Movie Mogul accusation and the dark side of Hollywood

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Dreadwinter**

Just Tony wrote:
OR you could say "leaves no room for doubt" about someone's behavior in that respect. I'm sure nobody in the history of politics has ever been falsely accused of something like that, especially if that person has some unpopular viewpoints.

It is probably less about lack of willpower and more about maintaining a positive image.

EDIT: Also, I would adore it if you would tell me how the hell avoidance of casual contact adds layers to the "glass ceiling"...

Well, because it is segregation.

How well do you think this rule would work out in a Hospital?

**Tannhauser42**

Ouze wrote:

1.) It's possible for a problem to have a bad solution. I don't want a spider in my house, but a flamethrower isn't a reasonable response, even if it technically fixes the problem.

Dude, have you seen some of the spiders they've got in Australia? Flamethrowers are the only solution for them.

Anyway, yes, this "Pence Rule" is bad in practice. It's exclusionary in nature.

**Ashiraya**

It reminds me of Saudi Arabia, except it goes wrong in the other direction instead.

**AllSeeingSkink**

Compel wrote:
I work in IT, I'm in a 1 on 1 meeting with a woman regularly. Whether it's my manager, or a coworker I'm helping to train, or it's someone I'm working with on a presentation, or it's a customer.

Sometimes I'm even lucky enough to get a meeting room with a computer inside it. Which has a door.

*Gasp* But the Pence rule!

So much for discussing my career in private.
Or talking with a customer on their project.
Or putting a presentation together without disturbing the open plan office.

And so on.

The entire concept is ridiculous.

I was more thinking in terms of bosses (since we're discussing people in power). It's very hard to have a Pence rule if you're an underling because you have limited control over your interactions with others.

But as a boss, you can go out of your way to have windows in your office, so you can have a private conversation with an employee or client or whatever without actually being "alone" with them, then outside of work (lunches or dinners or whatever) invite more than 1 person and cancel if only 1 person can make it.

The only time it would be awkward in my job is sometimes my boss asks me to work overtime with him to get a project done, which becomes more costly and awkward if you have to ask 2 people to stay back. Or having to travel separately on work trips.

Depends on your job I guess. If you're not in any real position of power you likely don't have the control to institute such a rule.
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Galas wrote:
And how helps the "Don't be alone with a woman" when this case of using power to manipulate/violate someone in a sexual way, happens with someone of your same sex?

I actually envisaged it more as being a universal rule; avoid being alone with subordinates when you're in a position of power.

**Grey Templar**

Ouze wrote:
djones520 wrote:
SlaveToDorkness wrote:
No, it makes it impossible to accuse him of anything improper. Which is all it takes to ruin a career these days.

Right?

Man takes steps to ensure that the public knows he won't be conducting any acts like these, that so many of our politicians are being outed for, and people are accusing him of trying to lower the glass ceiling for women. It's like people just want to hate.

I think you guys aren't seeing that this isn't really a positive practice and I think you should reflect on it for a moment because maybe you can see there is another side to this.

I'm going to assume that when Pence does this to avoid the appearance of impropriety, he has the best intentions.

However, the side effect is that in practice, women are excluded from a lot of functions. It's going to hurt advancement of a woman when her boss or a coworker is artificially excluded from any sort of meetings or work opportunities where they would be subject to the Pence Rule, and so must be excluded. This isn't strictly a problem for women, since of course if women did the same thing it would hurt male subordinates trying to advance just as much, but in 2017 on average it's going to hurt women more.

I do a lot of work related activities one-on-one with various people, including levels of senior management. There is a specific program at my job where fairly high levels will perform one-on-one sessions irregularly, as their schedule allows, to mid-level superiors who have promise. Ryan is currently being mentored by Ganesh in this manner, sometimes in a free meeting room, and sometimes at a lunch, but under the Pence Rule, it would be impossible (or at least more onerous) for his coworker, Allison, to have those same opportunities.

