The first editor of The New York Times crossword was a woman — Margaret Farrar. She spent decades in the job and established many of crosswords' "fair play" rules (and a few other rules that have been gently pushed aside as the form evolved).

She started at the Times in 1942, but had been constructing puzzles since the 1920s — "hundreds," by her own estimate. And she certainly accepted puzzles constructed by women.

I know this mostly offhand as an inveterate crossword buff, but also through a couple minutes of Googling. Why doesn't the editor at The Atlantic?

Whenever men complain about the "glass basement," I can't help but think "excuse me, women have always worked at dangerous jobs. It's just that when it came to women, those jobs tended to pay minimum wage, if anything. (Factory workers and farm workers, for example.) When will men demand a fair share of THOSE jobs? Not to mention the safer office jobs women do that ALSO pay minimum wage?"

"Is there anything being done to address these issues?"

What's with the passive voice?

"I can't feel good about putting my work into an outlet that I feel has very different values than my own."

Good lord Ms. Falcon, you are selling a product not promising eternal loyalty! Should the paper refuse to sell to subscribers who have "values" different from their editorial position? Should grocery stores vet their customers "values" before selling them any food?

You need to buy a large bed so you have a nice place under which to live. Your lifetime membership in the church of the Perpetually Offended is approved.

What's with the passive voice? ~ Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy@GMail.com) at March 23, 2020 4:44 AM

Because, instead of creating and submitting a few crossword puzzles to address this issue, she expects others, namely government, to take care of it.

When will men demand a fair share of THOSE jobs?

I'm curious, what is the color of the sky in your world?

Well, since you are offering Lenona should I send a list of names over? Better those jobs than no jobs. There are a lot of people of both genders who've been laid off over this corona stuff.

"Should grocery stores vet their customers "values" before selling them any food?"

Absolutely! Why should deplorables be allowed to eat?

> women have always worked at
> dangerous jobs

Lenona, no.

The riskier, most distant, more punishing jobs in this century and the last are held by men, and it's indisputable.

The Coronavirus death rate is 2.8% for males but only 1.7% for females. Haven’t heard any feminists demanding equality in death, however.

Oh, Lenona, you are a hoot!

Look at the on-the-job mortality statistics. Then look up the dictionary definition of "dangerous." I don't think that word means what you think it means ...

Jay R, you just made clear that you don't care about any injury that happens to someone else so long as it does not result in death or at least a coma. Like, maybe, losing parts of your fingers? Or breaking an ankle and getting scalded with hot coffee, as can easily happen when you wait tables and some kid runs in front of you? Not to mention the pay that gets lost while you wait to hear if you still have your job?

Hint: "Dangerous" is not a synonym for "fatal" or even "potentially fatal," necessarily. You knew that, right? Well, maybe you didn't. Maybe "hazardous" and "dangerous" mean different things to you, but the dictionary doesn't agree.

Not to mention that, as MRA Dr. Helen Smith will tell you, plenty of young men have come to realize that there's often no real reason for a man to take a HIGH-paying, super-dangerous job if he simply thinks twice before even RISKING having children that he probably didn't really want anyway. After all, even if you do want kids, why risk depriving them of a father when fathers are so important?

Crid, I didn't contradict you, you know. I merely pointed out that dangerous, minimum-wage jobs exist and that few men have been known to complain when women dominate those jobs. Or other minimum-wage jobs. Even conservative writers like Alex Beam make fun of MRAs, who often don't acknowledge that minimum-wage jobs exist. Among other things.

But it's well-known that men DO complain - often in vicious, illegal ways - when women WANT to do blue collar, traditionally male jobs that might cost them their lives, but that also happen to pay well.

I should have said "often don't acknowledge that minimum-wage WORKERS exist, whether male or female."

And re the last paragraph: The point, of course, was that men can't complain about the lack of women in the "glass basement" if they don't really want them there anyway.

Not to mention:

If women, especially single mothers, can't afford to settle for minimum-wage jobs, but IF they're also likely to get brutally harassed when they try to get ANY traditionally male jobs in their particular community, it's only logical that they will aim far more often for the jobs where, at least, they won't have to worry about natural or mechanical threats to life and limb in addition to the threats from their co-workers. Of course, that typically means finding a way to go to college first- no easy matter for many.

> but that also happen to pay well.

