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player ready...One of the stranger subtexts of the Enron saga–as well as Sept. 11–has been the search for meaning in the gender universe.
What used to be mildly annoying “gender wars,” fought over such nonsense as whether men should open doors for women, has devolved into an apocalyptic conniption fit. The first hint that we were perhaps too well-fed came shortly after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11.
Men’s groups began clearing their throats and beating their chests as they pointed out that, heyheyhey, those were fireMEN and policeMEN rushing into burning buildings.
This isn’t entirely true, of course, but it’s mostly true. More men than women died. Noted.
Then comes Enron, and who blows the whistle? The fairer (nobler?) sex, women. Nobler, at least, is what we are to infer.
Well, among those under investigation at Enron are a few of the female persuasion.
Are those women as culpable as the men, or were they hapless victims, duped by those tricky workplace gender dynamics and forced by the corporate creed to “act” like men against their weaker, more nurturing, wills?
Corporate America, after all, is a man’s world. Women hold only 12 percent of executive positions in the United States despite their comprising half the workforce, according to a recent government report. If women want to play with the Big Boys, one easily infers from current wisdom, they have to prove themselves on the testosterone fields. Spit, grab and write dubious checks.
Certainly the woman, Sherron Watkins, who blew the whistle on Enron execs is more ethical than Kenneth Lay seems to be. But is she more ethical than millions of other men who would have done the same thing under the circumstances?
Such silliness explains nothing except why John Gray is rich and I’m not. Gray is on a tour with his latest book, “Mars and Venus in the Workplace,” in which he explores the different ways men and women think and communicate. All of which explains why I work alone.
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