Day Eighteen

Over the past few months, the world has gone crazier than it already was. I don’t need to tell you that, I’m sure. I will have to admit, it does provide me with material. So today, an essay about someone we all know, at least by name. No, not that name. I’ll give DJT a rest tonight.

MASCULINE ENERGY

With the current administration and their activities, a lot of people feel empowered to get rid of all their inhibitions against saying what they really mean, especially in the area of diversity. Case in point: Mark Zuckerberg. You know, Facebook and all that? He has always been pretty iffy on his support of women’s issues, which isn’t surprising since Facebook originally began as a site for college men to rate the ‘hotness’ of college women. Yes, that’s right. You are spending portions of your day contributing to a site constructed for a sexist purpose.

So what about Zuckerberg? Surely I can’t be peeved over something that happened twenty years ago? No, of course not. I could cite countless other instances of Facebook refusing to take down sexist posts, including threats against women, but that isn’t why I’m here tonight, either. What I want to talk about is much more current.

With Trump being re-elected, we have been hearing some of the nastiness men have to offer, men who know they no longer have to keep those things to themselves. We have heard how the world needs to be run by ‘competent white males’ in order to work properly. This makes one wonder how Trump figures into the equation. He is white and male…

Corporations are scrapping their efforts to help equalize opportunities between the sexes. Among them are included McDonald’s, WalMart, and Facebook. Zuckerberg has been reported as saying we need more ‘masculine energy’ in the corporate world. This is what I want to talk about.

First, what the hell does that mean? I am reasonably sure he isn’t referring to the ratio between male and female electrical connectors, but I suppose one could give him the benefit of the doubt, except…no. He can’t be referring to actual energy, you know, that stuff physicists are hooked on and can’t stop yammering about. That isn’t divided into ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’. It is just ‘energy’.

My conclusion is that he is referring to energy in a more ‘New Age’ sort of way, you know, like a vibe. He is suggesting that corporations need to hire and promote males instead of females. My first question is, so what else is new? He is in a field dominated by males, where skilled, talented females often find it difficult to get in the door. When they do, they are subjected to all forms of harassment, both sexual and not sexual. To remain, women have to be strong…stronger than any male I’ve ever met.

So what is Zuckerberg wanting? Obviously not strength; the women working in that area are strong. It isn’t talent…the women are also talented. Not knowledge…they are not hiring women who lack the necessary knowledge. No, this is something else, some veiled, unnoticed something. Something women don’t have. Something…masculine. So he wants to have more penises?

In the final analysis, yes. If pushed to define his concept of masculine energy, I suspect Zuckerberg would give a lot of waffle words, words that fit the usual stereotypical macho man image. He might mention ruthless…not aware, apparently, that women are quite often ruthless. He might mention hard-working. Yeah, right. Women who succeed are hard-working, don’t doubt that. He might say driven. Sure, women can’t be driven…except they can. He might talk about some sort of something men have…some sort of mystical, magical essence of maleness that he has, and other men have, but women don’t. So it can’t be testosterone; women have testosterone, though in much smaller amounts than men.

In reality, what Zuckerberg is telling us is that he equates competence in business with men. He does not believe women can bring that to the table. Perhaps he should learn a little of the history of his field. Perhaps he should research Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, Annie Easley, Radia Perlman, Grace Hopper…and many other women who were crucial in creating the technologies and networks that his success relies on. Zuckerberg was a late comer to the game; by the time he was born, all the hard work of developing and creating computers had been done…much of it by talented, energetic, capable women who worked in worse circumstances than their male colleagues, and for less pay.

Just imagine what we might have if this had all been done by ‘masculine energy’. We might have phones we could carry with us, a network where people can interact worldwide without leaving their homes, computers that would be small enough and cheap enough for nearly anyone to have one, perhaps even a successful space program…what a strange idea. Too bad so much of the early computer stuff was done by women, so we have to communicate overseas with really long strings attached to tin cans.