Don’t make trouble
by digby
Amity Schlaes wins my wanker of the week-end with this execrable screed:
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is anti-woman.
That’s the position of Ellen Pao, a junior partner at the venture capital firm who filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court contending “discriminatory treatment of Plaintiff and other female employees, specifically in advancement and compensation because of their gender.” Pao is also saying she was sexually harassed and that after she complained to higher- ups she suffered retaliation.
The greater question here isn’t whether certain executives at Kleiner Perkins treated Pao poorly. That’s entirely possible. This column isn’t suggesting otherwise. The question is whether such a lawsuit is pro-woman — whether its consequences will be good for women in the specific field of venture capital on a net basis, as they say in business schools. The answer is: probably not.
You can make the case that Pao’s action may work against women who want to be entrepreneurs.
Schlaes believes this is because such women are labeled trouble makers and nobody will like them and then Human Resources won’t hire any women at all to be entrepreneurs. (Do entrepreneurs get hired by HR departments?)
Anyway, yes we have heard all this before. Since the 1970s.
Her action may reduce the very kind of access she enjoyed for those who followed her. Setting Kleiner Perkins aside, consider the rest of the sector. Human-resources specialists aren’t idiots. They see how much Pao, still merely alleging, is costing a firm such as Kleiner Perkins: time, image and distraction from its main work, finding value. Other businesses will work harder to avoid a litigious hire. They will scour candidates’ resumes for similarities to Pao’s. Her husband, Alphonse Fletcher Jr., had filed lawsuits. Any job candidate with a record of suing, or with a litigious spouse, will get a cooler reception. Starting last week. In other words, some highly qualified candidates will be excluded. Will HR departments admit what they are doing? Never.
Once again, I’m reminded of classic Yiddish joke:
There were these two Jewish men standing before a firing squad in Czarist Russia. Their crime? Being Jewish. So the Cossack captain heading the firing squad looks at Abie and Yankele and shouts, “Jews, take off your hats.” Abie takes off his hat. But Yankele says, “No, I won’t take off my hat.” So Abie leans over to Yankele and whispers, “Yankele, don’t make trouble.”
The ethos of the financial sector is so redolent of swashbuckling machismo that it seems to be quite far behind the rest of the corporate world in recognizing its systemic sexism. But then these are people who believe they are doing God’s work, and even the small suggestion that they might be flawed in any way sends them into a rage, so I suppose it’s to be expected. But I must say that I’ve been really stunned by some very high profile and highly influential liberal female financial wizards who hold terribly retrograde views on feminism as well in private conversation. Perhaps they are so steeped in delusions of meritocracy that some of these women believe that because they have done well it simply isn’t important if other women experience discrimination or endure sexual harassment. After all, the meritocracy always rewards the best, so the worst thing that could happen is if trouble-makers start casting aspersions on it. Why some people might get the idea that the Masters of the Universe aren’t as purely superior as they clearly believe themselves to be.
I’m sure I don’t have to say it out loud, but I will anyway. Discrimination hurts everyone. It is the opposite of meritocracy, holding down some of the best people, pushing them to the margins. And sexual harassment makes for a workplace filled with hostility, fear and distraction — for everyone. My observation over decades of working in corporate environments is that things got easier fro men as well as women when women began to speak up for themselves and created a more professional workplace.
Maybe Schlaes thinks that the world of Mad Men, with everyone boozing and fucking all day was truly more “creative” but in a more competitive world, where you’ve got people all over the planet ready and willing to step in a do these jobs, it might make sense for everyone to keep their mind on business. If they like their meritocracy so much, they should be going to great pains to make sure they aren’t overlooking the talent and skills of 50% of the population.
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