According to Hannah Seligson, who blames her professional failures on her gender, while academia is meritocracy, the workplace is unnatural and hostile to women.

Falling prey to the usual traps of sexism, she argues that women often find less professional success because they get sensitive about criticism, are afraid to ask for the money they deserve, and—prepare yourself for a pathetic excuse— “Women don’t have as much of a tradition of business networking (“Do you want to go grab a beer?” doesn’t quite roll off our tongues) and, understandably, they may feel awkward or clueless about how to do it.” Apparently it is as difficult for Seligson to invite people for drinks as it is for her to bypass gender cliché-ridden self-pity.

Mostly, the article succeeds only in exposing her as devoid of common sense. She writes:

I can tell you that it doesn’t work to go up to someone and say, “Will you be my mentor?” That’s the workplace equivalent of “Will you be my boyfriend?”…

 

Young women also need to learn how to speak salary, a language that many men already seem to know. Coming into the work force, I thought that, just as my professor had given me the grade I deserved on my political science midterm, my company would pay me what I “deserved.”

Well obviously if you try to treat your job like a Big Sister program, your boss isn’t going to jump for joy at the possibility of talking shop with you. And has it ever occurred to Seligson that perhaps academic grading isn’t based upon merit, that in the “post-feminist” era of which she speaks, academia has sometimes over-coddled female students with excessive sensitivity and emotional cheerleading rather than prepared them for the workforce?

Of course an unfortunate sexist element remains, but senseless women who refuse to seek higher salaries, are afraid to invite co-workers for drinks, and treat their bosses like babysitters are not victims of a biased world. They just need to start acting like women and stop acting like Munchausen Sydrome patients.