By now, the classic corporate good old boy-the cigar-chomping, backslapping type who said, with no shame, that women belong in the kitchen-is a nearly extinct species. Changing social mores, not to mention anti-discrimination laws, have made his blatant brand of sexism unacceptable.
The rising young male executive these days is a more enlightened breed. He was educated in a good coed school and talks proudly about his wife, the corporate lawyer. Of course, he says, women should have the same opportunities as men, and he would think himself quite sincere.
That`s why it comes as something of a shock when this man-who could be your peer, your subordinate or your boss-shows signs of some distinctly archaic attitudes. In the daily department meetings, he directs his conversation only to the men. Or he makes ”kidding” remarks about your wardrobe or love life in front of a male vice president. Sometimes he`ll flash you a patronizing smirk after you`ve made an important point.
Hardly worthy of an EEOC investigation, but that`s what makes his behavior so insidious and why, in many ways, the New Old Boy is a more formidable obstacle than the old-style sexist pig. You can go for months working very well with him-until he feels threatened. Then he will use any weapon in his arsenal to fight back. That includes finding ways to tap into a lingering sexism and use it against you.
”His methods are so subtle that some women may wonder if the behavior is intentional or if they are being overly sensitive,” says Joyce Russell, Ph.D., an associate professor of management at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. In fact, many women executives won`t give a name to the problem for fear of being thought petty or paranoid.
But the New Old Boy exists. As Jonathan Schmidt, a 31-year-old editor at Alfred A. Knopf, puts it, ”There are men who know it isn`t acceptable to be sexist, but who have found subtle ways of perpetuating the old-boy network.” Adds, Lynn Laurenti, a Ft. Lauderdale public-relations executive, ”The old-boy network has a new name. It`s called male bonding.”
The favorite bonding activities are games and sports, and women definitely are not welcome. At a Fortune 500 company`s New York office, a sign in one of the engineering departments announced the ”men`s golf league.”
When a woman scribbled, ”What about the women?” someone scribbled back,
”Start your own.”
Last year an officer at a large Chicago financial services firm-an experienced golfer-tried to enter the company`s annual holiday golf tournament. She was treated as though she`d asked to join the PGA.
”They said, `You`re not really serious about playing, are you?` ” she recalls.
A 32-year-old male manager at a Connecticut-based Fortune 500 company occasionally hosted poker games at his home and invited only men from the company. Soon the games became a weekly ritual and included department supervisors. ”They began talking about the games at work, and it was clear they were discussing work issues during the games,” says a female executive. Were any of these women`s careers hurt by their exclusion from
”leisure” activities? They knew it would be hard to prove, so they kept quiet and resigned themselves to losing the extra opportunity to entertain clients or make contacts.
But some New Old Boy tactics are harder to let slide. One political reporter was invited to have dinner with a small group of high-level politicans-standard press-politicain schmoozing-but she endured weeks of ribbing about her ”flirting” and her ”date” from male colleagues who would have killed for the same invitation.
A Washington, D.C., economics analyst has had to develop strategies for maintaining control of her presentations. Though she`s the expert at the podium, members of her mostly male audiences address questions to other men in the audience.
Another executive, who recently lost 25 pounds, recalls how her New Old Boy associate constantly made derisive ”jokes” about her weight loss. When they were having lunch with a client and the client ordered a low-calorie meal, the associate said, ”You know, Susan has been dieting lately. She used to be a real porker.”
Lip service
These moves obviously are meant to put women in their place. They are powerful and difficult to counter because they tap into widely shared, deeply held assumptions about female and male roles.
Polls in the 1980s consistently reported that men have a positive attitude toward female professionals, but a 1988 study suggests that men`s unconscious attitudes toward women managers have changed little in the past 15 years.
Madeline Heilman, Ph.D. of New York Univeristy; and Caryn J. Block, Ph.D. of Columbia University surveyed 268 male insurance-company managers about how they percieve female and male managers. The results closely paralleled those of a similar 1973 study, which suggested that men considered women to have fewer of the qualities of successful managers.
”Men, like women, have intellectually changed their views of what`s appropriate in the workplace, but it`s going to take some time before our emotions and behavior match what we want to believe,” says Kathy E. Cram, Ph.D., an associate professor of organizational behavior at Boston
University`s School of Management.
The New Old Boy may receive from the old boys in upper management cues that he doesn`t have to be completely fair to women in order to get ahead. A male financial analyst at a Fortune 500 computer manufacturer, for example, recalls a meeting during which the group needed copies of a particular document in a hurry. The highest-ranking executive there, a male, turned to the sole woman at the meeting and asked her to make the copies. She complied- and soon found that the other, younger men in the office began to burden her with similar requests.
The New Old Boy also may get tacit reinforcement for expressing stereotypical attitudes. The old boys who are still in the executive offices are quick to believe a New Old Boy when he says that a female colleague is indecisive or flirtatious-and young male colleagues may wonder whether there isn`t some truth to the characterization.
Smart female executives have developed their own strategies for outwitting the New Old Boy. Most agree that confronting him with his sexist behavior should be a last resort; you`re almost certain to run into denial and perhaps outrage.
What can you do? ”You have to nip it in the bud,” says the economics analyst. ”If you don`t set the rules from the beginning, you lose control.” When she gives a presentation and a man in the audience addresses a question to another man, she waits courteously for the response. Then she takes control: ”I say, `What he just said is very interesting. But I actually have expertise in this area. And I know . . .` ”
Mary Quinlan, an advertising sales manager, also advocates an active approach. ”Just because some men act like their fathers, we don`t have to act like our mothers,” Quinlan says. No New Old Boy can exclude Quinlan from sports talk; she has become a football fan for this very purpose.
Once, she was having coffee with her male boss and a male client when the boss said to the client, ”Oh, we haven`t even talked about the 6 and 0 and 5 and 1. Sorry, Mary,” he said, turning to Quinlan, ”this is boy talk.”
Quinlan responded coolly, ”Well, I know the 5 and 1 refers to the Jets. But both the Bears and the Giants are 6 and 0. Which one do you like?” she asked the client.
The boss never tried that ploy again.
And what about when the New Old Boy makes ”innocent” jokes that acutally are condescending remarks meant to put you in your place? Sometimes, women managers say, the best response in an icy comeback. After a consultant chastised her male subordinate for not producing the work she wanted, he put his arm on her shoulder and said, ”Those deadlines are crazy. After this is all over we`ll get you a massage.” She replied evenly, ”I don`t need a massage. What I need is for you to produce this work on time.”
When all is said and done, you can outwit the New Old Boy, but can you change him? His female colleagues have their doubts.
”If you said to an old boy that he was a sexist, he`d say, `Damn straight.` But if you said that to one of these young guys, he`d just get defensive,” says Quinlan. Perhaps, she adds, if you took him aside and had a talk with him he might glean a bit of insight into himself and be embarrassed. But he`d probably forget it as soon as he had a beer with his buddies.
Still, there`s hope: In the next decade the New Old Boys` base of support will erode rapidly. Their high-level conspirators-the men in the executive suite who are in their 50s and 60s-soon will retire. And two-thirds of new workers will be women.
Ultimately demographics-with a little help from smart women-will force the New Old Boy to grow up.
