I Support Women in the Workplace for the Same Reason I Oppose DEI
My response to the Helen Andrews essay
I might be the only person on Earth who has worked on a construction crew in the South and on a progressive late night comedy show in New York City.1 Was the work culture in those two places different? Yes, it was. Did I think about those differences when I read Helen Andrews’ viral article about how woke office culture is a product of having more women in the workplace? Abso-fucking-lutely. I think that one reason Andrews’ essay resonated is that more than a few people have looked around their workplace and thought “The vibes at this place make an herbal tea shop seem like Seal Team Six.”
Andrews’ argument in a nutshell is that broadly female traits like empathy, safety, and cohesion are the components of wokeness, and that’s why many workplaces have gotten more woke as they’ve gotten more female. I think that many parts of the essay are exaggerations or misstatements — it’s not illegal to employ too few women at your company, as Andrews claims — but I think that Andrews’ core argument is worth engaging. Are organizations playing a dangerous game when they hire too many women? Do they risk triggering the Woke Organization Death Spiral that has decimated organizations from The Sierra Club to seemingly every locally-owned bookstore in America?
Personally, I think it would be a huge mistake to normalize the idea that workplaces would be better off with fewer women. I mean…have you seen these broads — some of them are BUILT! 😍😍😍 But seriously: The idea that having too many women jeopardizes institutional health as a matter of course seems deeply misguided. And the funny thing is, the logic I use to reach that conclusion is the same logic I’ve used for years to argue against DEI.