Something quite incredible came out of America recently. No, don’t go away -- this is not another piece about the oversized lump of synthetic cheddar, though I can’t help feeling he might have something to do with it.
I’m talking instead about the results of a survey on the state of gender relations.
If the survey is to be believed – and it involved 5,300 adults and was conducted by polling company Morning Consult for the New York Times, so we're not dealing with a Fox News phone-in here – the world has arrived at a bizarre juncture. It's like we started out in Ibiza Uncovered, took a detour and ended up in The Handmaid's Tale.
Forty four per cent of women said it would be inappropriate to have lunch with a man who was not their husband
According to the survey, a significant proportion of Americans regard any interaction of any sort with any member of the opposite sex, other than their spouse, to be fraught with risk. A majority of women, and nearly half of men, said it was unacceptable to have dinner or drinks alone with someone of the opposite sex unless they were married to one another. Forty four per cent of women said it would be inappropriate to have lunch with a man who was not their husband.
More than one in three women thought travelling in a car with another man was a bad idea. Twenty-nine per cent of men agreed they would not get in a car with a woman they were not married to. One in four people deemed a work meeting with a colleague of the opposite sex too risky, and nearly two-thirds of those surveyed say we should also take “extra caution” around members of the opposite sex at work.
The survey doesn't shed light on what those precautions could possibly be. Leaving a door open? Streaming the whole thing on Facebook Live? Wearing a burkha?
Although it is the religious, least educated, Republican men in the survey who were most conservative, almost one in five men educated to postgraduate level said they would not have a work meeting alone with a woman. Troublingly, across the board, it is the women who were most uptight about interactions with the opposite sex.
The only explanation that makes any sense here is that they’re all habitual porn watchers. How else to account for the expectation that a monthly 1:1 between Wendy from accounts payable and her direct report, Brad, could end up in a dry humping session over the ledgers?
Gender chasm
The survey doesn’t just point to a vast chasm between the genders, it also reveals a deep generational divide. In the survey, the over-65s tended to be most conservative, especially if they were religious, while the young, students, and those who were not religious or registered as politically independent were most relaxed.
Out of sight of their parents, the next generation are sending one another nude selfies by way of introduction
It's a messed-up world. On the one hand, the generation of Americans who are old enough to be established in their careers has embarked on an age of neo-puritanism. Their cheerleader is Mike Pence, who was widely sneered at when a 2002 interview emerged in which he remarked that he would never eat alone with a woman who was not his wife. Pence might have thought he was virtue-signalling, but he revealed a view of women that has been shaped by the porn industry and Donald Trump: that all of us are available for sex with any partner, at any time.
Meanwhile, out of sight of their parents, the next generation are sending one another nude selfies by way of introduction. Like squirrel monkeys, they won’t agree to date anyone unless they’ve already displayed and inspected each other’s genitalia.
American behaviour and values are unique to America (and perhaps, in this case, Saudi Arabia). Elsewhere in the world, grown ups can still manage to have lunch together without coming over all Miss Havisham or Mike Pence.
As long as we behave as though sex is part of every encounter between men and women, men will continue to have good reason to sideline women
But corporate American behaviour and values are not unique to America; inevitably, they set the tone for corporate values everywhere else. Whether it’s lava lamps and team-bonding days, or working til 11pm and eking out your miserable holiday allowance, the values set in the boardrooms of the US sooner or later drift across the Atlantic. And it’s here that the results of the survey become something we should take seriously.
Temptresses
This neo-puritanism might tell itself it's designed to "protect women's virtue" or "shield men from wrongful allegations of harassment". But underpinning it are two equally worrying notions: that all women are temptresses and all men are the slave of their sexual urges. The net effect will be yet another excuse to slow the advance of women in corporate life. "When men avoid solo interactions with women – a catch-up lunch or late night finishing a project – it puts women at a disadvantage," the New York Times said in its commentary on the survey.
As long as we behave as though sex is an implicit or explicit part of every encounter between men and women, men – who hold most of the power in corporate world – will continue to have good reason to sideline women. By going along with this, women are not protecting themselves from harassment, they’re shielding themselves from advancement.