Who’s Next? Cuomo and the Abusive Progressive Workplace
Even as people celebrate the fall of Andrew Cuomo, the latest in a series of men who cultivated reputations for fighting for just, progressive policies before being outed as tyrants, hundreds of women in nonprofits and ostensibly progressive offices across the country are cringing at every familiar detail of the Attorney General’s report, wishing their own boss or supervisor were next in line.
There are very few women, nonbinary people or people of color who do not have dozens of stories of harassment, abuse, microaggressions, or just plain irritating behavior from men who wielded power over them at work. Far from this being less of an issue in progressive spaces, the dynamics of these workplaces make abuse even more likely to continue with impunity.
Many of us enter positions in nonprofits, campaigns, or government offices with ambitious ideals. We are seeking to remake the world into a more just place and don’t expect to accomplish that lofty goal 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. We fully expect long hours and weekends, and often find a sense of purpose from a complete and total immersion of ourselves in what we consider to be vital work. That kind of immersion means that our social circles and dating pools are also found in our work, and the lines between our personal and professional lives often become non-existent.
So when a supervisor or manager or executive director or public official is abusive, the cost of speaking out is a paycheck, a career path, but also an entire social life and identity. If the abuser is someone who you long admired from afar, who the whole world (or what feels like the whole world to you) believes is a progressive hero, it can be tempting to find rationalizations for the abuse rather than pushing back on it.
It’s no accident that so many people in abusive workplaces compare the experience to being in an abusive relationship — like victims of mental and emotional abuse imposed by partners, many of us become masters at explaining away abuse. We tell ourselves that it is the stress of the work, the inescapable corruption of growing up with oppressive systems, even misguided passion for the cause that can explain away bad behavior. Sometimes we imagine it is really the fault of bad advisors, trusted by a blameless leader who would do better if only they could hear directly from us. When all else fails, we can tell ourselves that the good that this person or this organization is doing is more important than the damage they are doing to us and our colleagues.
Also like abusive relationships, societal gender norms and politics play a role in abusive workplaces. The leadership model we all are given of a strong, emotionally stunted man who makes no mistakes and needs no help is especially damaging to men who are frightened, insecure and constantly making mistakes. It is impossible for them to live up to that image (indeed, no one can, nor should they want to), but in trying to they feel compelled to make those around them feel small and powerless in proportion to their own sense of insignificance. The only way to maintain the fiction that they make no mistakes is to treat everyone else’s mistakes, real or imagined, as catastrophic. They deflect criticism by casting all critics as either cynical villains or idiots to be vanquished as part of their hero’s journey.
There is no critic or rival who is more threatening to the self-image of an insecure man trying to feel important than a competent woman. Especially a competent Black woman. And there is no clearer way to belittle or diminish a woman than to sexualize and/or infantilize her. Sexual harassment, public humiliation, using pet names like “sweetie” or “honey”, are all tools for a man who needs to undermine a woman he fears.
The nuances of how this plays out can be lost in stories like Cuomo’s. This gendered model of leadership can be taken up by women as well as men. The dismissal of a woman as ugly or bitter is a kind of sexualization, tying her value as a human being to her perceived desirability. The catastrophizing of mistakes can come in the form of shouted vulgarities as happened with Cuomo, or it can come in the form of an evaluation that says this person is just not ready for a promotion or a big, career-building project because of minor errors they’ve made.
As a Black woman who has worked in and around progressive politics for most of her adult life, I have seen all of these variations and others, sometimes directed at me and sometimes at my colleagues. Like many women who can’t bear to see other people harmed, I have been a staunch advocate for colleagues that have been victimized while resigning myself to keeping my mouth shut when I was the one suffering.
I don’t know what the answer to all of this is. People argue for the need to hold abusers accountable, and while I firmly believe in accountability it often feels like so little. In every story of powerful men held accountable there are dozens or more women, named and unnamed, who suffered for years. Women who left behind jobs and careers they loved and were good at. Women whose reputations were destroyed and whose work was denigrated. Women who found themselves coping with food or alcohol and suffered increased anxiety and other mental and physical health issues.
Seeing their abusers finally outed and removed from power may offer some vindication, but it doesn’t undo the damage.
