Men Need Not Apply
17th December 2017
“In Boston, the leader of a businesswomen’s group said that some women were so angry about the wave of sexual harassment revelations that they no longer wanted to hire more men.” That’s the opening line in a recent article in the New York Times. The woman is 32-year-old Kristina Tsipouras, and the group she founded and heads is Boston Business Women.
At first glance, the idea of not hiring men seems and probably is, legally, quite discriminatory. But think about it. Aside from its unfairness to good men, from a practical point of view, it does appear to be the easiest solution to all the gender difficulties we’re now witnessing. Writing in the Times in early October, following the Harvey Weinstein allegations, Claire Cain Miller wrote of the uneasiness a lot of men now had in having one-on-one interactions with women, and how this can be detrimental to women’s advancement. Miller went on to say, “In interviews, women in companies with many female or gay executives were more likely to say one-on-one relationships had never been an issue for them.”
The implication is clear: Companies will do better with one-on-one interactions if they show a preference for putting women and gay men in executive positions. But that was before revelations about Kevin Spacey and James Levine, which showed that gay men can be, at the very least, inappropriate too—though in this case, with other men.
One important thing is true as of today: All of the people thus far publicly accused of sexual harassment are male. So why take chances? Why not simply hire women? And only nominate women for public office?
Alternatively, why hire women? In areas like tech where the numbers of competent women are almost negligible, there’s a good chance that your shop is either all men or vastly majority men. Hiring a woman would be like installing an IED in the break room.