Sexual impropriety in the workplace is the problem, but this kind of scorched earth solution isn't a great fix.

Maybe it is or isn't a great fix, but it's certainly not a bad one. So people getting their panties all in a wad about it should just chill the hell out. Mr Wienstein could certainly have used a dose of it. I think it's more of a case by case basis on if it works or not.

Just like how recovering alcoholics should avoid being in situations where there is a temptation to drink, if you have a problem around people of the opposite sex(or same sex if thats your thing) then you should probably avoid situations where you are one on one with them. We don't know what Pence's, or anybody else who follows this rule, situation might be. But if they're following it we shouldn't mock them for it.

You wouldn't mock a recovering alcoholic who avoids parties where alcohol is served. Or someone who avoids high fat foods because they gain weight if they so much as look at a cheeseburger.

So no, its not a stupid rule. Its a rule that some people choose to follow for reasons, and you are mocking them just because it offends your sensibilities.

**Luciferian**

The "Pence Rule" is inane and impractical, and even if it does reduce unwanted sexual behavior it would encourage the segregation of the sexes as people have noted above. However, Title IX enforcement is basically the Pence Rule made into official policy, and unless we all want to enter into a new Victorian-style era of sexual repression and paranoia, we have a very fine line to walk between seeking justice for victims of abuse and ensuring that due process and objectivity don't become mere memories. College campuses have been here before and they really messed it up; here's hoping the rest of the public and private sectors don't do the same.

**Compel**

Except the context of the discussion was that more/everyone should be following that rule in most/all situations.

Additionally, we're talking about living, breathing people here.

If someone is *that* badly 'tempted' that they cannot mentally cope with "hey, why don't I try not assaulting another living, breathing, human being" they should be in jail or in some other sort of institutional care.

**Luciferian**

That's why I brought up the climate on college campuses. I'm sure we all remember how big a deal sexual abuse on campus already has been for several years. Well, the solutions sought there basically made the Pence Rule the ONLY way to behave appropriately. Like I said, the result is basically the segregation of the sexes and the codification of a majority of contact between them as an actionable offense. Title IX basically takes the view that no man is capable of not assaulting another human being, and the end result of that worldview made into official policy is extremely destructive for men AND women.

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
Rumors are that there are about 30-40 Congressional critters going to be exposed for paying out from those settlement funds...

Yeah, and I think any congress critter who was found using the settlement fund to payout for their own sexual harassment needs to be run out of town on a rail. But there needs to be some care with that figure, because the fund was used for more than sexual harassment. Trey Gowdy, who you know is perhaps my most hated Washington politician, has just had his use of the fund made public. But Gowdy used it to pay out an unfair dismissal charge, after he fired a guy for refusing to focus their part of the Benghazi investigation work on Clinton, which was what Gowdy wanted. So it was sleaze, but it was the kind of political sleaze that is normal for guys like Gowdy, an unfortunate part of politics and not something that's going to be fixed any time soon.

Its likely that a lot of those 30-40 names aren't related to sex crimes from congressmen.

Gotta be more to the story... so far, I've seen Franks asked some staff member(s) to become surrogacy mother for him and his wife?

The story is that Franks didn't want any kind of medical professional getting involved in the impregnation of the surrogate, if you get my meaning.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Easy E wrote:
The Backlash Ms. Sandberg was referring to was around hiring and promoting women could be hurt as the "Old Boys" network locks ranks and adopts the "Pence" strategy of dealing with the ladies.

Ah, fair enough. Thanks. That is a real risk, certainly in areas where there are still very few women.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mario wrote:
That's true to a degree but I see a lot of people who do (un)intentional borderline soft harassment (or who are donkey-caves online) being wary that this'll make life complicated for them and if that finally makes then reconsider and if it all that exposure leads to more people finding the courage to speak out if somebody else shows that kind of behaviour then that can only be a good thing.