"Men complain" is not evidence of economic dysfunction, or dysfunction of any kind.

The question is always If women will work for so much less, why would anyone hire men?. And the answer, especially in air-conditioned, safe settings, is that ever-fewer do.

See Sommers. Much more from her if you want it.

> if they don't really want
> them there anyway.

I mean, I didn't know the girls were going to not get jobs if they didn't feel a rich welcome from their surrounding workers.

Comments like that make me wonder what women think the workday is like for men.

Question for men: In how many jobs, especially for competitive, perhaps skilled talent, have you been made to feel comfortably "wanted there" by your associates and rival performers?

Angry harassment and resentment against women who "don't know their place" isn't a sign of dysfunction? That's what I meant by "complain," and "don't want" as you knew very well.

Crid, don't play dumb. You know I wasn't talking about unequal pay for equal work, per se - after all, I have no idea how much that even happens anymore. I have never heard of cleaners living in suburbia without affluent spouses.

Also, no one who's read "Kitchen Confidential" should be surprised at the idea that many or most women are not about to apply for jobs where they could easily find themselves surrounded by not so petty male criminals whose only sense of pride comes from working in an all-male company - or from working in one where men hold all the top jobs. I obviously wasn't talking about men with any sense of manners or self-discipline.

Nor have I ever expected to make REAL friends at work - even though I have. I merely expected people to be civil. Only one co-worker ever had the gall to suggest that I should quit - because HE wanted my job (yes, he said so) and somehow had the delusion that he needed the money more than I did. Granted, we were both about 20 at the time, but IMO, that is way too old for such arrogance.

Lenona, what the Hell?

> You know I wasn't talking about
> unequal pay for equal work, per se

Per se que?

's just that when it came to women, those jobs tended to pay minimum wage, if anything.

"Only one co-worker ever had the gall to suggest that I should quit - because HE wanted my job" ~Lenona

Wow, you've been coddled in the workforce. My sister works in a union job and that job is protected by federal guarantees. About the only way anyone leave the job is willingly or in a pine box. She has had people both above and below her try all those tactics. Called every nasty word in the dictionary. Such is the stuff union jobs are made of.

As a man I've seen a coworker try to plant evidence another person was doing cocaine at work. I've seen people intentionally fart at another person's desk. Even at the engineering level I've had people intentionally sabotage my work. Not having worked union jobs thankfully my work experiences are much more civil than my sister's. But even so they are nowhere near what you think is the minimum, Lenona.

By the way, that line isn't arrogance. It is a cheap negotiating tactic. Sometimes it works, most of the time it doesn't. They use it against both men and women. It is up to you to not fall for it.

Ben, who said I was talking about union jobs? I have never claimed expertise in that subject.

Also, I don't see why one can't call a tactic "arrogance." They are not mutually exclusive. How is it NOT arrogant - or at least rude - to say, in effect, "gimme" without even saying "please" or offering anything in return? Or to assume that you somehow deserve what someone else rightly earned?

Even haggling can be beneficial to both the buyer and seller - but that was not the case, since I wasn't "selling."

Mind you, I didn't give in, back then. I only regret not being blunt enough - as in "you're joking, of course. Now let's concentrate on this task." In a cold voice. At least then, he might have taken the risk of revealing his motives. Maybe he felt that women shouldn't work at non-traditional jobs. Maybe he felt women should only be doing unpaid work. Maybe he felt women shouldn't be in college either, which was why I was working. (I no longer remember whether he knew that or not.)

Anyway, on to Crid. Maybe I should have said "when it came to 'women's work,' those jobs tended to pay minimum wage, if anything."

Minor example: One could easily argue that babysitting whiny or mischievous children is a good deal trickier and more stressful than mowing the average lawn. But, well into the 1970s or later, according to one recent history book I found, it was quite normal to pay boys far more per hour for the latter than girls got paid for the former. (Btw, nowadays, parents often want a babysitter who knows CPR - so I hope they're willing to pay accordingly.) Of course, back then, how many girls would get hired to mow lawns, even if they were known to be reliable workers?

Miss Manners has also pointed out that the long-standing, unspoken attitude was that it was "not quite nice to give women money." As in, REAL ladies only did unpaid work and practically took pride in not getting paid for it. (I've heard evangelicals talk like that, with regard to female volunteer workers.) So that trickled down, in a way, to those women who HAD to work for money. (Of course, MM had every sympathy for them.)

