INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: AND NOW A THIRD WAY FOR MEN AND WOMEN AT WORK: JUSTINA HART ON SHERE HITE'S LATEST PROJECT TO BREAK DOWN THE GENDER BARRIER
84% match; Independent on Sunday - United Kingdom ; 12-Dec-1999 01:41:36 pm ; 914 words

Shere Hite is best known for The Hite Report, her ground-breaking book about female sexuality in which she introduced a blushing world to the phrase, "clitoral stimulation". Now living in Paris, the American writer who is often labelled a "glamorous" feminist, has a new quest: how can we change the fundamental way in which men and women interrelate at work?

This is a tall order, but true to her anti-Vietnam campaigning origins, Ms Hite gets straight to the point. In the late 1990s, she argues, it is redundant to keep "banging the drum of the gender war". We have to alter the way in which we are programmed to deal with one another if we are to use male and female talents effectively. Part academic study, part interactive survey, part forum for open interviews with employees and CEOs - she invites readers to respond to questions in the book via e-mail. This is self-help of a sort, but more far-reaching than that aimed at the Bridget Jones brigade.

While those in their twenties and thirties believe they already relate to the opposite sex in a very different way from their parents' generation, many educated young women are shocked to experience sexism and sexual bullying for the first time when they switch from university to office. Ms Hite argues that the way we grow up does not reflect the way society has grown up. The workplace still endorses old-fashioned stereotypes: women are changeable and liable to run off and have children; men are power-hungry and aren't expected to hold the baby. Promote a woman in the wrong organisation and you might be accused of having an affair. In this context, it makes sense to conform.

one of this is new, of course, but Ms Hite takes the issue a step further. Her concern is that we have become so used to reports about the long hours' culture, unequal pay for women and the glass ceiling, as to be almost immune. She argues that many of these studies are superficial, while little is being done on a psychological level to help us adapt to a changing social order and prepare for a more successful future. Her objective is to break down the old oppositions of male as hunter, female as gatherer. Her main solution is that we must learn to see opposite-sex colleagues as potential buddies rather than potential love objects.

Sprinkled throughout the book are "brain software commands" along the following lines: "Software to delete: is she or he date material? Software to install: I'm in a new situation. Here's my chance to try something new!" The idea is that readers can "reprogramme" their brains like computers by memorising new attitudes that they will eventually absorb, thus saving them from ending up in the psychiatrist's chair. Although these commands do reinforce her points, they seem tritely condescending and are unlikely to be swallowed whole by a British audience.

Far more constructive are her frank interviews with top (male) bosses from around the world, which ask how changing family values are affecting the workplace, why more women aren't yet ensconced in their companies' boardrooms, and what they think of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. Ms Hite talks to Rudolph Giuliani, mayor and chief executive of New York City and to Dr Mark Wossner, chairman of the Bertelsmann Corporation. Some of the men are forward-thinking and eager to offer their own ideas. A CEO of a telecommunications company in Spain - a country in which some women still stay at home until they marry - says: "I believe that women's advancement is virtually unstoppable. Women will be the ones running the world in 100 years." But the German, Mr Wossner, believes that women have the right to be educated, but if they don't then combine bringing up families with working, they will "cause the collapse of civilisation". Oh dear.

Ultimately, Ms Hite is interested in human advancement not man-bashing. She looks beyond the prejudices that are damaging women's progress at work to investigate how men and women think about men and women at work, and how women deal with other women. She finds that men enjoy working with women but 67 per cent would feel threatened if there were an equal number of women on the same footing. "Men also deserve sympathy," says Ms Hite, "when so many are trying to behave perfectly with their new female colleagues." She believes that men are beginning to change their way of thinking in the way that women have done over the past 25 years.

Women have a lot to learn too: "My boss is a bat from hell, a bitch on wheels," says one secretary about her female boss. Having fixed their sights on learning how to work with men because they have wielded the power, women face the difficult task of learning to work with other women in male-style hierarchies. These can fail, says Ms Hite, because women tend to treat one another as either "bitch" or "best friend". They need to seek solidarity while being careful about not being seen as man-phobic.

Sex and Business (Financial Times Prentice Hall, pounds 19.99);

www.sexandbusiness.com

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THE SCOTSMAN: YOU THINK THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN IN TODAY'S OFFICE? THINK AGAIN
81% match; The Scotsman - United Kingdom ; 15-Nov-1999 03:40:57 pm ; 1322 words

'IT'S incorrect, so kill me, but I like women at the office with good legs. I find an old, dull fat bird a real turn-off, and I don't want to work with anyone like that, no matter how smart she is. I know this is way off base, so don't quote my name."

If you thought political correctness had invaded every facet of our lives, this little gem regarding sexual relations in the workplace may provide a timely reality check. It comes from Sex and Business , the latest book from Shere Hite, the world-renowned American commentator on sexual behaviour. Thirty years ago, the executive quoted would not have had the insight to realise his opinion might be interpreted as "incorrect". But while attitudes may have changed a little since then, if the results of Hite's research are any guide, achieving a more cohesive and harmonious workplace is still going to be an uphill battle.

