You know those horrible corporations that pay women less than men for the exact same work? Those dastardly, sexist, discriminatory beasts who shortchange women because they see them as second-class citizens in the workplace? And oh, let's especially focus on the ones who reject tough-minded women by calling them "bossy," whereas they would see the exact same qualities as desirable in a man.
Yeah. You know them? You know what we ought to do with them? We ought to get the New York Times editorial page to write some stuff denouncing them. Yeah. That's what we ought to do. Because . . .
Uh oh:
Was Jill Abramson, the now-former executive editor of the Times, a victim of a double standard? Did Abramson lose her job because she was some of the things — tough, imperious, aloof — that men in management are allowed to be and often rewarded for, but for which women are punished? Was Abramson taken down for, among other things, having the gall to seek compensation equal to her male predecessors?
Twitter and the blogosphere rang with accusations and denunciations to that effect on Wednesday and Thursday. “What happened to Jill Abramson shows everything that sucks about being a woman leader,” headlined the news “explainer” site Vox.com. The New Republic played out the sexual politics of l’affaire Abramson with a piece that carried the subhead, “Trying to explain a singularly humiliating firing.”
The theme bubbled briefly to the surface on Wednesday in the Times newsroom, too. Stunned reporters, who had gathered to learn news they didn’t see coming about Abramson, at one point asked publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. if Abramson was being treated differently than a man.
This is so delicious.
This is the same New York Times that constantly railed against Augusta National Golf Club for discriminatory membership policies that excluded women, which I guess is fair enough although if you ask me it's weird for a major newspaper to obsess to that degree over the policies of a single, private institution.
But I guess the times is so committed to equal treatment of women that it believes even a private organization should suffer under the hot lights until it drops its backwards notions and treats women fairly.
Except when that institution is the New York Times.
Now if you drop the schadenfreude and just look at this as a pure management decision, it's hard to really assess how fair or unfair it is because none of us really know what was going on inside the hallowed halls of the Times. We hear reports that Abramson was abrupt and difficult to work with. and we know the editorial product is terrible, but since when does that bother the Times?
If Abramson was a bad boss, but the Times would put up with that in a man, it seems to me that it's the latter part of that equation that's the problem.
The Times denies that her salary was less than that of her male predecessor, but they acknowledge her pension was less because it was based on time of service and she hadn't worked there as long.
Remember that stupid "Ban Bossy" campaign a few months back? It was designed to silence anyone who would attach such a description to female bosses - again based on the idea that no one would criticize bossyness in a man.
Now, for one thing, that's total nonsense. Regardless of whether a boss is male or female, if the boss can't get people to respond favorably to his or her leadership, the boss is going to be ineffective. You can complain all you want that these things should be "equitable" or whatever, but the bottom line is that bosses whose troops won't follow their leads have to go.
It may be that the Times made a management decision that had to be made. And maybe those who write the editorials at the Times should think about that the next time they sit down to pass judgment on other organizations who also have to make decisions based on internal dynamics that are known to them, but are not known by the editorialists at the Times.