Thankfully, nowadays, you don't often hear of neighbors expecting/demanding FREE babysitting services from, say, women without young children - that used to happen too. Or trying to guilt-trip girls but not boys into volunteer work - as opposed to making polite pleas to the general public. Even SAHMs are not automatically assumed to be available for PTA work.

Btw, Ben, why should common courtesy ever be called "coddling"? OK, maybe you didn't mean it that way, but other people likely do. If clients are entitled to it, why not one's co-workers or one's employees?

You are whining about how poorly women get treated while your complaints are better than most men get treated. You may as well be the rich guy complaining about how anyone who can't afford a $100k car should just walk everywhere.

As for your idea of what is 'common courtesy' that isn't common. Deal with it.

Why for clients but not for coworkers? Well, that just shows how clueless you are again. You want money from a client. You give them random free stuff trying to shake that money out of them. This isn't just being polite or nice. It is a calculated action aimed at future profit. There are very good reasons clients and coworkers are treated differently. You may as well be asking why can't I get a prescription from the checkout person at Walmart.

As for the union comment, I provided both union and not union examples. They are different enough situations to bear mentioning both of them. I never claimed you were talking about a union job.

As an addon. How many times have you gone in for an annual review and your boss suggested firing you? Both directly and otherwise. You may call that rude Lenona but it is a common salary negotiating tactic. How many times has the boss provided free donuts or other food items? He didn't do that out of the kindness of his heart. How many times have you been told 'It's not my way or the highway.' only for the next sentence to make clear it really was my way or your fired?

Face it Lenona, you have been coddled.

Now YOU'RE playing dumb.

I was talking about a co-worker, not a boss, and you know it. Given the details I gave, how was that not rude - and condescending?

I can also understand that profanity use is nothing personal in some workplaces, but hostility and insulting one's co-workers - as opposed to making polite, rational criticisms - is hardly helpful to the team effort. So why SHOULDN'T people oppose such rudeness? Hint: In "Kitchen Confidential," it's made very clear that there IS a strong etiquette code between co-workers, even in the most profanity-laden kitchens. What's wrong with that? (I doubt Amy would disagree.)

From Miss Manners:

"...Even when there were all-male workplaces, anyone who went about spouting unpopular opinions, blabbing about his personal life, grabbing people, and writing on the walls was in trouble. Gentlemen were expected to observe professional etiquette.

"Miss Manners lives in hope that they will someday learn to extend this courtesy to their female colleagues."

The rest of it, if you like (this includes a letter from an unhappy man):

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1995-07-28-9507280006-story.html

Also, you made it sound as if I got better treatment than my co-workers. I didn't. They were simply civil workplaces.

Sorry Lenona. I'm not being dumb. Nor did I misunderstand your story. It appears you've just lived a coddled life and don't understand what many other people go through on a daily basis.

Resources are finite. Coworkers are competitors as well as teammates. You can do both at the same time. Welcome to life.

> hostility and insulting one's co-workers
> - as opposed to making polite, rational
> criticisms - is hardly helpful to
> the team effort.

Not trying to give you a hard time here, but you sound terribly naive.

Work is competitive. The people there can care about your feelings if they want to, but it's not required. If there's candy on the table —raises, promotions, authority, good projects or a chance to impress the busty girl at the coffee cart— then yeah, people are going to say and do hurtful things to get ahead of the pack. That's the way it's been for men since "work" meant two guys going out to hunt meat with two sticks and a rock.

Dear Woman, I like you and you fascinate me, but there's no competitive workplace where people seriously looked to Miss Manners for career guidance, even in "team effort," which is only a one point in a constellation of motives and interests.

Ben, one can also be a civilized competitor, if only for the sake of not making too many dangerous enemies.

And Crid, MM was a journalist and a professor for years, so she no doubt knows plenty about the tradition of backstabbing and such. Yet, I've never heard anyone make an argument against her particular brand of work-related advice - and she's written plenty of that over the years. Example from 1991:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/12/15/office-impolicies/ea35ec3a-aa69-4075-ab13-255505a4bfea/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9434c7fda886

Excerpts:

...What is welcome sexual attention in the workplace?

