Electrical Plumbing

So my wife and I were having a conversation today about women in the work place. In a past life, she was in law enforcement and complained regularly about how some women behave at work. One thing that bothers her is women who want to be one of the guys. That is to say they behave in such a way that they talk and act like the guys they want to accept them. I've seen this myself. There will be a group of younger guys who talk about getting drunk and laid and that's pretty much their entire world. The wannabe-a-guy women join right in as if all of the guys are not looking at her as an object of their conversations, too.

I believe there is a difference between men and women. There are those in our culture who want to erase this difference and I think it's become socially confusing for a lot of people. The male mental processing is so different from women that it's like comparing electrical with plumbing. Sure they both reside in the wall, you need to keep the live electricity away from the water.

That's not to say that women and men cannot work together. In fact, I have worked for more females than males in my own career. Some of my best professional mentors were women--professional being the key word. You see, socially we are different. To diminish the differences between men and women also diminishes the respect each side has for the other. American popular culture is eating away at the respect men used to hold for women.

I've noticed fewer younger men hold doors open for women these days. While it's a seemingly small thing, think about what it symbolizes. Holding the door open for somebody else is a gesture of kindness and respect. You do it for senior citizens, children, and women. Holding the door open for women was never intended to insinuate that the female body was incapable of mimicking the appropriate gestures to open that big, bad heavy door. But that's how feminism portrayed it in the past. The reality is that opening the door for somebody means that you are making yourself subservient to that person (to a degree). If you don't think that's right, then answer this: why do upscale hotels, condos, and apartments have doormen?

I don't want to digress into a thesis on door opening, but I wanted to make a point that it's an example of the declining respect for women. This respect is part of cultural norms that are changing because of how women are generally perceived and then respected by men. I would argue that most women like being respected and treated well by men. Those women who want to crawl into the gutter with the "boys" may have esteem issues that require therapy and antidepressants. I don't think the women of "Sex in the City" represent most American women. In fact, they talk more like men than they do women.

Since the 1800s, rules for courting and then dating have been stamped out. It's no longer formal and there seems little left in the taboo arena. Being the father of daughters, I wish we still had a little more of that left. Not only will I have to fight off the hormonally challenged boys, but I will compete with parents who gave up on enforcing standards on their children long ago.

This all carries over into the adult workplace where twenty-something men think their female coworkers are potential conquests. How the women dress, talk to men, and conduct themselves will determine who seriously they are taken as workers. From my own experience, I always respected the women who dressed and spoke with a high level of professionalism and any personal topics were only discussed after the professional relationship was established; even then, sex was never talked about.

Before you tell me this is not fair and that women should be accepted to do and act as they please, think carefully. Women are the brakes of society. Women create boundaries because men, by nature, do not. To expect men to behave professionally around women who talk about sex is fighting nature itself. Both sides must clearly understand the boundaries and enforce them.

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