Thursday, February 8, 2018

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:

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):

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?

12 comments:

  1. Well for Sandberg and associates there's always France.

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  2. :-D

    Well put, James.

    -TW

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  3. Trust! Without it all the Hash Tags in the world will ultimately do nothing except increase the gulf between men and women. I have to admit that there is a part of me that cannot help to gloat and think "I tried to tell you NOT to make men the enemy." How does alienating about 50 percent of the population gain one anything? Doing things to protect women with a misguided sense of responsibility for their welfare is far different than trying to destroy men's careers for personal advancement or just the joy of impressing the sisterhood.
    If I am damned if I do and damned if I don't then I don't care what you think or as they say your opinion has no value to me.

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  4. here is a takedown of Sandberg by The Last Psychiatrist blog from March of 2013:

    https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2013/03/dont_hate_her_because_shes_suc.html


    "This is a picture of a "Lean In," which I assume is why they're all wearing low cut tops. ZING. I can only imagine they are talking about the season finale of The Bachelor, because no legitimate business can be happening with blue pens and MacBook Pros, one of which isn't even open. Unless this is a PR meeting? HR? Erotica book club? I give up. Some other observations: pretty women love beverages and smiling.

    My personal vote for Lean In valedictorian is the woman at the bottom left, I don't know her life or her medication history but she has the diagnostic sign of her cuff pulled up over her wrist in what I call "the borderline sleeve," that girl will have endlessly whipsawing emotions and a lot of enthusiastic ideas that will ultimately result in a something borrowed/something blue. Hope her future ex enjoys drama, he's in for seven years of it."

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  5. Mr. Fisher has located a valuable vein of honesty and is on the money.

    Do you think the word "vein" is chauvinist?

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  6. I wonder just how much mentoring of the "men to men" variety these feminists think is going on? They seem to believe that there is a huge formal network of (it's the good ole boys again) men have helping each other. I personally have never seen this leviathan organization or seem to have benefited from it's omniscient presence. By being alert and watchful I have picked up tips from men here and there, but that was of my own efforts. I have heard of men "mentoring" other men, but it is extremely rare and those men doing it are regarded as something along the order of saints or are called fathers.

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  7. James, this is very common in the legal biz, and I can tell you it isn't unheard of in the military.

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  8. Another instance of Feminism shooting women in the foot.

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  9. Jack,
    Though I don't know much about the legal thingy, I'm not surprised. Nor am I surprised about the military especially today's military, but my experience there is somewhat back in the time of muzzle loaders. True story, I once made the mistake of getting into the world of a Command Sergeant Major while walking in a common era, his comment "SGT H-, you've got a head so big, if you ever had a thought it'd kill you", I still feel the love.

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  10. It doesn't require an explicit and formal mentorship relationship ("will you please be my mentor, kind sir?") to learn from other people at work. Watch those who do things well, and observe how they do it.

    Indeed, one can sometimes learn from those who are organizationally (and chronologically) *junior* to oneself, as well as those who are senior.

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  11. David,
    You are correct and that is how the vast majority of men learn things. What I was getting at is that the feminists do seem to think that there is a formal and explicit organization which I have never seen.

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  12. My impression of Sheryl Sandberg is that she isn't really working, she was hired to blahblah along by someone who prefers doing the real job while staying out of the limelight. That was a brilliant move on his part.
    This probably isn't true, but I had to look up SS' wikipage and dig deep before unearthing some snippets about running a company. Oddly, no responsibilities are mentioned as such. Sorry Sheryl!

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