Welcome to whom? Even if the two people involved are as happy as can be, with themselves and each other, and the beauty of love -- is sexual attention in the workplace welcome to the client who is waiting to get business done? To co-workers who may have to cover for preoccupied lovers, and who are given grounds to suspect that personal feelings could influence promotions and raises?

To the employer who is paying two people for the time during which the sexual attention is being welcome?

It is Miss Manners's contention that professional behavior should be strictly -- well, professional. This does not include any remarks or behavior that call attention to gender, however charming such overtures might be in the social arena.

But it goes further than that. It also means ending the phony use of the forms of friendship and leisure in the workplace, and not requiring pseudo-socializing after hours as part of any job. The proper office demeanor is cordial, cheerful and helpful, but somewhat distant and impersonal.

It has, of course, been argued that Miss Manners's system would end the human race, as the workplace is now the chief venue people have to meet prospective mates.

But actually she is not all that mean. Of course people who are thrown together with common interests may get fond of one another and develop real friendships, romances and marriages. Miss Manners is only mandating that they develop away from the workplace...

And here she points out that there's good PC as well as bad PC:

https://www.deseret.com/1995/6/25/19178973/rudeness-abounds-on-both-sides-of-p-c

This one could be called a follow-up to the last one

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2002/02/06/bristle-while-you-work/87b686c6-a3ea-4852-ad91-e0588b513760/

It has a long letter that starts with this sarcastic sentence:

I work as a supervisor in a federal government agency. Through our excellent and infallible sensitivity training, I have learned that as a white male from Appalachia, with a Southern accent and German heritage, in excellent mental and physical health, I am perceived as...

Her response:

Please excuse Miss Manners for hoping that you have a penchant for hyperbole. She despises that callous process now called "sensitizing," but can it be as bad as all that? Were you really told not to talk to anyone, or were you told that unless you learn to talk politely, it would be better not to say anything?

Politeness in a professional setting is different from social politeness, and can even be the opposite. Socially, it is rude to criticize people; at the workplace, it may be a necessity. Professionally, it is rude to mention people's personal attractiveness; socially, it might be a necessity.

Miss Manners begs you to attempt to maintain a cheerful distance from your co-workers, neither indulging in personal conversation and jokes as you would with friends, nor snubbing them. If this does not meet the requirement, and if you were really enjoined to refrain from saying "please," then she begs you to blow the whistle.

(end)

> I've never heard anyone make
> an argument against her particular
> brand of work-related advice

Let me do so for you, now:

If you approach your career presuming that a competitive, and competitively-staffed, enterprise will only be suitably rewarding to its workers when each encounters fellows with nothing more challenging than "polite, rational criticisms," then you are going to be sourly and enduringly disappointed.

And you'll have earned it.

The most exciting business of my generation would be broadly described as "microcomputers." The three commanders who made it happen —Gates, Jobs, and Grove— savaged each other mercilessly as their partnerships nurtured a planetary revolution… And Lord God in Heaven knows they each tormented their employees in the most personal, relentless and humiliating style… Even as they created tens of thousands of millionaires. It was personal.

It means something that the source of one of Martin's queries was "a supervisor in a federal government agency." Even without pressure from external firms, the unpleasantries of professional competition are present whether you like them or not, or whether you're just certain they shouldn't happen or not. And you're doing young people (young women especially) a terrible disservice by describing them as antiquated, or something which can be readily extinguished with a visit to HR.

That's the quintessence of 'safe space' culture. How's that working out for everybody?

Please get back to me when multiple business people write to MM directly - or to well-known business publications - to say what you said. One critic isn't exactly convincing, when decades of her columns haven't provoked such responses.

If you're saying you can't have any real, official etiquette system in a competitive workplace, consider how much violent crime takes place over issues of "respect."

In 1994, MM said: "There is no use telling Miss Manners that no one cares about etiquette any more. Even outlaws are outraged when others do not follow its rules."

But, at the same time, I have never heard MM defend "safe spaces."

And she doesn't have much sympathy in certain other business scenarios either. From 1984 (it includes a consumer complaint she made personally, on the phone):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1984/06/03/putting-pity-on-hold/29f93887-3252-44c0-b9cf-a4331e984270/

Excerpt:

...Miss Manners is not sure when this country ceased to be known as a place where things got done and became a place where people specialize in explaining why things haven't been done. Perhaps it is our sympathetic natures combined with the reluctance to judge others, or perhaps it is the influence of therapeutic methods that stress motivations and handicaps rather than results.