I think the two things are linked. Some men being uncomfortable that they might have new rules and expectations to follow is resisted in part because some men they like doing that stuff, and in part because some men don't like that new rules are seen as rules women are enforcing on men.

If somebody needs Pence-like rules to feel save in their work environment (or otherwise end up not trusting/hiring/promoting women in the work place) then that says more about them and how they interact with people than about these scandals and their aftereffect.

I read an interesting argument years ago, arguing that the burka and western stuff like g-bangers might be opposites in how much flesh they expose, but they come from the same thing - a fixation on a woman as a body and not a person. Not equating the two, just commenting on the origin. And the same thing is true with the sexual harassment and the Pence rule - the two are nowhere near equal, but they do both start with the same unhealthy fixation on woman as bodies, not as people.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Just Tony wrote:
So, in essence, "You don't get bit by a shark if you don't swim in the ocean" is the logic. I can get behind that.

Women aren't sharks, though. They're people.

The logic that you don't want to end up in a sexually charged situation with a woman who isn't your wife, therefore you'll never be alone with a woman who isn't your wife makes exactly as much sense as saying you don't want to play tennis so you make sure to never end up alone with a tennis player.

**Galas**

Luciferian wrote:
That's why I brought up the climate on college campuses. I'm sure we all remember how big a deal sexual abuse on campus already has been for several years. Well, the solutions sought there basically made the Pence Rule the ONLY way to behave appropriately. Like I said, the result is basically the segregation of the sexes and the codification of a majority of contact between them as an actionable offense. Title IX basically takes the view that no man is capable of not assaulting another human being, and the end result of that worldview made into official policy is extremely destructive for men AND women.

Hm... from Wikipedia, Title IX refers to:

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

— Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute (20 U.S. Code § 1681 - Sex)

How exactly is that used to discriminate? I assume that is used in some combulated way to make it something different that the obvious original intent?

**sebster**

Just Tony wrote:
EDIT: Also, I would adore it if you would tell me how the hell avoidance of casual contact adds layers to the "glass ceiling"...

Because major decisions are made away from the office, often after hours. A politician on the road will be meet with many representatives from all kinds of business and community groups. And close working relationships and alliances are made over dinners. Most politicians are men so if the Pence rule was standard then women would be shut out of access to power, and unable to do the work and form the relationships needed to rise up the ranks.

**NinthMusketeer**

Grey Templar wrote:
Ouze wrote:
djones520 wrote:
SlaveToDorkness wrote:
No, it makes it impossible to accuse him of anything improper. Which is all it takes to ruin a career these days.

Right?

Man takes steps to ensure that the public knows he won't be conducting any acts like these, that so many of our politicians are being outed for, and people are accusing him of trying to lower the glass ceiling for women. It's like people just want to hate.

I think you guys aren't seeing that this isn't really a positive practice and I think you should reflect on it for a moment because maybe you can see there is another side to this.

I'm going to assume that when Pence does this to avoid the appearance of impropriety, he has the best intentions.

However, the side effect is that in practice, women are excluded from a lot of functions. It's going to hurt advancement of a woman when her boss or a coworker is artificially excluded from any sort of meetings or work opportunities where they would be subject to the Pence Rule, and so must be excluded. This isn't strictly a problem for women, since of course if women did the same thing it would hurt male subordinates trying to advance just as much, but in 2017 on average it's going to hurt women more.

I do a lot of work related activities one-on-one with various people, including levels of senior management. There is a specific program at my job where fairly high levels will perform one-on-one sessions irregularly, as their schedule allows, to mid-level superiors who have promise. Ryan is currently being mentored by Ganesh in this manner, sometimes in a free meeting room, and sometimes at a lunch, but under the Pence Rule, it would be impossible (or at least more onerous) for his coworker, Allison, to have those same opportunities.

Sexual impropriety in the workplace is the problem, but this kind of scorched earth solution isn't a great fix.

