Vanity Fair's Women Reflect on Ross Douthat's Inquiry: The Impact of Women on the Workplace | Vanity Fair

Today, a man at The New York Times sincerely asked—and The New York Times sincerely published—“Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” He invited Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant to discuss the topic with him on his podcast. The episode and article both now offer this vaguely moderated headline variation: “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?”

Douthat and his guests seem to be trolling toying with the idea that we (women) are screwing things up for…men? Other women? With our existence, and perhaps the expectation that we deserve progressively equitable workplaces. (In the past 20 years, we’ve managed to close that pesky pay gap by a whole 4%, but who’s counting?)

The women of Vanity Fair found Douthat’s question to be hysterical, in the funny and shrieking-female senses. Drawing on the hallowed form of publishing workplace instant messages, a medium deployed by fellow women (and a few good men) in the workplace whom we admire, we are issuing this considered response.

By Vanity Fair Staff

Claire Howorth

Okay, ladies. You heard the man: Did women ruin the workplace? Please chime in.

Hillary Busis

Frankly, I’m offended by this headline. I worked very hard to ruin the workplace all by myself, and other women should not be getting credit for my work.

Claire Howorth

In fairness to Ross, I had a lot of trouble simply starting our new Slack channel, @ruining-workplace. So yes.

Erin Vanderhoof

Some background on debate participant Helen Andrews for those of you who are not living in the fever swamps: She’s truly notorious for many reasons, but last month she wrote this psychedelic essay called “The Great Feminization,” where she argues, among other things, that Larry Summers was correct to say that women’s brains make them worse at science. [Editor’s note: David French took to the Times to rebut Andrews, writing, “It’s difficult to overstate how much she idealizes men and disparages women.”] In Helen’s eyes, women have “group dynamics optimized for protecting their offspring,” not war, business, or “masculine conduct.”

Speaking as a media employee, women evolving for peace and care is news to me.

Hillary Busis

“What is the difference between men and women?” Having skimmed the article, I feel confident saying that if you’re a woman, you’re allowed to cyberbully Ross Douthat.

Lindsey Underwood

I, for one, would like to call out that there are a couple different headlines on this—the article page questions whether “liberal feminism” ruined the workplace, whereas the audio title asks whether “women” at large are to blame. But it speaks to a misunderstanding of what feminism is to begin with, and perhaps what being a woman is. Nevertheless, systemic change always brings forward voices who question whether that change is necessary or moving society—or, in this case, workplaces—in the right direction. Those with power are afraid to lose it, and look to shift blame on to those who are encroaching on their space—earned or not—and blame those folks for any friction that arrives in the process.

I’m sure many women did ruin many workplaces. I have worked with some who have! I’m sure Ross and his friends had a robust discussion, which I’m not going to listen to (because I have a full day of fun ruining my own workplace ahead of me, and I cannot be slowed down), but however you phrase it, the premise is ridiculous.

Claire Howorth

I’ll subject myself to it after I ruin my first meeting of the day.

Kenneal Patterson

The fantasy of the “tradwife” has been pushed onto middle- and lower-income women for years, but now far-right social media influencers are inundating our feeds more than ever. Young girls are being fed information that the epitome of womanhood is someone compliant, obedient, and subservient. Sure, even I get caught up in the romantic notion that a life exists beyond the grueling 9-to-5 of our capitalist society. A simple life, baking bread and caring for children, bestows a sense of comfort. But the promise of a tradwife is nothing more than fiction. And the idea of a womanhood that’s “natural” has been completely determined by a white, male-centric society. Tradwife content allows young women to shrug off any sense of self-blame or responsibility for their role in society, and instead direct it toward the “other”—marginalized communities that are not falling in line with the crusade of making America great again. Tradwives get so caught up in their echo chambers that protecting the nuclear family seems like safeguarding existence itself, and they become completely insulated from what they deem “unnatural”: queerness, diversity, difference of thought. Without this exposure, they are unable to strengthen their sense of empathy. Their paranoia begins to impact everything from politics to local school board elections. They become so segregated from the rest of the world that they begin to believe that they will never achieve more—should not achieve more—than the conservative “natural” role of womanhood. Research shows that there’s an increasing convergence between far-right extremist communities and misogyny, as well as increasing levels of violence. It is absurd to fear the encroachment of liberal feminism in the workplace, especially as young women nationwide are already being discouraged from this line of thinking. Currently, schools across the country are adopting draconian measures—like hanging up the Ten Commandments—to emphasize a socially constructed line between men and women. Women are coerced into adopting what’s “natural,” yet what’s “natural” has only been defined by the patriarchy. Women are losing the rights to their bodies, dignities, and beliefs every day. Starting an article with the headline “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” does nothing more than appeal to those who try to keep lower-income women oppressed and drive young people into a tradwife future that keeps them caged.