But from the smallest children to those in the most authoritative positions, the explanation has come to take the place of the achievement--or even the apology that used to accompany an admission of failure. Telling one's troubles has become an art form, no longer limited to one's intimates, and our biggest heroes are those--hostages and other victims--with the greatest claims on our sympathy. We have become a nation of wounded birds.

That being the case, Miss Manners had better set some standards for throwing oneself on the mercy of others:

The truly sympathetic and considerate person never asks sympathy of those to whom he does not offer it. Thus recitals of troubles, other than those made to professionals in a position to help, such as doctors, teachers and bartenders, are confined to family and close friends, whose troubles one also shares.

The need for doing one's duty, whether it is a moral, personal or professional duty, cannot be satisfied by explaining why one hasn't done it. The explanation needed, at times of failure, is how one plans to make up for it.

The sympathy, when someone has failed to do what was required, is due not to the person who failed, but to the person whose expectations he has failed. Instead of asking for understanding or pity with the confession of error, one apologizes for the inconvenience it has caused.

Miss Manners is well aware that such firmness seems to belie her commitment to kindness and tolerance, and does not attempt to offer the explanation of the current telephone situation's having driven all of us beyond endurance. But she cannot think that anyone profits from being a beggar and is aware that those with the severest handicaps in life triumph when they insist upon their strengths, rather than their weaknesses...

(Snip)

"Gentlemen were expected to observe professional etiquette.

"Miss Manners lives in hope that they will someday learn to extend this courtesy to their female colleagues." ~MM via Lenona

I gotta tell you Lenona, longshoremen have been longshoremen for a very long time. Miss Manners is wrong. But you've made up your mind about how things are. Just accept that you appear to have convinced no one.

> One critic isn't exactly
> convincing, when decades of
> her columns haven't provoked
> such responses.

It's funny that you put it exactly that way… As if you'd expect any and all who were unimpressed by her to [A.] seek her out and read her anyway and [B.] show up on her venue to refute her presumptions.

Lenona... Angel... She's a newspaper feature writer. She's there to amuse, and perhaps inform. This is like learning history from movies: They were made to sell tickets, not tell truths.

Kiddo, if you wanna let her compose your business conduct, carry on... But no butthurt, okay? Don't come cryin' when others are pursuing their business demeanor by examples other than "Miss Manners."

You are not a precious snowflake, the rest of us were not brought here to keep you properly chill.

Have you ever heard the expression "white people problems"? It's kind of like that.

I get the impression Lenona thinks the workforce was the very picture of civility before women entered it, and the men morphed into monsters just to make the new entrants feel bad. Long before women entered the workforce, men were killing their (male) coworkers over things like union formation. The worst of what she describes really does represent cleaning up their act once women entered the workforce.

Sort of how people have this belief that politics was more civil in the past than now, ignorant that in the mid 19th century, one Senator beat another unconscious right on the floor of the US Senate during debate.

Lenona, so many angry walls of text; how DO you walk normally with that big chip on your shoulder?

I get the impression Lenona thinks the workforce was the very picture of civility before women entered it, and the men morphed into monsters just to make the new entrants feel bad. Long before women entered the workforce, men were killing their (male) coworkers over things like union formation. The worst of what she describes really does represent cleaning up their act once women entered the workforce.

Sort of how people have this belief that politics was more civil in the past than now, ignorant that in the mid 19th century, one Senator beat another unconscious right on the floor of the US Senate during debate.

Lenona, so many angry walls of text; how DO you walk normally with that big chip on your shoulder?

I get the impression Lenona thinks the workforce was the very picture of civility before women entered it, and the men morphed into monsters just to make the new entrants feel bad. Long before women entered the workforce, men were killing their (male) coworkers over things like union formation. The worst of what she describes really does represent cleaning up their act once women entered the workforce.

Sort of how people have this belief that politics was more civil in the past than now, ignorant that in the mid 19th century, one Senator beat another unconscious right on the floor of the US Senate during debate.

Oh, and regarding all those terribly dangerous jobs done by women in the past, two words:coal mining. Plus, injury rates tend to track fatality rates from one industry to another.

Lenona, so many angry walls of text; how DO you walk normally with that big chip on your shoulder?