Sex

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." – George Orwell

Please think back to my "There are no Coincidences in the Media" post. Please keep in mind that I am somewhat of a chess enthusiast (fanatic), and that chess is likely the most well known example of Combinational Game Theory. In any event, the Media manipulation of the population continues unabated... (During my years working in the financial markets I had the unfortunate task of trying to parse the truth from pages and pages of mindless bull sh*t, mistruths, fabrications, and out right, bold faced lies from corporate reports to the public, shareholders, and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. After a while, you get to the point where you ignore what they are trying to tell you and instead seek out from the text that which they were trying to hide or disguise.)

Please read this article(it was on the cover of Bloomberg.com for over a week). Done? Sound correct? Really? Let us take it apart, and game it a little bit.

Let us start with the title: "How Sex Hurts the Workplace, Especially Women"

Fairly broad assumption, and I am sure that in some or even many cases it is true. I think it is also fair to say that "Sex in the workplace" ("SIW") harms men as much - or more; SIW is of no help to men's careers, and in fact has become an incredible liability, and; SIW is highly useful to women. For you radical feminists or liberals, I am merely using a bastardized version of the "Prisoner's Dilemma", a common case study for introductory game theory for undergrads. Feel free to challenge my Gaming... I love to play combinational game theory and would be only too happy to engage an intelligent proponent of this propaganda! BTW, this is not an in depth analysis nor my finest work, just me rambling on a saturday morning. That could change...

The first paragraph states:

Sex in the workplace doesn't just hurt those parties involved. Sure, Mark Hurd's recent scandal produced three obvious casualties: Mark Hurd, Hewlett Packard and its shareholders, and even, to an extent, Jodie Fisher. But in the barrage of press attention since the news broke, little mention has been made of a large group of other casualties: high-achieving female executives.

Under no circumstance was Jodie Fisher harmed by anyone other than Jodie Fisher. I am curious as to what Ms. Fisher's net worth was prior to the settlement and after. If it was significantly enhanced, she must be classified as a beneficiary. Mark Hurd and Hewlett Packard were unquestionably harmed.

Paragraph 2:

Women's careers tend to stall out in upper-middle management and female executives need the support and sponsorship of C-suite men if they are to stand a chance of climbing the highest rungs of the corporate ladder. Sad to say, in the wake of the Hurd ouster, sponsorship is going to be in even shorter supply. However tangled the Hurd/Fisher narrative becomes, a large proportion of male leaders who read the story will have one and only one takeaway: "Poor guy was fired for dining alone with a junior woman. No one is even alleging a sexual relationship. How crazy is that! It makes me want to avoid ever being alone with a younger female colleague." So said one C-suite male I talked to.

Women's careers tend to stall out in upper-middle management? So what? So do those of their male counterparts. This is the way it is for 99.9% of workers. Making the final cut to the top 5 or 10 executives of a 10,000 to 100,000 employees, in technically driven companies such as Intel, GE, or Exxon usually requires significant technical training - given that less than 15% of engineers are women, and that roughly 15% of senior executive are women would seem to suggest that the representations of a "glass ceiling" are somewhat disingenuous. In the case of Physicians, women represented nearly 28% in 2006, over 30% today, and will absolutely, positively outnumber men by 2020. Is there no sex occurring between physicians, nurses, their patients, hospital administrators, etc...? Why no mention of it? Because sex between this industry's participants has no political value to the author's position. I mean come on... was it not a given in times past that a not insignificant number of the women who became nurses did so to meet a doctor? No? Take a gander through the wedding announcements of newspapers up until the mid to late 1970's. Not a few of the women's family's announced it as "Jane Doe marries a Doctor". Of course this was before the explosion in compensation in the finance industry... if it weren't so politically incorrect, such announcements would likely read: "Jane Doe marries a hedge fund manager". These marriages are a POSITIVE for society, no matter how you try to slant it.

I will not quote paragraph 3. I will comment what many feel confident about claiming is the case at the CEO level: CEO's do NOT run the company; rather the company runs the CEO. It is accurate to say that CEO's are INSTRUCTED what to do and what course to take by consultants, lawyers, accountants, and their board. They need to be able to understand the nature of their products and their markets, but in the end they are hanging on for the ride. Given that, it might not matter who runs the place... might as well be the cleaning lady. Except that the CEO is usually the company's public face and leader and number on salesperson... cosmetics (looks) matters here, too.

Paragraph 4 (here it gets good):

Research out this fall from the Center for Work-Life Policy shows sponsorship to be the critical promotional lever for women in the marzipan layer, the layer just below the top layer of management. No matter how high achieving, an upper middle-level female executive will fail to find career traction unless she is sponsored by a powerful senior executive — who, more often than not, is male and married.

Anybody know who the Center for Work-Life Policy is? What their political leanings, if any, are? I'll give you 2 1/2 guesses... Please notice the name of the Author of the article: Sylvia Ann Hewlett. Please note the name of the individual speaking for, and running, the Center of Work-Life Policy: Sylvia Ann Hewlett.

I am going to go out on a limb here... my bet is these folks are one and the same. Self-referencing to support a position completely unsupported by "Jeffers' game theory"... This is almost hysterical! You just can't make this stuff up! SHAME ON BLOOMBERG FOR publishing this Drek.

