Lolita

The Princess :

Come here — 

Still love me?

Mason :

Completely. You know that.

The Princess :

You know What I Want, 

more than anything else 

in The World?

Mason :

No. What do you want?

The Princess :

I want You to 

Be Proud of Me.

Mason :

But I am proud of you, Lolita.

The Princess :

No, I mean really 

Proud of Me.

They want me for the lead 

in The School Play.

Isn't that fantastic?

I have to have a letter from you,

Giving Your Permission.

Mason :

Who wants you!?

The Princess :

Well, Edusa Gold, 

The Drama Teacher,

Clare Quilty and Vivian Darkbloom.

Mason :

And who might They be?

The Princess :

The Authors. 

They're here to supervise 

The Production.

Mason :

But you've never acted before.

The Princess :

They say I have 

a unique and rare talent.

Women Mean Business

  "It is a fine day in The City of London, and at an upmarket hotel just south of the river more than four hundred very smart women are gathered together. Smart, it should be clarified, in every sense of the term. Not only are the attendees all business leaders, from the top of every profession they are in, but whenever the door swings open with another arrival it is as though we are at a fashion shoot. High heels, swishing scarfs, the power clothes of the international business elite: nobody – absolutely nobody – lets the side down. And it is clear from the outset that there most certainly is a side.

  The ‘Women Mean Business’ conference has been put together by The Daily Telegraph. Its major sponsors include NatWest and BT. The day is opened by the Minister for Women and Equalities, and is followed by a panel entitled ‘How Work Needs to Start Working for Women’. Many of the most successful and well-known women in business are here, along with several of the country’s most famous female broadcasters. There is a ‘fireside chat’ between the ‘head of enterprise’ at NatWest and the first female Serjeant at Arms at the House of Commons. Then more panels: ‘What are the Real Roadblocks to Women’s Success?’; ‘Closing the Gender Gap’; ‘Are Women at a Disadvantage in a Male-Dominated Investor World?’ The panels that do address the male half of the species have titles like ‘#MenToo: Men’s Crucial Role as Allies for Women’.

  It must be said that since all this has been aimed at women and since all but a couple of the people in the room are women, the female focus is inevitable. It is also inevitable that much of the discussion centres around issues to do with women in the workplace, including childcare issues. But there is also a distinct air of alliance in the room. An alliance of people who are put-upon. Whenever somebody wants to get a warm ripple of nods or applause from the audience they stress how much we need ‘confident women’. The surest way to get the room to tut volubly is to tell a story involving the bad behaviour of any ‘alpha male’. Examples of ‘alpha male’ behaviour include stories of men dominating things by talking too much. There seems to be a clear agreement in the room that whereas there is a great need for ‘confident women’ there is also a need for ‘less confident men’. As though by these means the sexes might in time meet somewhere in the middle.

  There is one other surefire way to get the crowd on your side. And that is for a woman on the stage to express concern, nervousness or a sense of ‘imposter syndrome’. One impressive, smart and striking young woman involved in a start-up business begins her contribution by saying all of these things. She is nervous and feels almost as if she shouldn’t be there, with all these amazing women in the room who have achieved so much. They applaud heartily and congratulate her on her bravery in saying this. Women need to be confident. But it seems that one good strategy for getting other women onside is to present yourself as not being at all confident. Almost as though you fear being shot down, particularly by other women. When it comes to Q and A one attendee sends in a question asking whether any other people in the room haven’t in fact found other women to be their biggest challenge in the workplace. This female remains anonymous.

  As one of the few men asked to speak on the day, I find myself on a panel entitled ‘Is the Focus on Promoting Women Holding Men Back?’ Our chair is a journalist from The Daily Telegraph. The other panellists are a British MP called Craig Tracey who heads a Parliamentary group supporting women, the female ‘Chief People Officer’ from The Daily Telegraph and the ‘UK Head of Female Client Strategy’ at J. P. Morgan. The consensus in the room is the same as the consensus that has emerged in nearly all public discussion, and is clearly in need of disrupting.

  The most striking thing is that there appear to be a set of confusions centring around the issue of ‘Power’. Every discussion so far has centred on a presumption that almost all relationships in the workplace and elsewhere are centred around the exercise of power. Knowingly or otherwise these women have all imbibed the Foucauldian world view in which power is the most significant prism for understanding human relationships. What is striking is not just that everyone seems to have paid lip-service to this, but that these women are focused only on one sort of power. This is a sort of power which – it is presumed – has historically been held solely by mainly old, mainly rich, always white men. It is why the joking and berating about the behaviour of ‘alpha males’ goes down so well. There is a presumption that if the alpha and maleness could be squashed out of these people, in some great majestic social-justice blending device, then the power squeezed out of them might be drunk up by women like those in the room today. That it will be used to nourish, and grow, those who deserve the power more.

