The Problematic “Mike Pence Rule”

A Saturday evening play.  A beautiful young woman walks up to the dashing male playwright, who also happens to be starring as the lead in his own show.  The woman gives the man her card, and asks him out for coffee to discuss theatre.

Later that night, while the cast and crew unwinds at the bar, the playwright looks in puzzlement at the card.  Turning to his friend, a fellow female playwright, he says: “I can never tell when they’re asking me out as a professional or as a person.”

“Well, what did she say?  Did she talk about work or yourself?”

“Work.”

“Then she’s asking you out as a playwright.  Simple as that.”

A Jug of Wine, A Loaf of Bread, and Professional Development

Last year, as #MeToo was just coming to light, many of my Catholic and conservative friends began crowing a variation of “I told you so!” about the victims of sexual assault.  The supposition being that if only the young women had not been so foolish as to go to Weinstein’s hotel room, or if only male and female professionals were completely segregated outside of work, none of this would have happened.

“The ‘Mike Pence rule‘ doesn’t look so silly now, does it?” Many of my friends joked, in a deadly serious way.

For those who may not know, the “Mike Pence rule” is a variation of Billy Graham’s model to never meet one-on-one with, dine alone with, or travel with a female colleague.  The Vice President also doesn’t attend any co-ed event where wine is served if his wife isn’t with him.

This advice seems like redundant common sense to many men and women in the workplace.  After all, what other reason would a married man have to dine alone with a female colleague after leaving the office?  And why would there be wine?  To the person who is hired to work a 9-to-5 job, by which I mean an occupation which pays the bills and where work can be left at the office, the “Mike Pence rule” is the norm.  Group happy hours have to be coordinated, if they happen at all.  And “office parties” can be dreaded affairs and far from actually social.

So much for the workplace for most denizens of cubicle world.  Work is work.  Society is society.  Home is home.  Like courses in a Kosher meal, there needs to be no overlap.

But that’s only one way of doing business.  Let’s look at another.

Let’s Have Lunch

In considering my own fury at the “Mike Pence rule,” I realized that my experience of work as an artist and as an industry leader is almost never in an office.  In the course of my life, I’ve had many jobs.  When I’m just working a survival job – a receptionist, an account manager, a development associate – even those jobs which demanded longer hours, the work never came home with me.  There were working hours, and there were social hours.  I might be sociable with the office; but they were never my society.

Not so in my true profession, which is as an artist and an industry leader.

Every artist, much like every politician, is in some ways a business of one.  As such, in my life as an artist, I have no official office.  Wherever my laptop is, there is my work.  I’ve held office hours on the train, in countless Starbucks, in PJ’s at 2 AM in my bed.  Nor are there defining hours when I shall work.  I have to remind myself to take weekends – even if that means a few hours on a Wednesday afternoon.  Because, just like the other day, I might spend the weekend on the go and not return until 1 am, at which point there are important emails that have to be answered literally yesterday.

Hence, when I’m meeting potential clients or colleagues – many of whom hold similar “always-on” hours – to maintain an element of neutrality, rather than traveling to each other’s homes, we meet for lunches, coffees, dinners, drinks – any public venue that will hold us, and won’t mind if we don’t spend much money for the privilege of a temporary office.  Which is to say:

For many industry professionals, meeting for drinks is the “safe,” sexually neutral zone.

We are the Music Makers, We are the Dreamers of Dreams

So, what jobs – outside of artists – tend to work outside of the office system?  I’d hazard to say that any work that requires a person to always be “on” is just such a job.  So artists, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, politicians, and many senior personnel for whom their business is their primary vocation.  Looking at it another way, these are the same professions that tend to be in charge of shaping our culture.  These are the professions who tell us who we are as a society, who invent laws and technology and business models that govern the rhythm and flow of our daily lives.

Because of this, because there is no clocking out in these vocations – just as there is no clocking out in your vocation as a parent – our work colleagues do tend to be our real life society, too.  And this makes sense: when I’m adding a person to my business of one, I want someone sane as well as competent.  When I meet a potential colleague, I want to take him or her out for lunch to see how they are as a person, if we share the same goals, if we want to build the same thing.

In an office situation, there’s room for the Dwight Schrutes of the world: hyper-competent but weird and mentally unstable.  And there’s only room for them, because I get to clock out from being in their society to go back to my real friends, my real family.

Not so when the whole world is my office.  Not so when my vocation and my society overlap.

And here’s where the “Mike Pence rule” falls down.

Keepers at the Gate

When an accounts manager hears that her married male boss won’t meet with her alone for drinks, she heaves a sigh of relief.  Great: the boss isn’t a perv.

When a female playwright hears that a married male producer won’t meet her alone for drinks, she gets furious, because he is denying her a job opportunity.  Because she dared to pitch her play while being female.

When a female journalist learns that a male source (say a politician) won’t meet her with her privately, she goes into despair, because she can’t get the sensitive material, and now her job is in jeopardy.  Because she dared to be a journalist while being female.

When an ambitious woman is told by her CEO that he won’t mentor her, because it would require one-on-one time, she should protest, because she is being kept out of the professional development because she is a woman.

And let’s be clear: the “Mike Pence rule” is keeping women not only out of the workplace, but out of better paying jobs, out of entrepreneurship, out of politics, out of the arts – which is where we tell ourselves the stories of “what’s normal.”

And let’s be even more clear:

It’s not the problem of oversexed members of the industry who are perpetuating this, it’s you, my brothers.  It’s the well-meaning patriarchy. 

Opening Doors, Opening Hearts

As I’ve written elsewhere, I’ve been personally fortunate in that I’ve had many wonderful male mentors who treated me with respect, and gave me authority as a very young woman.  They gave me a seat at the table, and I cannot thank them enough for that.

But as I’ve also alluded to elsewhere, that same courtesy has not been extended by every man in power in my field.  Most noticeably, at a powerful Catholic theatre company, I have seen a number of high powered jobs given to wholly unqualified non-professionals because they were drinking buddies with the right guy, who had been put in charge in turn by being a drinking buddy with another unqualified guy who ended up in charge because of his drinking buddy, and so on ad infinitam.

And where was I?  Not drinking with those virtuous and unqualified men.  Because: woman.

Years ago, when I was working in education, I would not have believed this particular screed either.  Because, as a woman, there is a certain limitlessness within a certain field.  In this case: good men gave me free reign with their children.  So it was easy for me to believe that the feminist railing against sexism in the field was being, well, a bit hysterical, dear?

But, alas, my experience once I moved into the professional sphere is that the glass ceiling is all too real.  I have been told I’m “pushy,” “too opinionated,” “brazen,” and to “go home to my family” – not, I’m afraid, from my “heathen, secular” friends, but from my fellow Catholics.

It’s not a good look on us.

A New Hope

But there is hope.  As Catholics, we are called to see the inherent dignity in each person.  As Catholics, we are called to self-control – which means the onus of your virtue is on you, my male colleague, not on me.  As Catholics, particularly if we are fortunate enough to work outside of the office, to work in a field which helps to shape the nation, we should be more inclined to help the poor and silenced.  Basically, if we say we are Catholic, we should be better business people.

So I invite you, now, if you are in a position of leadership to consider who you’ve been keeping outside of the glass – and why.  Who has been asking to be allowed in, and will you let them?

Let’s start a new rule; one that begins with:

“Welcome.”

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Image courtesy of Pixabay.

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