Maybe it is or isn't a great fix, but it's certainly not a bad one. So people getting their panties all in a wad about it should just chill the hell out. Mr Wienstein could certainly have used a dose of it. I think it's more of a case by case basis on if it works or not.

Just like how recovering alcoholics should avoid being in situations where there is a temptation to drink, if you have a problem around people of the opposite sex(or same sex if thats your thing) then you should probably avoid situations where you are one on one with them. We don't know what Pence's, or anybody else who follows this rule, situation might be. But if they're following it we shouldn't mock them for it.

You wouldn't mock a recovering alcoholic who avoids parties where alcohol is served. Or someone who avoids high fat foods because they gain weight if they so much as look at a cheeseburger.

So no, its not a stupid rule. Its a rule that some people choose to follow for reasons, and you are mocking them just because it offends your sensibilities.

You just used alcohol and cheeseburgers, items purchased for consumption, as stand-ins for actual human beings. I find your position LESS legitimate now than before I read your post.

**sebster**

Grey Templar wrote:
Its about being faithful to your mate both in-appearance and in-fact. Its about respecting your wife so much that you never want to even have the cursory appearance of possibly being unfaithful.

It is strictly unnecessary, but going the extra mile is something to be admired and not spat upon.

Making a big public show of fidelity, instead of trusting your wife and having their trust, is not a healthy thing.

**Luciferian**

Galas wrote:
[

How exactly is that used to discriminate? I assume that is used in some combulated way to make it something different that the obvious original intent?

Under Obama era policy, universities are told to basically throw out any measure of due process when enforcing Title IX. Basically, every accused person is presumed guilty, even for mundane things that would not typically be considered sexual harassment or assault. Even women making innocent jokes have been targeted for punitive action under Title IX. It is required that interim punitive measures are taken against the accused before an investigation is even begun, including barring them from campus. Universities are also not required to even notify the accused that there are charges against them, what those charges are, or who is serving as witness against them.

I am basically stealing this perspective from a paper written by four feminist law professors at Harvard:

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/33789434/Fairness%20for%20All%20Students.pdf?sequence=1

**sebster**

djones520 wrote:
Man takes steps to ensure that the public knows he won't be conducting any acts like these, that so many of our politicians are being outed for, and people are accusing him of trying to lower the glass ceiling for women. It's like people just want to hate.

No, the step you take to avoid multiple claims of sexual harassment is to... not commit sexual harassment multiple times.

What Pence is doing is something else entirely. It is a big show of personal purity that treats a woman not as a human being, but as an object of temptation. It is all kinds of fethed up.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. If every man acted like Pence, the world would be a better place.

What the actual feth? Do you have no friends who happen to have a different gender? Do you work in an a place with both male and female employees?

How does anyone think this rule could exist without destroying opposite gender friendships, and make it near impossible for many people to do their jobs well? Does it just not bother you that men and women could no longer be close friends? Do you just not care that many people would suddenly find it impossible to work in environments where the majority of employees are of the opposite sex?

**NinthMusketeer**

Luciferian wrote:
Galas wrote:
[

How exactly is that used to discriminate? I assume that is used in some combulated way to make it something different that the obvious original intent?

Under Obama era policy, universities are told to basically throw out any measure of due process when enforcing Title IX. Basically, every accused person is presumed guilty, even for mundane things that would not typically be considered sexual harassment or assault. Even women making innocent jokes have been targeted for punitive action under Title IX. It is required that interim punitive measures are taken against the accused before an investigation is even begun, including barring them from campus. Universities are also not required to even notify the accused that there are charges against them, what those charges are, or who is serving as witness against them.

I am basically stealing this perspective from a paper written by four feminist law professors at Harvard:

https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/33789434/Fairness%20for%20All%20Students.pdf?sequence=1

Sounds terrible. I'm glad that message didn't get sent to any of the universities myself and everyone I've ever known have gone to.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

sebster wrote:
djones520 wrote:
Man takes steps to ensure that the public knows he won't be conducting any acts like these, that so many of our politicians are being outed for, and people are accusing him of trying to lower the glass ceiling for women. It's like people just want to hate.

