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Mark Zuckerberg wants to release more testosterone in the workplace. speaking in The Joe Rogan Experience Last week, Meta’s CEO laid out his vision. “Much of the business world” has become “pretty culturally emasculated,” he said during a nearly three-hour interview with the podcaster. “Society has a lot of that, but I think. . . “Having a culture that celebrates aggression a little more has its own merits that are really positive.”
Hell yes! Following his Lizard Person and “Wife Man” appearances, the protean Zuckerberg has now entered his Jordan Belfort era, although it involves wearing a grown-up “fro” and a gold medallion (inscribed with the Jewish prayer Mi Sheberach that he sings to him ). his daughters every night when he puts them to bed). Gone was the pale complexion of the replicant last seen testifying in the Senate; Zuck’s skin is tanned, his body polished from his current obsession with martial arts. It was the study of Brazilian jiu-jitsu that apparently helped inform his chauvinistic epiphany: he told Rogan that hanging out with his male friends while they “beat each other up” had allowed him to redefine his relationship with masculinity. Hmm.
These latest pronouncements follow the larger news that Meta will no longer use fact-checkers, all part of a rather cowardly effort to curry favor with the incoming Republican regime. He is a far cry from the whining penitent who last year apologized to those parents who had lost their children to sexual exploitation or harassment through his social media platforms. Likewise, his desire to reintroduce aggression into the workplace seems somewhat out of character for an individual who spent most of last year preparing a cover of “Get Low,” T-Pain’s “lyrical masterpiece,” for serenade his wife Priscilla. Chan, or jumping around the garden under a huge turquoise statue of his image.
What exactly is this “masculine energy” you speak of and how can we apply it? Naturally, I turn to my colleagues for advice and present their thoughts completely without credit, on the basis that the first rule of ME is surely to exploit the brilliance of those around you and then pass off all their ideas and innovations as your own.
1. Team building trip to Hawaii to hunt invasive pigs
2. Slack group that rates the attractiveness of female employees
3. Lending library of magazines for children and dartboard on each floor
4. Force everyone to sponsor your fifth Marathon des Sables
5. Leaving meetings after five minutes or leaving a call because you’ve absorbed enough/ “can’t add more value”
6. Protein only at lunch
7. Install a wall of huge televisions that constantly broadcast live sports games, no matter the time, no matter how dark the sport is.
8. Replacement of water taps by Madrí
However, negotiating the specifics of masculinity in this age of millennial sensitivity is not so simple. The idea that the tender young suitors who inhabit my creative field might feel like unleashing their inner wolves seems almost ridiculous to me. While a coworker helpfully offers to “start spraying Lynx Africa under the desks” if we feel the need to disrupt the carefully gendered environment we’ve been fostering, most expressions of male masculinity, at least in our department, involve cuddling and regularly toasting home-baked goods.
I often observe male colleagues hugging each other as they wander around the newsrooms of the Financial Times offices, and not just in the “hearts and flowers” departments that will henceforth describe the weekend’s articles, but even within the high-tension, high-risk worlds of Business and Markets. , also. As another colleague points out: Zuckerberg may be right that we’ve all gone a little soft, but he’s confusing gender politics with generational attitudes, and maybe he’s simply advocating for Gen dirty times of office life.
I certainly remember working in a newsroom in the late 1990s, when masculine energy floated unfettered around us. And I’d rather miss the drama of watching senior management get into fights and confrontations over petty misunderstandings, and men and women behaving badly like they used to do in those days. I miss that rude, nanny-less attitude that allowed people to have more freedom with their projects, plus the freedom from the tyranny of Slack that keeps you chained to your computer every hour of the day. But I don’t miss the leering, the condescending nonsense, or the men’s club gatherings one might be invited to if one’s skirt grazed one’s thigh enough.
However, the suggestion that the workplace has become less competitive by adding a few hugs and homemade cakes is nonsense. In a market where employment levels are so stagnant, young graduates and interns must hide their killer instincts while constantly negotiating how to advance their professional lives. Everyone knows that the most successful young careerists today are not the aggressive and wild men of history, but rather the ones who bring the cookies, meet the deadlines, put in the extra effort and lead new projects. Zuckerberg is wrong: we need more of the more feminine energy in the workplace: the ability to multitask.
Email Jo at jo.ellison@ft.com
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