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September 17, 2005

Changing times in the gender wars

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Ah yes, the times they are definitely a changing.  Indeed they are a changing so rapidly that no one seems to know how to respond to these changes, how to behave according to the new rules.
 
In the business world the influx of women in fields normally a male preserve and the resultant questions are still being answered concerning well...proper behavior between men and women when professional duties and personal...uhm interests overlap. 
 
When the man was the boss, when the man was a married boss, he could command or toy with a woman at will.  When he tired of her, when she became too demanding or even when the indiscretion was discovered, out went the lady to the unemployment line while he escaped with at most, a mild reprimand.
 
And that may still happen at many businesses.  But not as frequently.  Consider the case of the former head of Boeing.   Brought out of retirement last year to clean up Boeing after a procurement scandal, he did just that, boosting the value of the company in the process.  But then the married executive had an affair with a female executive 20 years his junior which apparently he also pursued via e mails on Boeing's servers.
 
He is out, she is still in.  And his wife, whom he married as a teenager and with whom he recently celebrated 50 years of wedded whatever, promptly trotted off to divorce court asking for lots and lots.
 
Meanwhile, over in the entertainment world, which like it or not, serves as a harbinger of social mores to come, actress Demi Moore, age 42 is pregnant by her live—in 27 year old actor boyfriend.   Had the ages been reversed —— she 27, he 42 —— not a snicker, not a putdown would be heard. After all, there he goes again. Boredom as 60 year old rocker Rod Stewart's is about to embark on his marriage to a 33 year old. The site of the proposal, the Eiffel Tower, was newsworthy, not the actual event.
 
So Demi and Ashton: congratulations. 
 
And memo to Time Magazine: get that 8 months pregnant, bare naked 42 year old belly on the cover. It will be even more sensational this time around.
 
Ethel C. Fenig   3 14 05