No, the step you take to avoid multiple claims of sexual harassment is to... not commit sexual harassment multiple times.

What Pence is doing is something else entirely. It is a big show of personal purity that treats a woman not as a human being, but as an object of temptation. It is all kinds of fethed up.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. If every man acted like Pence, the world would be a better place.

What the actual feth? Do you have no friends who happen to have a different gender? Do you work in an a place with both male and female employees?

How does anyone think this rule could exist without destroying opposite gender friendships, and make it near impossible for many people to do their jobs well? Does it just not bother you that men and women could no longer be close friends? Do you just not care that many people would suddenly find it impossible to work in environments where the majority of employees are of the opposite sex?

Sure makes going to the doctor or getting a job interview troublesome. Or what if you're a student who stays a minute after class to ask the teacher a quick question? Obviously sexual harassment took place, it violated the Pence rule.

**sebster**

Grey Templar wrote:
The simple solution is to make sure it isn't one on one. Nothing would inherently have to be one on one for that type of thing. Just make sure there are other people in the general area.

I've just seen someone try to argue 'never be alone with anyone for any reason' is a sensible approach.

This is quite a day.

**Luciferian**

NinthMusketeer wrote:

Sounds terrible. I'm glad that message didn't get sent to any of the universities myself and everyone I've ever know have gone to.

Well it was federal policy, so if you or anyone you know went to a university in the states after 2011, the message was quite literally sent to that university in the form of an infamous "Dear College" letter.

**sebster**

Grey Templar wrote:
Especially when it's in place for good reasons and its not actually harming anybody. And no, you can work around it if you are a women and need to have a meeting with your boss, it just needs someone else there. Say maybe someone from human resources. A minor inconvenience at worst, the benefits of which far outweigh it.

Either you've never worked in an office or you just don't care about how little sense you're making. Short private meetings are called constantly. There are days where I'll have a half dozen closed door private meetings, because it involves staff reviews or redundancies, or cabinet in confidence meetings, or just stuff where the conversation is complex and we don't want to be interrupted so we close the door. The idea that you'd have to drag in someone from HR for everyone of those meetings, some of which might go 5 minutes, is just incredible beyond words.

Something is seriously wrong here. I woke up this morning in a world where Pence's rule was something that was understood as the quirk of a man known for his big shows of puritanism, that people understood was a stupid but at least functional way that governor/VP could do business. Now I'm reading people trying to argue the rule could be practically used in the wider world with no impact on people's careers or their friendships.

It's just... damn. Truly there is nothing so needless, so badly informed, so fundamentally horrible that it won't be defended. There is no bottom.

**SlaveToDorkness**

Lol

I love to see you like this, Seb.

Wouldn't FaceTime solve a large portion of the perceived issues with the Pence Rule?

**sebster**

SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Wouldn't FaceTime solve a large portion of the perceived issues with the Pence Rule?

So that's how we have private conversations between people in the same office now? You go in to one small room, and I go in to an adjacent room, and then we communicate via FaceTime. Because the only way we can trust men and women to be in private together is if there is a wall presenting any kind of physical contact?

Holy fething gak everything has gone absolutely fething crazy.

**NinthMusketeer**

Luciferian wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:

Sounds terrible. I'm glad that message didn't get sent to any of the universities myself and everyone I've ever know have gone to.

Well it was federal policy, so if you or anyone you know went to a university in the states after 2011, the message was quite literally sent to that university in the form of an infamous "Dear College" letter.

I was being sarcastic. Probably should have labelled it as such.

**Gordon Shumway**

Luciferian wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:

Sounds terrible. I'm glad that message didn't get sent to any of the universities myself and everyone I've ever know have gone to.

