Did they really not see this coming?
#MeToo started nobly enough, but then digressed rapidly. Rather than owning their role in crossing boundaries with which they were uncomfortable, too many women used the movement to lambast men unjustly. Consensual encounters were suddenly, in hindsight, not. Ever single thing men did was called into question and scrutinized as potentially sexually inappropriate.
Naturally, men are responding by protecting themselves from the potential for allegations by bypassing any scenario in which they might be left alone with a woman co-worker.
Bloomberg laments:
No more dinners with female colleagues. Don’t sit next to them on flights. Book hotel rooms on different floors. Avoid one-on-one meetings.In fact, as a wealth adviser put it, just hiring a woman these days is “an unknown risk.” What if she took something he said the wrong way?Across Wall Street, men are adopting controversial strategies for the #MeToo era and, in the process, making life even harder for women.Call it the Pence Effect, after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he avoids dining alone with any woman other than his wife. In finance, the overarching impact can be, in essence, gender segregation.Interviews with more than 30 senior executives suggest many are spooked by #MeToo and struggling to cope. “It’s creating a sense of walking on eggshells,” said David Bahnsen, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley who’s now an independent adviser overseeing more than $1.5 billion.This is hardly a single-industry phenomenon, as men across the country check their behavior at work, to protect themselves in the face of what they consider unreasonable political correctness — or to simply do the right thing. The upshot is forceful on Wall Street, where women are scarce in the upper ranks. The industry has also long nurtured a culture that keeps harassment complaints out of the courts and public eye, and has so far avoided a mega-scandal like the one that has engulfed Harvey Weinstein.
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