Paragraph 5:

Which is where sex enters the picture. Consider some data from the CWLP study: Thirty-four percent of executive women who participated in the survey that underlies the new study claim that they know a female colleague who has had an affair with the boss. (Indeed 15% of women at the director level or above admitted to having had such an affair themselves!) They also perceive that these liaisons sometimes yield a payoff: of those who know of an illicit affair, 37% claim that the woman involved received a career boost as a consequence.

According to the AUTHOR'S study (lololol!!) 34% (not 34.2635% ?) of executive women claim THEY KNOW that the boss was sleeping with her/their competition. Really? Exactly, how DO they know? Were they dumpster diving for used condoms? Staking out no-tell motel's? Hiring PI's to get the goods? And this stuff passes for news?? Worse, for a "study"?? WTF!!??

Here's the ONLY reason the 34% MIGHT be accurate. Note that 15% of women admitted to having "such affairs themselves". Well, it is reasonable to hypothesize that some women had engaged in such "affairs" without admitting it. Perhaps 19%? 15 + 19 gives us the 34%... I would be willing to suggest that only half of those that had such affairs were willing to admit them... Hmmm.... 37% claim the competition received a promotion as a consequence? Given the percentage of alleged affairs, the ability to blackmail men, the career boost for the 34% that HAD the affairs, and the not insignificant number men's careers destroyed by their lover's betrayals... at least not those hidden by succumbing to blackmail... it is somewhat of a mathematical miracle that only 15% of upper management offices are staffed with women... more on that later...

Paragraph 6:

Despite this apparent upside for individual women, illicit sexual liaisons often backfire and wreak serious damage in the workplace. For example, they are hugely demoralizing for teams. The CWLP data show that 61% of men and 70% of women lose respect for a leader involved in an affair. Most poisonous of all, when a junior woman is having a sexual dalliance with the boss, 60% of male executives and 65% of female executives suspect that salary hikes and plum assignments are being traded for sexual favors. This can have a disastrous effect on morale and productivity. Forty-eight percent of men and 56% of women feel animosity towards the involved couple, and 39% of men and 37% of women see a fall off in productivity as the team splinters. Talk about collateral damage!

"Despite this apparent upside for women"? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! Clearly, the author is gifted in the use of understatement. Yes, Ms. Hewlett it IS apparent, isn't it? Even more so when one really thinks about it and reduces it to its possible outcomes, which, being quite limited, is really quite easy to do.... "illicit sexual liaisons often backfire and wreak serious damage in the workplace" - why does the author define them as illicit? Were these, in fact, quid pro quo circumstances of prostitution? Really??!! 15% of the corporate women in this "study" were selling sex for corporate advancement??!! Oh, my word! What about relationships that resulted in marriage, family, and children? Were there NO POSITIVE OUTCOMES for the community? Never? Has the author ever worked in a Corporate environment? For those who have not, there is a great deal of hanky-panky going on. Is it always "illicit"? Always "wrong"? If so, are only men to be held accountable? Why no mention of the countless Lawyer's that married their secretary, and the Doctors that married the nurse they worked with... Get a grip, Sylvia. People, that is men and women, have sex with the people they spend time with. Frequently, the only people corporate employees meet are their co-workers, especially when these people have located from small towns or college to New York, Chicago, San Fran....

The claims of the author in this paragraph are not only unsupported by common sense AND the scientific method.... they are indicative of the unhealthy mental state of the author and those engaging in the "study" (at least in my view, which is admittedly unsupported by the scientific method, too). What were the questions that were posed in this "study"? You don't think this author would lead her subjects, now... do you?

"This can have a disastrous effect on morale and productivity..." the author does not back up her assertions nor question how the 60% of men and 65% of women arrived at the conclusions that, in all likelihood, the author led them to in the first place. Nothing like having an agenda and then seeking data to support it...

Using the author's own dividing lines, we have 4 distinct groups...

1. Women who engage in "illicit" affairs;

2. Men who engage in "illicit" affairs;

3. Men who eschew "illicit" affairs, and;

4. Women who eschew illicit affairs.

Now, let us compare outcomes, or "game" this:

1. Women who engage in "illicit" affairs can gain promotions AS WELL AS legal settlements from these affairs, irrespective of WHO initiated the affair (please don't tell me that all of the affairs are initiated by men, women engage in seduction as well as men)... ergo, females have ZERO accountability, i.e. nothing to lose, and much to gain;

2. Men who engage in "illicit" affairs DO NOT receive promotions as a result, nor cash, nor make other gains, and have the added liability of legal and career consequences.

3. While both groups eschewing this behavior make no gains, and could be harmed by it (though I sincerely doubt to the extent claimed by the author).

Given male propensities and the rewarding outcomes to females... does any rational examination of the facts lead one to believe that SIW would ever cease as a result of punitive outcomes for men only? And is stopping sex in the work place even a desirable outcome for society? Really? Good grief, from what I read, Americans have so little sex in the first place... now Ms. Hewlett is agitating for even less? No wonder we are in such a collective foul mood...

What is Ms. Sylvia Hewlett's agenda? What motivates her to produce this nonsense? Why is Bloomberg publishing this DREK? Why isn't there more outrage at this shameless attempt to manipulate the masses?

Lastly, this is not an attack on any group or any individual other than Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Bloomberg. I can do this trick with each and every article from ALL of the major news aggregators. Each and every one of us is under attack at ALL TIMES by the agenda's of the various special interest groups and their laky's in the media. Unfortunately, these kinds of lies sway courts, other special interest groups, corporations, universities, etc... and that is exactly what they were intended to do.