Time’s up for gender separatists

Thanks to the #MeToo movement, if a man helps a woman at work, he risks allegations of sexual misconduct. If a man doesn’t help a woman at work, he’s a sexist. What a load of rubbish, writes Louise Roberts.

Men should avoid one-on-one time with a female colleague because somewhere between company strategy and the cappuccino machine, the encounter will turn into a sexual assault.

Or at the very least, an HR situation with an allegation of misconduct or inappropriate behaviour.

And that’s because if you’re a man at work and you dare to share your top tips for career advancement with a woman on her own, you’re a potential rapist in cufflinks.

But in the contradictory world of modern feminism, if a man does not help a woman up the career ladder and share the benefit of his experience, he is a sexist, a misogynist.

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And he is waging a deliberate campaign to crush her career and obliterate her self-worth to his own benefit. And for good measure let’s add potential sex criminal to the list as well.

But what is really being obliterated here? Masculinity, the thing we love to hate.

Men are in a no-win situation. And what they certainly don’t need is a Liberal minister sticking her heels into them like we saw this week on Q&A.

During a Women in Leadership debate, Karen Andrews advised men to protect themselves from misconduct allegations. The way to do this, Andrews argued, was to avoid one-on-one mentoring with women.

Men avoiding mentoring roles with women will not fix anything. Picture: iStock

She shared an anecdote about walking out in the middle of a meeting with a male stakeholder who pretended to take off his trousers. That’s an awful and awkward situation, no doubt. But then came a question from the audience about how men could feasibly support women in this day and age.

Andrews, the Minister for Industry, science and Technology, told viewers: “Look, I would discourage a male in the current environment from taking on one-on-one mentoring, I would have to say.”

She then referenced a sentiment “from a lot of men” that certain scenarios with women inevitably triggered allegations about their behaviour.

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“I think that is actually something that men should be very conscious of,” she said.

“I think that it makes a lot of common sense, particularly in the current environment, that where you are working with people and you are trying to help them and you are trying to assist them, [that you] make sure that everyone’s safe.”

Men should spend time with women in “somewhere where there were other people around, not in an environment where that was just two people”.

Industry, science and Technology Minister Karen Andrews drew ire from some over her comments on Q&A. Picture: supplied

Decent men should have nothing to worry about being a mentor, but nevertheless, they should consider themselves warned.

Meanwhile, Andrews elaborated on her #MeToo moment: “A male in the meeting thought it was appropriate for him to make gestures as if he was going to remove his trousers. And at that point, I called it as inappropriate behaviour, and I left the meeting.”

“If I was to be generous, I would say that the individual concerned was not used to dealing with senior women in a workplace. And probably genuinely, I think that was the issue. But the behaviour needed to be called out. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t smart. It was inappropriate. And I think that women need to start calling out that behaviour as and when it happens,” Andrews said.

Amen to that, but allow me to turn the tables here.

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Women are not advised to avoid one-on-one with male colleagues lest they come over all cougarish and make a move like a sex-starved housewife.

What about female predators, those inflicting their delusional power or white-anting male colleagues? And the trickle-down effect to our young men too frightened to look at a girl sideways lest they get accused of something. Well, they’re young men so they must be up to something.

What is the end game — men only deal with men and women only deal with women? Picture: iStock

Women are not told to alter their behaviour at all in a workplace. It’s the men who have to keep it in check because, as I’ve said, they’re all potential sex offenders.

What is the end game — men only deal with men and women only deal with women?

We have to obliterate the narrative that men are drunk on privilege so it follows that men never feel anything in a negative way.

It is appalling to think that gender apartheid is our true nirvana in modern Australia.

How will that go down in a plumbing company on the northern beaches where the apprentice can’t sit alone with the boss’s wife to learn the accounts lest he find himself in a police cell?

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Mike Pence said he never eats alone with a woman other than his wife to avoid affair rumours. How he was mocked as an uptight Christian.

Fast forward and the same advice is coming not from the pulpit, but the HR department.

It’s the crazy notion that men are holding back women. Not women holding back women which is exactly what someone like Andrews is doing.

Why would you tell a man not to mentor a woman one-on-one — that’s because the gender wars have driven us to this place.

Men and women need to share experiences, not be pitted against one another. Picture: iStock

And before you just pooh pooh this as another rant from another politician that will be replaced with another subject this time tomorrow, might I remind you of a small, but important point.

Andrews is an elected representative, put in government to help develop new legislation that will guide the future of this great country.

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What’s next? Will the government start codifying a sort of secular sharia further regulating and limiting relations between the sexes? Where does this wind up?

What exactly are we afraid of?

A strong, resilient capable woman will always be able to take care of herself and will be able to spot her own dangers without a politician in an ivory tower suggesting she goes to a coffee shop because there will be other people around.

And strong, resilient, capable men will do the same.

Neither will feel the need to score cheap shots on the other through harassment or denigration.

From where I sit, having observed by teenage son’s interactions with the opposite sex, it fills me with nothing but hope that they will be able to work it out — if we just let them do it.

@whatlouthinks