Claire Howorth

Kenneal had something to say!

Abigail Sylvor Greenberg

If Andrews was using “women in the workplace” as a route to talk about wokeness, Sargeant was using it to talk about abortion and reproduction.

A toxic workplace does not become toxic when the issue is vocalized; it was already toxic.

I really liked Andrews’s explanation of what makes wokeness feminized: When Douthat asks her about the “essential nature” of wokeness, she says, “Let’s pick one flavor,” and then complains about how #MeToo brought about the “mandatory” belief of women.

Nothing more feminized than believing women!

Wisdom Iheanyichukwu

I feel like the question itself is a sort of violence, but also it just reveals this obsession with denouncing wokeness and placing blame on women for men facing the consequences of the wrong things they do that get written off as manly vices. A desire for the workplace to be copacetic for all parties involved is now seen as woke. Woke is bad. Women are bad. Woke ruins the workplace. Women cause woke, so women ruin the workplace.

Have women ruined the workplace? Have people ruined the Chicken Dance? A lot of inconsequential questions that don’t really need to be asked.

It’s interesting to focus on whether women ruin the workplace when women are many a time existing within the constraints of male-dominated spaces where men are acting out, which suggests an issue lies within the men, and not the women, of that space.

A multitude of the examples of how women ruin the workplace are just traits misattributed to femininity, while in reality they are not exclusively that, as women and men can behave in similar manners and fail at the same things. If the idea is that women are unfit to be in the workplace because it is “unnatural” for them, then I raise, it’s also unnatural for men. Women are not the only ones who find fault with the systems in place at work, but why are they the only ones being asked to divorce themselves from the workplace? Being restrained to a workplace for the majority of one’s week, being forced to prioritize work over one’s self and needs, is unnatural for humans in general. What we see is people being placed into situations and institutions where different levels of power are stripped from them, and these people then act out, or they don’t always behave in a manner conducive to everyone’s well-being. And so, rather than asking if women are ruining the workplace, we should be asking if the workplace is ruining the people. The workplace is unnatural; it is not a foundational aspect of human nature, so regardless of whoever dominated the space first or dominates it presently, we should be focusing on creating spaces that everyone can exist within in a copacetic manner.

Women are accused of ruining the workplace for calling out discrimination and harm done to them in the office, and then belittled because it’s seen as operating from a place of weakness and emotion. But “weak” and “emotional” are not inherently female/feminine traits. Before women were allowed in these workspaces, there were men who were facing similar scenarios and problems with the boys club—discrimination and bullying that weren’t as recognized because it was seen as men being weak to call it out. A toxic workplace does not become toxic when the issue is vocalized; it was already toxic. The initial question desires to blame women for “creating” the idea of toxic workplaces when these spaces were already ruined.

Claire Howorth

I only had to listen up to 3:23 to hit the word wokeness, the right’s favorite euphemistic cussword for equality and parity, which Andrews attributes to breaking (her verb) the workplace. So “women” are really just a stand-in here for wokeness. Not such a fresca headline after all! Ross and company are basically taking on Mark Zuckerberg's argument on Joe Rogan, back in January, that corporations need less feminine energy. Nay! A tampon and a NuvaRing in every pot! And now it is true that I’m ruining the workplace by listening to this podcast episode instead of turning in my Adobe files like a good little girl.

Hillary Busis

All due respect to you, Kenneal, Wisdom, and Lindsey for trying to actually engage with this transparent rage-bait, but to quote Logan Roy: These are not serious people. And by treating what they’re saying as anything other than trolling, we’re giving them exactly what they want.

Claire Howorth

Did men ruin the workplace?

Wengel Gemu

Here I have the bandwidth to chime in: yes

Elise Taylor

My main thought is: How low is Ross Douthat’s readership that he needs to pull this desperado shit?

Tell me your column hasn’t been getting any clicks without telling me your column hasn’t been getting any clicks.

Erin Vanderhoof

Okay, the other thing to add is that Leah Libresco Sargeant, the other participant in this debate, is an associate of mine from college. This is why I am So Woke: I was surrounded by anti-feminists in my tender years.

Claire Howorth

Yale < giant middling state schools.

Hillary Busis

Is Yale Ruining the Workplace?

Erin Vanderhoof

The actual question worth debating!!!

Claire Howorth

https://jackson.yale.edu/person/ross-douthat/