Sheryl Sandberg's #MentorMe Program

As predicted and reported, the #MeToo movement is hurting women. Fewer men now want to mentor women. Fewer male executives want to be alone in a room or on a trip with a female staff member. This will obviously undermine women’s positions in the workplace. Which will give the feminist left something else to complain about.

Fortune magazine reports the statistics:

A new set of findings from women’s empowerment non-profit LeanIn.Org and online survey platform SurveyMonkey reveal that, since the media reports of sexual harassment first emerged last fall, male managers are three times as likely to say they are uncomfortable mentoring women and twice as uncomfortable working alone with a woman. The hesitation to meet with women outside of work is even more pronounced: Senior men were 3.5 times more likely to hesitate having a work dinner with a junior female colleague than a male one–and five times more likely to hesitate to travel for work with a junior woman.

And also:

Among the powerful statistics the campaign site points out (based on LeanIn.Org’s research):

• People with mentors are more likely to get promoted.
• Women are 24% less likely than men to get advice from senior leaders
• 62% of women of color say the lack of an influential mentor holds them back.

Now, Sheryl Sandberg, who apparently has too much time on her hands, is riding to the rescue. She is launching a new movement called #MentorMe:

In a Facebook post Tuesday morning, LeanIn.Org founder Sheryl Sandberg explained that men’s increasing unwillingness to mentor their female colleagues “undoubtedly will decrease the opportunities women have at work.” The Facebook COO pointed out that, “The last thing women need right now is even more isolation. Men vastly outnumber women as managers and senior leaders, so when they avoid, ice out, or exclude women, we pay the price.”

And also,

Sandberg writes: “If we’re going to change the power imbalance that enables so much sexual harassment in the first place, we need to ensure women get more mentorship and sponsorship, not less. That’s how we get the stretch assignments that lead to promotions. That’s how we build the networks that put us on the path to exciting opportunities. That’s how we get the respect – and recognition – we deserve.”

Launching an orgy of recriminations and vindictive attacks against men, destroying their careers, their lives and their families is not going to make women look competent and professional. The ability to destroy people you work with is not the same as the ability to build a building, to fulfill an order, to finish a successful project. The avalanche of attacks against men does not make women look like they deserve respect for the job they are doing. It tells the world that they are not doing their jobs-- because they are weak and vulnerable-- and that they are blaming other people for it. It looks like an orgy of man-hating, something that will contribute to a hostile work environment, making females radioactive and undermining group morale and cohesion.

While it is true that harassment and worse do exist, making it into a public attack on men, even on all men, does not help women. Thrilling in public to the destruction of a man's life does not make you look competent and professional.

And we should note that Sandberg herself, with her dumb idea of leaning in, has contributed to the hostile work environment. Leaning in is macho posturing. It involves making threatening gestures. If you believe that this is the way advance women’s interests in the workplace, you need but look at the amount of sexual harassment on display. As I have often mentioned, the current situation is not merely the fault of men. It must also be put on the account of feminism. Five decades of cultural warfare against the patriarchy has not produced a workplace that is congenial and cordial, where people respect each other.

A program that tells male executives to mentor female subordinates will make these subordinates look like they won a diversity lottery, that they did not earn their promotions and that they do not serve as much respect. It will breed resentment and aggravate the problem.

Unable to recognize that feminism has made things worse, and that Leaning In is more the problem than the solution, ideological zealots like Sandberg think that we need more feminism. Doesn’t she have a day job? Doesn’t she have enough to do as Chief Operating Officer of one of the world’s leading tech companies? Doesn’t she have enough to do bringing up her children as a single mother? Why doesn’t she stop trying to promote an ideology… that makes life more difficult for women?