Yesterday, Sheryl Sandberg wrote a two-page manifesto regarding what “workplaces” should do to eliminate sexual harassment. Does this post suggest that Facebook is a monopoly whose profits are no longer tethered to the efforts of its employees? The COO of a company in a competitive industry wouldn’t have the time to tell managers at other enterprises how to run their respective shows.
Arguably Sandberg is actively harming the interests of the Facebook shareholders. She is enlightened, presumably, and Facebook is thus a paradise of gender equality and female advancement. Why not stay quiet about Facebook’s methods so that the most able women will quit their jobs elsewhere and join Facebook?
Alternatively, maybe the example of Sandberg will discourage employers from hiring women. Shareholders pay a COO and she spends a lot of her time telling competitors, unrelated companies, non-profit and and government employers, etc. how to do stuff. Wouldn’t shareholders be better off hiring a boring white male that nobody outside the company wants to interview or hear from?
[Separately, would a rational reader of Sandberg’s elaborate prescription simply refrain from hiring any men? In an all-female company the managers wouldn’t have to spend 24/7 thinking about sexual harassment issues. There don’t seem to be any practical penalties for employers who discriminate against men (New York Times will even celebrate you for it!).]
Related:
So maybe we should just create all-male and all-female companies. Or would it be better to use the sexual preference? I don’t want to be Kevin Spacied. What about bi-sexuals? Are they employable at all?
The point is to promote the Sheryl Sandberg brand, not to actually advance social issues.
I, for one, welcome the all-female company, not to mention the all-male one.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1168182/Catfights-handbags-tears-toilets-When-producer-launched-women-TV-company-thought-shed-kissed-goodbye-conflict-.html
No, it suggests that CxOs aren’t machines following some narrow and short-term Ec10/14.01 definition of profit maximization for shareholders. (Not even the economists believe that.) It suggests that they’re aware that there are many stakeholders in a company, and to succeed you have to work with many of them productively. It suggests that corporate culture actually has some importance, and that public positions matter.
And you know what, it might even suggest that Sandberg actually thinks it’s an important issue regardless of whether talking about it makes incremental profits for Facebook. It’s sometimes hard to believe, but CxOs are not slaves of their employers.
The part that always makes me laugh is, Sheryl Sandberg will be fawned over in her media appearances…
Yet, as COO, wouldn’t she have had to sign off on the NSA snooping that Facebook enabled? Why is she never asked about this difficult decision that she made?
I’m so sick of hearing this stuff. Just fire all the men and let the women work. Let’s see how it goes.
The men can go back home and do the ‘most difficult job on the planet’ as described by Bill Burr.
apropos of GermanL’s suggestion — indeed, let’s see how the power grid and water/wastewater systems work under that scenario, given the low no of females in those industries. The househusbands I’ve met never seem to complain about the physical challenges of the job, but like SAHMs face challenges once they have to return to the paid workforce.
Sandberg is not a W-2 wage earner, she’s a vested capitalist with “fuck you” money who is doing a pretty good job of saying “fuck you”.