Why Susan Patton is Wrong
Ladies, I’ve got good news for you. You know who you are — the high-achieving, ambitious type who devoured Lean In and debated “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” and bemoaned the imbalance of women in political power, in tech, in the corner office. Patton’s well-meaning exhortation probably ruffled your feathers because you’re past college and missed the marriageable-man boat, or perhaps you’re in college and too busy juggling a full courseload and various excurricular leadership roles to fully sample the plethora of well-bred gentlemen.
No need to worry. There’s plenty at your next job.
Granted, if you’re in a female-heavy field, like teaching or life sciences or international development, you may be shit out of luck. But say you landed a job at a tech startup, which is what I’m familiar with these days. You ground through those problem sets in college, keeping all those future CTOs and CEOs at bay. Look around you now!
There’s Alex, that strapping young gentleman who wears a suit and tie to your shoes-optional startup. He’s climbing the ladder on the financial side of the business, and he’s always looking sharp for his clients. He puts in 80 hours a week, runs marathons in his free time, and just broke up with his college girlfriend. Or Brad at the standing desk with three monitors and three-day stubble. He may have been a bit geeky in college, but he’s earning top dollar for writing server-side Javascript and he’s hacking on a side project with acquisition potential. Also, unlike Alex, Brad wears shorts to the office — you can tell he hasn’t been slacking at the gym.
Start chatting up Brad at the coffee machine. Invite Alex to a lunchtime jog or happy hour drinks. Impress him with your financial modeling savvy, your SEO prowess, your press contacts. Bond over how recently you were in college, what a mess the dating scene was there — thank god you’re older and wiser! Throw a work party — even though you’re not HR, you’re one of the best team organizers — and now that the subway’s stopped running you take a moonlit walk to his place, where, as you blithely tell your coworkers the next day, you crashed on the couch.
After all, what’s more natural than an office romance? Put a few young, attractive go-getters with similar values in the same room for 40 hours a week. If sparks don’t fly, your workplace is frozen as a tundra. People will get it.
What about Martha a couple desks down? She knows, gives you the evil eye, gossips that you’re sleeping your way upward. She’s just sanctimonious — and jealous, since the guys don’t pay attention to her and her third baby’s on the way even as she gripes about her husband not doing his share of the parenting. Last I heard, she said you’re setting a bad example, that your cavorting around will damage our collective ability to be taken seriously as professional women. Well, you can’t bear the weight of five generations of feminists on your shoulders, all preaching different things. It’s onerous and antiquated for women to always have to behave themselves. The responsibility is just as much the man’s.
If someone raises a stink, you’ll have a raft of resources on your side. HR is all female. You can claim he made advances, pressured you, took advantage of your inexperience. A harassment lawsuit would be a serious thing, reflecting badly on a company where the gender ratio is already skewed, wouldn’t it? You’ll milk your privileged position as a beacon of diversity, hired on merit, while he’s left holding the short end of the stick. Don’t let his higher title, his brah rapport with the boss, his cool collected confidence give you pause. You’re clearly more valuable to the company. Amanda Rosenberg is still marketing manager at Google Glass, right?
It would be hypocritical of me, of all people, to advocate restraint. My first job out of college, at a large tech company, I had an insatiable crush on a senior engineer. He was instrumental in my professional growth — I did some of my best work while mentored by him, out of a desire to impress. That first crush was harmless, but the one at the next job materialized into more. This guy and I worked in a high-stress, high-stakes environment; we were on-call on weekends, together. We both lied to our significant others. It was angsty for a time, and then it was over. He and a few other high-level people from the job spun out a startup where they were all principals and I was uninvited. But hey, that led me to my current job, where I’m fulfilled and in a position to dispense advice to you ladies just starting your careers. Sometimes pivots are the best opportunities, as any seasoned startuper would tell you.
Don’t let them tell you that as a woman you’ll fall harder, since we’re don’t occupy enough well-paying, highly-recognized roles. Don’t let them tell you it’s an unfortunate fact we still bear more responsibility for our actions. That’s defeatist, and it’s eroding fast in this day and age.
So, if you’re single, make your move. If you’re not, start looking around anyway. I won’t argue with Patton on the point of the biological clock. Once your physical gifts expire, you’ll “never again have this concentration of exceptional men to choose from.”
(Newsflash: Amal Alamuddin is 36?! I take that last part back. Susan, you’re wrong once again.)
