seen this taken to extremes. For instance, Jake, 30yo prof, is dating a town girl, 26. He talks her into taking a few classes. Jake gets fired because now he’s dating a student. Jake takes it to a grievance committee and Jake wins, he’s back on the tenure track. Because she was not taking his classes and because the relationship predated her enrollment anyway.
However, that same college had reduced tuition for family members of faculty and staff. So how does that work? Prof whose wife worked to put him through grad school now gets a family tuition break, his wife signs up for classes. Not his classes. But classs with his colleagues. Is she going to get equal treatment, from his fellow profs? Is this fair? Does this policy conflict with the policy of not dating students?
But it has nothing to do with MeToo.
I’d be impressed if the corporate policy said “Women in this company are not to be dated” as that would be specifically infantilize women. I’m sure Flyer will supply such evidence.
I’m not sure it’s quite that simple. Lots of people cite the imbalance in the number male executives as a blatant example of sexism. It seems disingenuous to turn around and say that rules governing how those executives behave are totally gender neutral.
Dude. You understand that’s how most normal people meet other people, whether it’s friends or partners, right? Why does it matter if the individual “knows nothing about him?” You meet people and they learn about you. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this. And anyway, if you go around with a giant blinking neon sign that says “I’m a multimillionaire CEO”, what kind of prospective partners are going to approach you for that reason? NOT THE GOOD KIND, dude, let me tell you. Even if I was a multimillionaire and had a Ferrari, I’d still drive around in my 4Runner with Patagonia and Grateful Dead stickers all over it if my goal was to chat up women in public. What is it about this scenario that is so far over your comprehension?
With regards to general policies against supervisor/subordinate intimate relationships in either employment or academic settings, I agree others that the policies do not infantilize women. Firstly because such policies are generally gender neutral. Secondly because the policies are as much about preventing nepotism as they are about sexual consent issues.
With regards to this specific case, nothing I’ve read specifies the gender of the other employee. So why are you trying to make this about women rather than about an executive violating standing company policy?
But these rules don’t just apply to executives: they apply all up and down the ladder, and they apply to plenty of female low-level supervisors and mid-level managers.
Besides the OP introduced the infantilization of women. We’re just eagerly awaiting, with bated breath, some actual evidence.
Entering into a relationship with a child is a problem because a) there’s a power balance, and b) their understanding of the world and reasoning powers make them unable to reasonably consent.
Power inbalances alone do not an infant make. Nor is there anything specific to women in any of this. A female CEO that forced her male employees to take her out to dinner and suckle her toes would also get into trouble.
That said, I don’t think that employer-employee relationships are de facto problematic.
Generally, managers are limited to being able to fire/reprimand those who are directly under them. It’s frowned on for them to skip over their underling to manage their underling’s underling, since that’s basically saying that they have no confidence in their underling’s ability to manage her people.
On the other hand, if you’re the CEO and you’re hitting on the entry-level position people, at the bottom of the hierarchy, then I think it’s fair to say that issues of power imbalance are going to be there.
CEO dating a President = No
CEO dating a VP = Sure
CEO dating a Senior manager = Maybe…
CEO dating a grunt worker = No
IDK about that. I think there’s enough separation there to not be a problem.
Sure, the CEO could pull some strings and have the grunt fired. But that would look really bad on the CEO’s part.
I think people in the thread are saying “No” to all of these, as everyone is down the reporting chain from the CEO. Instead she needs to hang out at the local rotory club, and pretend to be interested in rotors, or whatever it is a rotary club does.
It seems to me there are two power structures that need to be considered here:
- Someone is in a position of power over your life. Your boss, a casting director, a professor, etc. These people can hinder or help you and as such can use their power (intentionally or not) to coerce someone to have sex with them.
- Someone who is rich/powerful/famous but has no affect on your life. Think movie star or rock star or millionaire play who can use their fame/fortune to lure someone into having sex with them.
I think #1 is clearly a problem and women (and men but this mainly happens to women) need protection from it. This does not infantilize anyone.
I think #2 gets a bit more muddy. Is a rock star taking advantage of a groupie who wants to have sex with him? Or is the groupie free to make her own decisions? Put another way does the groupie need protection? I think that would be closer to infantilizing (to use the OP word…I think it is a bit strong) the woman groupie for us to be her nanny and say what she can or can not do in this regard. (I will assume for the sake of argument the groupie is an adult and sober and not otherwise coerced.)
Sure, it applies to all levels in corporate hierarchies, to college professors, etc. No one in a position of power should be able to leverage that into a personal relationship, or to treat some subordinates worse than others because they don’t have a relationship with them. But if someone is going to argue (as I’ve often heard) that the money and prestige of management positions go predominantly to men, seems to me they should admit that the rules and restrictions of those positions also fall predominantly on men. That doesn’t mean the rules are wrong.
It certainly happens seems to happen more to women in the corporate and political world, but I gather that it’s quite common for men in the entertainment industry.
Yes, the groupie needs protection.
One can only assume the company adopted this policy for the protection of underlings from harassment and from legal issues arising from complicated boss/employee relationships. Nothing unusual in this, it’s practically the norm in many industries. It seems a wise course.
He knew the policy and was fired for ignoring it.
Zero connection to #metoo, zero to do with his work life balance issues, zero to do with consent, zero to do with infantilizing anyone.
Ignored company policy and was fired for it. Not much to debate here, in my opinion.