For her latest book, Hite, who heads a consultancy specialising in sexual ethics in the workplace, canvassed the opinions of hundreds of workers and employers, including 20 of the Fortune Top 100 corporate directors, who came up with some candid views on the change in working relationships between the genders, and what shape corporate cultures may take in the future.

Hite believes that sexuality in the office is an issue which can no longer be ignored, particularly as more women are entering the workforce, and half the population in major cities around the world are single. "Today's work and business environments are a quantum leap from those of a mere generation ago," she writes. "The proliferation of women in executive and management positions, the evolution of the personal assistant, the number of men entering secretarial roles and the increase in numbers of female entrepreneurs represent just some of the factors that contribute to a major realignment of gender positions.

"And yet, although the old rules no longer apply, there is widespread confusion across both sexes as to what, if any, new rules do apply. So people fall back on stereotypes."

According to Hite, these innate stereotypes are the result of generations of entrenched social behaviour, compounded by family, friends and the media, and little or no training has been provided to help people work or do business with the opposite sex.

Rather than bang the drum of the gender wars once again, Sex and Business seeks to expose traditional gender cliches and provide advice on how men and woman can combine their skills in a new way, and transform the current office environment.

Of the women she spoke to, 63 per cent said they felt "discriminated against in most ways", 22 per cent believed they were treated equally but not paid equally, and just 15 per cent felt as if they were treated equally. Of the men, 61 per cent admitted that women were not seriously included or considered, 13 per cent acknowledged they were probably not paid equally, and 26 per cent said they thought women were treated equally.

Hite's book is full of statistics and anecdotes highlighting the sociological divide that starts in the home and continues to divide men and women in the office. For example, 90 per cent of the CEOs interviewed agreed that women should be promoted to senior management level and acknowledged that 75 per cent said women scored better on their tests than men.

When asked why more women were not in senior positions, 30 per cent said that interrupting her career to have a family damaged a woman's chances of promotion, another 30 per cent admitted it was due to past discrimination, and 20 per cent put it down to men feeling uncomfortable with women at a senior level, concluding that this unease would adversely affect the tough decisions that needed to be made.

The chairman and managing director of Yomiuri Shimbun, Naoki Ogino, said the absence of women from a company's board of directors was "normal" in Japan, predicting that it would take another 30 years to shift this imbalance.

"In 1922 Yomiuri Shimbun began to take applications from both men and women, but only since 1972 have there been any women on our staff. Therefore only young women are in the corporation now; they are too young to be on the board of directors yet."

So can women and men really do business with each other on an equal footing? Hite believes so, albeit only with a major shift in attitudes. Out must go the old cliches, such as women maintaining a passive, nurturing role and men adopting the more aggressive role, taking responsibility for all the major decisions. According to Hite, these stereotypes are so ingrained that if either sex strays from them, they are regarded by colleagues as "unfeminine and dominating" or "weak" in the case of men.

"The future should see us invent new relationships. There has not been much room for men and women to be friends in society, and now, with so many men and women working together, they are expected to suddenly know how to treat each other, how to behave and think in new ways."

This uncertainty about gender roles in the workplace is underlined throughout the book.

One man sums up the confusion thus: "I want women at work. I find that they make work more interesting, they bring another energy, they have a lot of enthusiasm and are not afraid to show it. On the other hand, sometimes I get so fixated on not using my male status to block their careers, I'm so busy being a nice guy, that I mess up my own career."

Similarly, the women interviewed complained of a reluctance among men to communicate openly. Hite identifies seven classic responses used by men to silence female colleagues: the silent treatment, pretending it never happened, changing they subject, saying the problem is petty. "A woman shouldn't complain because it makes a man feel guilty," was one response.

"What women really want is a two-way respectful dialogue, 'emotional equality' - acceptance, respect," says Hite. "Men can benefit, both privately and at work, by checking out whether any of these attitudes are still hanging around in their heads."

Added to these innate differences between the sexes is the complication of sexual chemistry. Hite believes there should be a number of socially condoned ways in which men and women can spend time together as friends without being subject to office gossip.

"When two men meet at work and hit it off, they do not have to think: 'Well, I'd like to work with him, I'd like to hire him as my second in command, but if I do it will cause waves at home with my wife, and I will constantly have to be telling myself to watch it. It could be rewarding, but it's too complicated.'"

Rudolph Giuliani, who as mayor of New York employs 200,000 people, is well aware of the whispering campaign sparked when a male boss adopts a female protegee. "You will always be criticised, you have to let these things roll off your back. You may be accused of having an affair with the woman, but you can't let it get to you, you have to do what is right. If the woman working next to you is best qualified for a promotion, you have to go with it. It would be an insult to her to deny her the job - and a betrayal of yourself."

Hite believes it is possible for men and women to form creative and stable relationships which do not "progress to the inevitable climax".

"This does not mean we are creating a 'neuter world' at the office. It means we are creating a more diverse world, with a more appropriate range of choices between men and women. The workplace today offers a great opportunity for people to break old patterns of relationships and create new ones, and thereby, to create a new type of society."

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