Jill Filipovic’s January 20 NY Times article, “Donald Trump and His Work Wives,” goes to a vital organ of the matter of “sexual harassment” (and other offenses, in or out of offices). The terms “work wife” and “work husband,” she explains, originally described “typically benign egalitarian workplace intimacies: a close co-worker with whom you share not only tasks but also complaints and office gossip.”
But she also points out that women who work know that “egalitarianism is not always the norm,” and apparently she has found herself “serving as the caretaking ‘work wife’ to the emotionally needier male co-worker or superior.”
I’ve had both male and female bosses, and, looking back, I believe the females regarded me as a threat to their “absolute rule” of the office, whereas they soothed (and controlled) their male employees with smiles, praises, the proverbial “pats on the head.”
Have you ever encountered a mother, perhaps your own, chastising a child through clenched teeth? She is suppressing the desire to yell at her child (it could be her husband), but the seething anger is there.
My female managers did not suppress their anger toward other women. Loud voice, veiled threats, open threats – things they did not use with men. Think about the role of women through time. In the background, yet often quietly controlling the situation, soothing an angry male with a soft voice, lightly stroking his back, saying everything will be all right, giving subtle guidance, leading him to change his mind while letting him think it was all his idea.
Women were raised to support men by stroking their egos. “Would you like a drink, a cup of coffee? Let me get it for you. Need anything else?” Many women today still employ these subtle tactics to “get ahead,” to secure their positions with the boss. And the boss in turn (like Trump as portrayed in Filipovic’s article) likes a few of such women around to “serve” his ego.
What Mr. Trump demands of his female subordinates is something greater than your still-sexist but wholly run-of-the-mill concerns about gendered expectations in the workplace. Women like Ivanka Trump, Hope Hicks, and Kellyanne Conway don’t just counsel the president and liaise with the press and public; they offer a feminine salve, simultaneously sanctioning Mr. Trump’s sexist commentary and buttressing his ego by situating themselves as little girls in need of direction from Big Daddy (literally, in Ivanka’s case). In return, Mr. Trump’s usual hostility may be temporarily eased into something resembling benevolence toward them.Other women merely tolerate Trump’s or another boss’s need to be pampered, but only in order to keep their jobs. They submit to what is, in reality, sexual harassment.
My male managers might have gotten angry but they clearly expressed the problem and, once stated, they provided, or asked for, a solution. And when a solution was suggested and agreed upon, work continued. This wasn’t the rule with my female managers, who would often hold an undisclosed grudge against female employees. That is also sexual harassment – by a woman against another woman But too often we think, without realizing it, That’s just the way it is.
Sexual harassment can be subtle and not recognized, even in “the light of day.” The problem with those select females around the President is that they readily accept his need to control, and they play into those needs to stay in his good graces.
It’s too bad that many of the people who read Filipovic’s column will miss the point, entirely.
| Copyright © 2018 by Sharon Stoner |
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