Well it was federal policy, so if you or anyone you know went to a university in the states after 2011, the message was quite literally sent to that university in the form of an infamous "Dear College" letter.

Strange, the only effect of title IX at the university where I teach has been to take a few online seminars about what constitutes and how to handle sexual harassment. Really, if I had to live by the Pence rule, I would never have students coming in to ask me questions during office hours.

**whembly**

Am I missing something?

The Pence rule is simply that the VP doesn’t dine alone with women or attend events where alcohol is served without his wife by his side.

This is what we're talking about... right? This isn't some prohibition for one-on-ones at the office...

Ta-Nehisi Coates opined pretty much the same was as he wouldn't put himself in that situation...

Maybe Coates articulated this better than the Pence Rulez.

**Galas**

sebster wrote:
SlaveToDorkness wrote:
Wouldn't FaceTime solve a large portion of the perceived issues with the Pence Rule?

So that's how we have private conversations between people in the same office now? You go in to one small room, and I go in to an adjacent room, and then we communicate via FaceTime. Because this is the only way we can trust men and women to be in private together?

Holy fething gak everything has gone absolutely fething crazy.

B-but women make me feel funny down there!

whembly wrote:
Am I missing something?

The Pence rule is simply that the VP doesn’t dine alone with women or attend events where alcohol is served without his wife by his side.

This is what we're talking about... right? This isn't some prohibition for one-on-ones at the office...

Ta-Nehisi Coates opined pretty much the same was as he wouldn't put himself in that situation...

Maybe Coates articulated this better than the Pence Rulez.

Reading the first article, I can respect the relation between this Pence man and his wife. I still thing that "Pence Rule" is absurd and not something that should be in any shape or form become "popular" or "mainstream", or be used as some form of "solution" to sexual harassment problems, but ey, he is free to do as he wants. It works for him.

**Ouze**

NinthMusketeer wrote:
You just used alcohol and cheeseburgers, items purchased for consumption, as stand-ins for actual human beings. I find your position LESS legitimate now than before I read your post.

sebster wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
The simple solution is to make sure it isn't one on one. Nothing would inherently have to be one on one for that type of thing. Just make sure there are other people in the general area.

I've just seen someone try to argue 'never be alone with anyone for any reason' is a sensible approach.

This is quite a day.

My arguing with Grey Templar in this thread wasn't actually directed at Grey Templar. I've known where he's at ever since he made that impassioned argument argument that the death penalty was totally OK even if it knowingly kills innocent people, and even if it isn't really a deterrent, and that death was better than life in prison for the wrongfully convicted.

The back and forth with him in this thread, at least on my part, was to try and illustrate the issues with the Pence rule to some of the more reasonable people on here who spoke about it, like Djones.

sebster wrote:
[Holy fething gak everything has gone absolutely fething crazy.

On the other hand, in terms of "Reasonable", we're now in a thread were people are suggesting, I assume with a straight face, that the proper remedy for sexual predators and men who masturbate in front of their coworkers is that any one-on-one male and female interactions be handled via Facetime.

So, I guess that's where the OT is, now.

**Tannhauser42**

whembly wrote:
Am I missing something?

Yes, you are. While we are perhaps incorrectly using the term "Pence Rule" instead of the more accurate "Billy Graham Rule". Pence's version appears to be less restrictive, but it doesn't change the larger points being made.

**Ouze**

Tannhauser42 wrote:
whembly wrote:
Am I missing something?

Yes, you are. While we are perhaps incorrectly using the term "Pence Rule" instead of the more accurate "Billy Graham Rule". Pence's version appears to be less restrictive, but it doesn't change the larger points being made.

Yeah, my bad - I'm using them interchangeably and they're not actually the same thing. I've been referring to the more restrictive one, but they still generally have the same problems, just not in degree.

