The Workplace is Not Enough
I am going to ruin all of the places.
Article: New York Times — Did Women Ruin the Workplace?
Ever since I was a little girl, I knew I wanted to be a ruiner.
I’ve always had a natural talent for it. A gift, you might say.
I’d show up to a spot where men were having an excellent time, and just absolutely ruin the whole experience with my very presence.
Birthday parties? RUINED. CAKELESS DUE TO FEMINISM.
Sports games? RUINED. 100% COED OR NOT AT ALL.
Frat parties? RUINED AND NOW YOU CAN’T MAKE YOUR FRESHMAN EAT A GOLDFISH ANYMORE.
When it came time to take the SATs (which I enjoyed ruining for all the boys with my demand for more feminine test-taking facilities), I knew without a doubt that I had a promising future in ruining that holy grail of masculinity: The Workplace.
The Workplace would be an excellent place for a young, gifted ruiner like me, and not just because of the objective fact that only men had ever had jobs before then. (Before 1980, there were no women at all! Anywhere! We were all at home, quietly not ruining anything. Look it up.)
It’s just that The Workplace has so MANY things to ruin! Think of it: A pristine boys’ club of multiple centuries, where men could create rigid hierarchies in peace, set the air conditioning to 46 degrees Fahrenheit, and fistfight each other in the boardroom when they encountered any conflict. Back when the world made sense.
What a perfect environment in which to bloom into my true self: a hotbed of feminine vice who delights in spoiling the good old-fashioned fun of every man around me.
And spoil I most certainly did. A group of men having a good time at work?? Not on my watch.
Within two years, I was advocating for paid overtime and sick days, just like the female ruiners of the labor movement before me. A group of grunts putting in the work all night while their bosses sleep? RUINED.
And after that, I wasted zero time in bringing about paid parental leave, which means all of the men at work had to go home and spend time with their stupid babies for months! A stunning victory for ruiners, since obviously, the whole point of working is to not have to look at your kid for too many minutes in a row. RUINED.
But by far the biggest achievement of my ruining career was the absolute worldwide castration that was the anti-sexual harassment movement.
Don’t you remember how, pre-2018, men could just joke about their private parts to their female colleagues all the time, for funsies? Don’t you remember what a good time it was to be required to give sexual favors to your boss for any recognition? Don’t you remember the good, clean fun of an after-hours unwanted advance from a man you thought was a trusted friend and mentor?
Well, I do, and it’s exactly the kind of innocent, guys-being-guys fun that I absolutely love to destroy for the whole organization. Like all women of the #metoo movement, I simply hate when men enjoy themselves! And I love when women can accuse men of whatever made-up story they want with zero consequences. Which happens all the time. Definitely. Look it up.
Yes, it’s clearly the pre-#metoo world that the poor conservative feminists speaking to the NYT are yearning for, and of course, I feel for them. It can’t be easy to have your carefully-crafted hierarchy topple beneath you after all you’ve done to climb to the top (well not the top, obviously, which is only for men. But pretty close).
But I, a professional ruiner, have to make tough decisions in my vocation to destroy everything men love. And since one of the things men love is a woman enabling their bad behavior, I pushed ahead in my goal.
RUINEDDDDDDDDD.
In the years since 2018, I can confidently say I’ve only improved on my ruining skills. I’m now working every day to demand that workplaces do outrageous things like: pronounce people’s names correctly, not make assumptions about their personal lives, and give them an option to work remotely.
I personally have forced HR departments across the globe to spend dozens of minutes per year explaining that harassment is bad, actually. Minutes that could have been spent on masculine virtues like quarterly earnings! Or cigars with the boys!
Thus, it’s with immense pride that I accept the formal acknowledgement of The New York Times as the actual reason The Workplace sucks so incredibly hard these days.
I’ve spent countless hours honing my craft, and I’m so humbled to see all my fellow ruiners and I getting the credit we deserve.
But I have to ask you, fellow ruiners: can we afford to stop here?
Are there, perhaps, other bastions of masculine virtue we’ve yet to drive out of society? Could there be other corners of male behavior we’ve not thoroughly policed?
I, personally, shudder at the thought.
As long as we have such formidable enemies as conservative feminists Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant, I believe we cannot rest.
There are simply too many people committed to seeing men enjoy portions of their lives, and we ruiners cannot afford to see that happen.
We cannot stop until we’ve ruined every single thing that men might enjoy, in all of the places they might gather.
Thus, I propose an immediate ruining beyond The Workplace (which, as the NYT acknowledges, we’ve already fully destroyed). Such a ruining can include such disastrous activities as:
Salaries you can actually live on!
Health insurance that covers health!
Bosses who’ve read even one single management book!
Meeting agendas!
A return to remote-only!
Someone fixing the coffee machine who is not me!
Together, dear sisters, I believe we can ruin them all.
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