  Here are deep waters. But I suggest in my contribution that our conversations are being limited by this misunderstanding. Even if we concede – which we should not – that power (rather than, say, love) is the most important force guiding human affairs, why are we focusing only on one type of power? There certainly are types of power – such as rape – which men can sometimes hold over women. And there is a type of power which some old, typically white, males might be able to hold over less successful people, including less successful women. But there are other types of power in this world. Historical old white man power is not the only such source. Are there not, after all, some powers which only women can wield. ‘Like what?’ someone asks. At which point, having waded in this far it only makes sense to wade further.

  Among other types of power that women wield almost exclusively, the most obvious is this. That women – not all women, but many women – have an ability that men do not. This is the ability to drive members of the opposite sex mad. To derange them. Not just to destroy them but to make them destroy themselves. It is a type of power which allows a young woman in her late teens or twenties to take a man with everything in the world, at the height of his achievements, torment him, make him behave like a fool and wreck his life utterly for just a few moments of almost nothing.

  Earlier we heard from the young, attractive woman, who was heading a start up, that she had a couple of times in her search for capital received inappropriate advances from men who were potential funders. The room had understandably tut-tutted. For that would indeed have been an abuse of power. But there is unspoken knowledge – and there are unspoken hypocrisies – beneath all such tut-tutting. Was everybody in the hall – including the tut-tutters – absolutely sure that the woman in question did not also wield some power? Are they certain that she would have been able to raise an equally large amount of capital if instead of looking rather strikingly like an international model she had (while equally smart and savvy) more closely resembled Jabba the Hutt? Or a mangy-looking old white man? It is no disservice to the abilities of the woman in question (and no let-off for any man behaving badly) to say that even the prospect of being in future proximity to such a person may not have worked entirely against her. Studies repeatedly show that – all else being equal – people who are attractive manage to climb higher in their chosen professions than their less attractive peers. Is physical attractiveness plus youth and womanhood such a negligible set of cards? Might not one or more of the men among her investors have thought at some point that even if nothing could, would or should ever happen between them, at least investor meetings with her would be looked forward to slightly more than another investor meeting with an elderly white male? And is this not – unpleasant as it is to admit – a type of power? One which is either denied or harnessed only outside of the realms of current mentionability, but a power that exists in the world nonetheless?

  This was not a point which was received warmly in the room. This was very definitely not what attendees wanted to hear. Before being able to proceed to my next unpopular point the Chief People Officer of The Daily Telegraph decided to take us there herself. Inappropriate behaviour in the workplace was a problem to be emphasized. A lot of women had terrible stories of this. Many women in the room doubtless had stories of their own. But it was suggested that the whole matter of relations between the sexes was really a very straightforward matter to arrange. Especially in the wake of the MeToo movement, everything had become clear. Men needed to realize that there was behaviour that was appropriate and behaviour that was inappropriate. And while conceding that the categories for both had changed again only very recently, it was also suggested that the mores were in some sense timeless as well as always obvious.

  My suspicion is that anyone who has ever worked in an office knows that it isn’t at all as straightforward as that. ‘Is it permissible to ask a colleague out for a coffee?’, I wondered aloud. This appeared to be a borderline case. If the coffee was requested more than once then this was an obvious problem. ‘Men have to learn that no means no’, it was suggested. ‘Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in front of your mother’ was suggested as one basis for a moral norm – ignoring the fact that there are plenty of perfectly legal, acceptable and very enjoyable acts that adults perform in their lives which they would not do in front of their mother. This was nit-picking, it seemed. ‘It’s really not that difficult,’ the Chief People Officer reiterated.

  Except that it is, isn’t it? And every woman in that room – like the vast majority of women outside it – knows that to be the case. For instance, they know that a considerable percentage of men and women meet their future life partner in the workplace. Even though the internet has changed much about dating life, most studies even from recent years show around 10–20 per cent of people still find their partners at their place of work. Given that successful people like those in the room are the sort of people who have a work-life balance that disproportionately favours work, they are going to be spending more time with their colleagues than at social engagements. So is it entirely wise to cordon off this significant tributary of potential life partners? Or to limit it to the tiny slivers of potential permitted by their organization’s Chief People Officer? To do so would be to demand the following: that every man had the opportunity to pursue only one woman in their work life. That that woman could be asked out for coffee or a drink on only one occasion. And that this sole shot must have an absolute, 100 per cent accuracy rating on the one occasion on which it was deployed. Is this a sensible, orderly or indeed humane way to arrange relations between the sexes? Of course most of the room laughs at the very suggestion. Because it is laughable. And it is risible. And it is also the law of the modern workplace."