You can all relax. Finally – FINALLY – there is a place where men can unwind, relax, socialise and do business without being hampered by the company of women.
It is not the ASX200 CEO-suite where female representation is practically negligible. And it is not the government’s frontbench where there are two times as many men from a single Rugby club as there are women. Nor is it the speakers line up at a conference dealing with important matters like the economy or the future.
No. It is a Sydney networking group called Man Business where a group of hand-selected “high quality business owners, business managers and business leaders” “meet up once a month to enjoy an event styled for men.”
Why is this necessary you might ask? It’s simple. These high quality business men need a space unencumbered by the advances of women.
“We are humble men, we find women flirting with us at networking events to get our business uncomfortable and a conflict with our values. We enjoy hanging out with other guys without the distraction of flirting women who blur lines between business and social. Guys just get it and make it easy to do”.
I have so many questions. What are these values they mention? How exactly does the presence of women conflict with these values?
How many women actually flirt with men who are incapable of working whilst mingling with a person of the opposite sex? I am genuinely perplexed. I wouldn’t have thought they would be inundated with requests but evidently they are. How does one qualify as “high-quality”?
I am aware it might seem hypocritical for me to criticise the existence of a men’s-only networking group. As the editor of a website called Women’s Agenda I am often why there is no ‘Men’s Agenda’. My answer is this. I will lobby for and personally edit a website called Men’s Agenda as soon as:
– Men earn 81.3% of the money that women do
– Men have to work an extra 8 years to retire with the same amount of money as a woman
– Men hold less than 3% of CEO positions in the ASX200
– Men hold just two positions in federal Cabinet
– Men hold 10% of leadership positions in the ASX 500
– Men do double the amount of unpaid labour as women
They are a few of the legitimate reasons why women’s networking groups exist. Because in our homes and workplaces, women continue to bear the burden of gender inequality and they bind together in an attempt to overcome that.
Saying women bear the brunt of gender inequality is not to say that men are unencumbered by challenges or difficulties. They are. But they are not encumbered by women in the workplace or business and it’s disingenuous to say that’s the case.
There is nothing wrong with men or women assembling themselves in single sex silos but there is something seriously amiss about a group of grown men, high-quality no less, justifying their assembly because they can’t possibly combine business with the advances of women. If that’s the case then I suspect it is the men in question, not the women, who have real problems. Problems I sincerely doubt will be resolved by Men’s Business.