General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Misogyny should not be tolerated on DU [View all]sofa king
(10,857 posts)...disagree with you!
I am pleased to point out that I've seen some welcome changes in the workplace since the late '80s, early '90s. Most of my best mentors and trainers and bosses were women; it is they who finely tuned my abilities and trained me to learn any workplace task.
I think there are really only two mindsets at work, here. One seems to be adversarial, and while I'm not criticizing it because it's the adversarials who have achieved most of the successes that created the modern workplace, I think we all need to agree that it is from this camp that the men versus women arguments arise; the opposing sides of that fight are really one faction in which everyone agrees that something must be fought over. I think most people in this faction have direct and often highly negative experience with sexism in the workplace, either dealing it out or dealing with it; this makes them far more personally invested in the fight as well.
The other mindset is collective. It's about what can we do to make our workplace better and bring true equality to all of us. These are the people who have already fought and won through the adversarial course and have come to agree that consensus and respect for all are the ways to get things done, and incidentally improve the lives of workers, as well.
The collective route is winning out in the workplace because those places draw in and keep the most capable employees. I'm not saying the fight doesn't have to still be fought; I'm saying the victories are consolidated by the peacemakers, not the fighters.