**Disciple of Fate**

Found this article on the Pence rule and the glass ceiling for women, an interesting part: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/pences-gender-segregated-dinners/521286/

Pence is not the only powerful man in Washington who goes to great lengths to avoid the appearance of impropriety with the opposite sex. An anonymous survey of female Capitol Hill staffers conducted by National Journal in 2015 found that “several female aides reported that they have been barred from staffing their male bosses at evening events, driving alone with their congressman or senator, or even sitting down one-on-one in his office for fear that others would get the wrong impression.” One told the reporter Sarah Mimms that in 12 years working for her previous boss, he “never took a closed door meeting with me. ... This made sensitive and strategic discussions extremely difficult.”

Social-science research shows this practice extends beyond politics and into the business world, and it can hold women back from key advancement opportunities. A 2010 Harvard Business Review research report led by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the president of the Center for Work-Life Policy think tank, found that many men avoid being sponsors—workplace advocates—for women “because sponsorship can be misconstrued as sexual interest.”

Hewlett’s surveys, interviews, and focus groups found that 64 percent of executive men are reluctant to have one-on-one meetings with junior women, and half of junior women avoid those meetings in turn. Perhaps as a result, 31 percent of women in her sample felt senior men weren’t willing to “spend their chips” on younger women in office political battles. What’s more, “30 percent of them noted that the sexual tension intrinsic to any one-on-one relationship with men made male sponsorship too difficult to be productive.”

And that’s too bad, because according to the Harvard study and some others, women prefer male sponsors, perceiving them to be better-connected and more powerful. And they’re right: According to some analyses, men hold more than 85 percent of top management positions in big companies.

Because of that, when men avoid professional relationships with women, even if for noble reasons, it actually hurts women in the end. “The research is irrefutable: Those with larger networks earn more money and get promoted faster. Because men typically dominate senior management, there’s evidence that the most valuable network members may be men,” wrote Kim Elsesser, a research scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, in the Los Angeles Times recently. “Without access to beneficial friendships and mentor relationships with executive men, women won’t be able to close the gender gap that exists in most professions.”

**sebster**

whembly wrote:
The Pence rule is simply that the VP doesn’t dine alone with women or attend events where alcohol is served without his wife by his side.

This is what we're talking about... right? This isn't some prohibition for one-on-ones at the office...

The Pence rule is derived from the Billy Graham rule, which was about never being alone with a woman. Pence's own interpretation narrows that down to never dining with a woman alone. But there's two big problems with that as a defense;

1) The people defending here were unaware of that distinction, and were happy to defend the hardline, Graham version of the rule.
2) It wouldn't have stopped Weinstein's abuses, or almost anyone else of the recent offenders, because very few of the attacks came out of dinners. So you can't have your cake (Pence's rule would have stopped this) and eat it too (Pence's rule only impacts dinners and drinking events).

Ta-Nehisi Coates opined pretty much the same was as he wouldn't put himself in that situation...

Maybe Coates articulated this better than the Pence Rulez.

No, Coates gave a totally different rule. He said he avoids drinking to the point where his judgement is impaired. Pence avoids being around women. Very different things.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ouze wrote:
My arguing with Grey Templar in this thread wasn't actually directed at Grey Templar. I've known where he's at ever since he made that impassioned argument argument that the death penalty was totally OK even if it knowingly kills innocent people, and even if it isn't really a deterrent, and that death was better than life in prison for the wrongfully convicted.

I see it a little differently. The thing I've learned in the last couple of years is that so many of the really out there opinions, exactly like that amazing death penalty thread, can't be assumed to be rare just because they're weird and indefensible.

So the back and forth, to me, is about finally coming to terms with exactly what we're up against.

On the other hand, in terms of "Reasonable", we're now in a thread were people are suggesting, I assume with a straight face, that the proper remedy for sexual predators and men who masturbate in front of their coworkers is that any one-on-one male and female interactions be handled via Facetime.

So, I guess that's where the OT is, now.

It's so bad and there's so many things wrong with all of it that I didn't even notice that that one really obvious problem.