Yesterday, I was ranting about ‘reverse _____ism’ and how much I loathe that argument. It’s lazy, derailing, and just boring. Today, at Ask A Manage,r there is a question about high-end gifts to team members to reward them for a job well done. It included money, a trip, and an individual gift (that’s the high-end gift) to each person. It was a product the company made (the letter writer said suppose it’s golf clubs), and the men were give the male version and women were giving the female version. She said there was a 30% differential in the worth of the gifts (men’s were more, of course). She asked if she was wrong to feel upset about it and if not, what she should do.
The number of people in the commentariat (with the gender ratio being roughly 79% identify as women, at least on the self-answering survey Alison asked about salary in 2021) who defended the practice to varying extent was dispiriting. There were those who got caught up on actual golf clubs and why this might be fine (when the LW clearly stated golf clubs was a placemarker for the actual object); those who wanted to know if it was an item from the same line or a different one (I still don’t get why this would matter), and others who were whatabouting up and down as if it was just a t-shirt in different sizes.
It was bizarre that the first dozen answers or so were in this vein with one person clearly saying that the LW was just being an ungrateful brat about a gift. First of all, it’s not just a gift, it’s a reward for doing their job well. Secondly, even if it’s “just a gift”, it’s not good for the morale of women to realize they were valued 30% less.
Alison was quick to say that the letter writer clarified it was items from two different lines (the men’s being higher, of course), rather than two equal lines in which the men’s item was valued more. Suddenly, the people questioning if that was the case (or trying to rationalize if they were in the same line) were saying, “Oh, that changes everything.” Why? No it doens’t. Thoughtless sexism is still sexism. Intent matters to a certain extent, but mpact matters more.
Especially when it comes to discrimination in the workplace. There is no excuse for that. I was really happy with the people who pointed that out. also how tiring it is to have people constantly questoniing as to whether it’s truly sexism. One woman got weirdly hung up on the fact that everyone got money and trips, too. So, this wasn’t sexist? Or it didn’t matter as much? Put it this way. Someone abusing you one-third of the time isn’t any more acceptable than someone who abuses you 100% of the time. In fact, in this case, it’s even more irritating because they have shown they can treat men and women (ugh. I’ll get into that later) equally so why not in this case?