I’m a designer who started my first full-time job a few years ago at a small branding studio. I worked under its creative director, who also happened to be the studio’s owner and its only other full-time staff member. Shortly after starting, he began harassing me. I was considerably younger than he and had little professional experience; I chalked up his behavior to loneliness and the casualness of the industry. I also blamed myself. Still, the harassment persisted until, two years in, I mustered the courage to confront him, asking for firmer professional boundaries at work. A few months later, he fired me.
I’ve since landed a better position at a bigger studio (a job that I got in part, I suspect, because of a reference from him). Still, there’s some work from my time at the former studio that I would like to share in my professional portfolio. It’s usually considered good practice to credit the full creative team (or at least the studio) that contributed to the work. After all, I wouldn’t have had access to these clients or their projects without the studio and its connections. While I have no interest in outing my former boss for his (illegal) behavior, however, I shudder at the thought of crediting my harasser next to work that is mostly my creative output, especially if that credit would help legitimize and promote the studio that he still runs.
Do I owe him credit when sharing past work? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
I’m so sorry to hear about your experience and fully understand your aversion to crediting someone who victimized you in this way. Professional peers, however, won’t know about a situation that you’ve kept to yourself, and some may see your failure to mention the studio as misleading or even dishonest. Nor is it obvious that your old studio would really gain if you did name it. How many jobs are likely to flow to it as a result of work done by someone who, after all, left the place?
The rights and wrongs of credit conventions, in the end, don’t track with other rights and wrongs, and we can’t make one register align with another. In laboratory science, for example, researchers who worked under the direction of a “principal investigator” — the senior scientist who secured the grants and, typically, established the lab — can’t decide to elide that investigator’s name when they publish that work (and some have good reason to). You have every right to try to put this episode behind you. But it would be a further injustice if you damaged your professional standing in consequence.
Readers Respond
The previous question was from a reader who was unsure how to respond to a social invitation. He wrote: “My wife and I recently moved to a new area. Within weeks, we were invited to an array of social gatherings. One invitation was for me only. Married guys gather at someone’s house to play a parlor game, drink beer and talk. The gathering is framed as a social club that is explicitly for men only, with the aim of creating a space away from family life to relax and speak freely. My wife resents being excluded on the basis of her gender. We’re the only ones who don’t have kids, and therefore have no child-care responsibilities, so we don’t see any obvious reason she couldn’t join. She’s actually much more at home bantering over a beer and a cigar than I am. She says she appreciates the social outlet for me (she also appreciates our spending time with the gents and their families at other times), but no one has yet created a reciprocal space for the wives to gather without their husbands and children. How should we feel about gender-exclusionary spaces in 2024?”
In his response, the Ethicist noted: “A same-gender social group doesn’t have to be morally troubling, and it’s clear that you hang out in other configurations too. This doesn’t mean your wife’s objections can be brushed aside. Perhaps someone should create that reciprocal social space for the wives, letting the men hold down the family fort; your wife, in fact, might see if there’s interest. You might also discuss your wife’s feelings with the group. Raise the idea that she be allowed to enjoy the games, beer and cigars. For that matter, how would they feel about a one-spouse rule, as opposed to a husbands-only rule, possibly with alternating spouses? The conversation will raise questions, implicitly at least, about the assumptions that underlie the current practice. You can always opt out if you and your wife aren’t comfortable with where things end up; given that your chief relationship is with her, I wouldn’t keep going over her objections. And if the conversation backfires, you might end up being disinvited.” (Reread the full question and answer here.)
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With all the compelling research about the friendship crisis among men and its adverse outcomes, I think the letter writer’s wife should be encouraging his effort to socialize. And, as the Ethicist mentions, there’s nothing stopping the wife from joining or creating a parallel women’s group within this particular circle of acquaintances, or elsewhere. In our modern state of rampant loneliness, we should advocate for more outlets for fellowship, not fewer. — Mark
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I want to add that, as a daughter of a loner father, I understand that men make meaningful social connections with much more difficulty than women do, and are more prone to self-isolate. Men’s communities like the one described are important in helping them to interact with one another. Later in life, the letter writer’s spouse will reap the benefits of a partner with more significant relationships and internal emotional resources. — Susan
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The Ethicist’s response feels exactly right to me. I’ve been a part of one workplace (a road crew) and two other groups (a writers group and a board game group) where I was the only person who identified as female. I loved being a part of those groups. I also think that, in the two cases where I was the first woman, I helped things along a bit by showing up and being competent. But I have also liked having the option of being with groups of people who identify as female. Even if this ease is somehow a result of the deeply gendered nature of our culture, that reality is not going away in my lifetime, and whether I like it or not I feel a certain comfort with other women, as if, indeed, certain parts of me simply breathe more easily when I’m in their company. Further, the letter writer is clearly sensitive to these issues. His wife should send him on his way to enjoy this group and trust him to know if it’s toxic, and if so, to leave. If she prefers mixed groups, she should hunt about for one that feels congenial to her. — Karen
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I strongly disagree with the Ethicist. These men holding a space separate and apart to network and form a support group, presumably while their wives care for the children, is inherently unequal. They are not hanging out because of shared interests but because they are all men. And it is rather insulting to think that the wives would be more comfortable with their husbands interacting in a single-gender group outside of very specific religious sects. — Stacey
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Some years ago, a small group of men I met at Unitarian church services found that we had so much in common that we decided to meet every couple of months on our own to discuss anything that came up. We would often assign “homework” to one another, usually consisting of interesting books or other media to base our discussions on. But the key was that we each had the opportunity to check in about what was going on in our lives without fear of judgment. Within a year we had eight regular members and looked forward to these gatherings. It wasn’t long before a few of the wives wanted to be included. I and a few others stood firm that this would destroy what we had created. We argued that women more naturally speak of issues that affect only them and it was rare that men have the same opportunity. Though we have gone through many highs and lows, we are still together after almost 20 years. — Timuze