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Are you sick of talking/reading/writing about the train wreck that is Mark Zuckerberg for the last week and half? I know I am! In fact, I wasn’t even going to address his ridiculous comments on “The Joe Rogan Experience” this past Friday about how companies like his need more “masculine energy” … but here we are.
So, yes. On Friday, after a full and exciting week of eliminating DEI goals and protocols and making it kosher to claim women are “property” and trans people are “freaks” on Facebook (so that Republicans can express their political views, which they simply could not do before they were allowed to say that women are property and trans people are freaks), Mark Zuckerberg stopped by “The Joe Rogan Experience” to chat about his transition to MAGA-hood that definitely is in no way motivated by the tax breaks Trump is about to give him and other absurdly rich people. Really, his concerns are about the lack of “masculine energy” in the corporate space.
That, I think we can assume, is why he’s moving so much of his company’s operations to Texas, a state in which women have no reproductive rights. If that doesn’t bring in the machismo, what will?
He also talked a lot about mixed martial arts — which, it turns out, I want to listen to even less than when I dated a guy who was into that back in my 20s (and he was actually nice and handsome).
“I think a lot of the corporate world is pretty culturally neutered. Masculine energy is good, and obviously, society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really trying to get away from it,” Zuckerberg said in response to Rogan’s claim that Jiu Jitsu turns “you” into a libertarian because it makes you value hard work (and, I guess, hate poor people?). “I think having a culture that celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive.”
Sure, but has he considered becoming the strong and silent type?
Now, I am by no means any kind of corporate America expert — I spent one summer working in an office when I was in high school and otherwise always had retail or writing jobs — but I do have a guess as to why companies may have tamped down the “masculine energy.” It just might be because that “masculine energy” and “aggression” led to a whole lot of women in these companies being sexually harassed or assaulted, and that just was not the best PR for them. Also, defending yourself from sexual harassment or assault lawsuits costs money!
Where I am confused, however, is where Zuck is finding this incredible dearth of “masculine energy” in corporate America. Because like … only 11.8 percent of those in C-level roles are women. Only 37 percent of Meta’s own employees are women (a number likely to drop as they move more of their operations to Texas).
Women are still 14 percent less likely to be promoted and 30 percent less likely to be called in for an interview than men with the same qualifications and characteristics. Women with children are 35 percent less likely to be called in for an interview than men with children are, and high-achieving men are twice as likely to be called in for an interview than are high-achieving women with the same characteristics — three times as likely in math-related fields. On top of that, one study found that 60 percent of women have experienced some form of sexual harassment in the workplace.
Not to mention, tech world is also notoriously male-dominated. How much more “masculine energy” does he need?
“It’s one thing to say we want to be kind of, like, welcoming and make a good environment for everyone, and I think it’s another to basically say that ‘masculinity is bad,’” said Zuckerberg, who you may recall started Facebook as a site for ranking women by hotness.
It’s a good thing, then, that absolutely no one said that “masculinity is bad.” It’s also weird to think that these things would be mutually exclusive. Is he perhaps the one who thinks that “masculinity is bad”? Perhaps! Perhaps his idea of masculinity is more like Donald Trump or Bluto from Popeye than Paul Newman, whom I just can’t quite picture throwing a whole ass tantrum over the lack of “masculine energy” in corporate America.
In fact, I would actually kind of argue that the least manly thing on earth is constantly whining about your masculinity feeling threatened in some capacity.
Zuckerberg went on to explain that it was the mixed martial arts (and, apparently, hunting invasive pigs in Hawaii) that made him realize that this sort of “masculine energy” and aggression was missing from his life and corporate culture, as well as how much he enjoys it when he and his friends beat each other up.
Strangely enough, however, he did not actually explain what that would look like beyond “aggression” — the MMA version of which might not be entirely appropriate for even a casual work environment. Does he want more teak and leather air freshener? Some animal heads on the wall? Would he be going for more of a “Mad Men” vibe or like a 1980s construction site vibe? And should we assume that both of those necessitate the sexual harassment of women in the office? Because how can you really feel manly if you can’t smack your assistant on the ass once in a while?
So, just to be clear, this adult man — a fucking billionaire, mind you — is out here complaining about some kind of intangible “vibe,” as opposed to the actual, real, documented issues that women deal with in the workplace. You know, like their employers moving operations to a state where they can’t get an abortion and have to worry that if they have a miscarriage and it goes wrong, the doctors won’t treat them until they’re septic? Or, if they are trans, moving to a state where Republicans just introduced 32 bills targeting them and their right to exist?
These are real, non-vibe-related problems — the kind that are experienced by the very people he just decided he’d allow hate speech against on his platform.
He is an absolute child, and I am not just saying that because he looks exactly like Little Orphan Annie. Perhaps someday he will experience a real problem beyond a lack of Scarface posters, grunting, chest bumps, and people smashing beer cans into their foreheads in the office, but until then, he might want to keep his mouth shut.
PREVIOUSLY ON WONKETTE!
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