Right On: #MeToo is good, but what follows is not

June 6, 2018 Utah Channel 3

OPINION — Get sexual predators out of the workplace. Send the criminals to jail, punish the harassers.

And while we’re at it, men should realize that off-color jokes and frat-boy comments to one another about women have no place on the job, no matter who’s listening. If you must, save them for the sports bar after work.

Let’s hope that outing the Weinsteins and the subsequent avalanche of women coming forward will encourage all women to speak up. And that every organization will provide a place where complaints will be heard and investigated, even if the CEO is the predator.

If all America’s workplaces met these standards, #MeToo would compare favorably to the civil rights movement in its positive impact on American society.

But marching in lockstep behind #MeToo comes the siren call of affirmative action, gender quotas and demands for equal results instead of equal opportunity.

For decades, businesses and institutions have been deemed discriminatory if their ranks lacked a sufficient number of African Americans. The #MeToo movement adds a lack of gender balance as evidence of bias.

Identity activists are at their peak when both race and gender can be used to damn an organization. The result: White males will be silently but severely disadvantaged when competing for high profile jobs.

Story after story in the media has echoed the drumbeat. If women don’t fill about half of an organization’s or industry’s key positions, it’s taken as prima facie evidence of gender discrimination.

Hollywood, outed by the #MeToo movement as a bastion of sexual predators, is scrambling to regain its imagined place as a leading light of liberal thought. The gender bean counting has begun.

John Bailey, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, announced that henceforth the organization would “balance gender, race, ethnicity and religion” in all its activities and would double its female and minority members by 2020.

The predictably-liberal media is not to be outdone. CBS is interviewing only females for its Face the Nation program. Recording Academy, the Grammy sponsor, has promised to overcome the “unconscious biases that impede female advancement” in the music industry.

You’ve probably noticed an explosion of the word “diversity” in the media. While race will still be a key word, gender has taken center stage.

Looking for a job in a growth industry? Cash in as a diversity trainer – only females, preferably minority females, need apply.

Hollywood and the media are leading the #MeToo charge where job performance is largely subjective and where women are few in high profile jobs. But #MeToo takes on a darker cast when it turns into a push for gender equity across the board.

Study after study shows females gravitate to different kinds of jobs than males. Women tend to choose fields that “make the world a better place” and that offer a better work-life balance.

College-bound women demonstrate these tendencies when they choose majors. As hotbeds of gender equity, colleges go to extremes to encourage women to choose majors in the sciences where they are underrepresented and that offer high-paying jobs.

Yet despite the billions of dollars that governments, companies and foundations have poured into the effort, the percentage of women in science, technology, engineering and math hasn’t changed much over the years.

Women who do choose scientific fields are heavily concentrated in the health sciences where they make up 75 percent of workers in health-related jobs. In 2016, nearly 82 percent of obstetrics and gynecology residents were female.

In contrast, only 25 percent of workers in U.S. computer jobs and 14 percent of engineering workers are female according to a Pew Research Center poll. Feminists argue this is due to gender bias.

Not so says an article published in the liberal Atlantic magazine. The author convincingly demonstrates that “in countries that empower women, they are less likely to choose math and science professions.”

Facts like this are stubborn things. Insisting on gender equality in every corner of the workplace will be a travesty for both women and men. Women will find themselves pushed into unsatisfying careers while qualified men will be shut out.

As a result, women with talent and capacity in every field will find an undercurrent of doubt as to whether they got their position on merit or because of #MeToo affirmative action.

The doubters need only point to a Google recruiter who challenged Silicon Valley’s quota mentality. He refused to obey an edict to purge white males from consideration for entry-level engineering interviews and alleges in a lawsuit that he was promptly fired.

Pouring fuel on the quota fire, Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta announced plans to pay managers based on their record of hiring and promoting females and minorities. His message mirrors Google’s: affirmative action first, qualifications second.

Stories like these – and there are plenty more – highlight the downside of the #MeToo movement: reverse discrimination. If our society sacrifices merit, both in females and males, on the altar of blind numerical gender equality in all aspects of life, we will be poorer in spirit and racked by continual claims of bias.

Paraphrasing Chief Justice John Roberts’ comment on racial discrimination, the way to stop discrimination on the basis of gender is to stop discriminating on the basis of gender.

Count me as a #MeToo supporter. Count me out on gender quotas.

Howard Sierer is an opinion columnist for St. George News. The opinions stated in this article are his own and may not be representative of St. George News.

Email: hsierer@stgeorgeutah.com

Twitter: @STGnews