The Ethics of How Men Talk About Women at Work

The piece below is about the corrosive effect of all the sexist “bro talk” that goes on in corporate settings. Written by a male former Wall St trader, it talks frankly about that joys of being “one of the guys” and about the extent to which — in some workplaces, at least — that means objectifying women and talking to them and about them in demeaning ways. Getting people to change how they talk isn’t as easy as it sounds. From an educational point of view, discussion of this could begin with the many ways in which professional contexts require us to change the way we talk. >>>

LINK: How Wall Street Bro Talk Keeps Women Down (by Sam Polk for the New York Times)

…In many ways, objectifying women was the rite of passage through which I entered the world of men.

That helps explain why I stood silent hundreds of times as men objectified and degraded women. Protesting would have violated the sanctity of the men-only space, and would have risked interfering with the bonding that goes hand in hand with the objectification of the other sex. It would have been embarrassing and emasculating. And it would have been bad for my career…..

What do you think?

See also:
Why corporate diversity programs fail, and what to do about it

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