Yeah, No: That Ernst & Young Seminar
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I don't know if you've seen this story (it's been a big one for a few days now) but Ernst & Young had a kind of crazy women's development seminar that was a bit off in that epic, bad way that women's leadership training sometimes is. Like Emily Peck at HuffPost said, “at the height of the Me-Too movement, the message was ‘fix the women.'”
Some lovely quotes from the presentation:
Women’s brains absorb information like pancakes soak up syrup so it’s hard for them to focus, the attendees were told. Men’s brains are more like waffles. They’re better able to focus because the information collects in each little waffle square.
Ah!! I knew my brain felt soggy. Are men's waffle brains power waffles like Kodiak? Multigrain waffles? Plain old Eggos? Inquiring lady minds want to know!
Here are some of the presentation's tips on dressing for work:
“Don’t flaunt your body ― sexuality scrambles the mind (for men and women).”
The most important thing women can do is “signal fitness and wellness,” the presentation continues.
[One attendee, Jane] recalls being told that if you want men to focus on the substance of what you’re talking about, “don’t show skin.” If you do, men are less likely to focus “because of sex,” Jane recalls being told. The advice made her “feel like a piece of meat,” she said.
I've always advised against exposed cleavage or “unexpected skin” (such as with cutouts, croptops, etc) and I stand by that advice — but I hate this idea that a) a man's brain automatically goes haywire the second he sees an inch of flesh in a corporate environment and b) that it's women's duty to be proactive and prevent that, instead of the men adjusting their thinking. Also, while I've advised that the only thing your interview makeup should do is to help you look “alive and awake,” something about saying “the most important thing women can do is ‘signal fitness and wellness'” starts to converge with “strive to look 25.”
Oh yes, and there were some thoughts on how women can look like leaders: be a man and not annoyingly “childlike” like… women.
Before the workshop, women were also given a “Masculine/Feminine Score Sheet,” which had them rate their adherence to stereotypical masculine and feminine characteristics both on the job and outside the office.
The so-called masculine traits included “Acts as a Leader,” “Aggressive,” “Ambitious,” “Analytical,” “Has Leadership Abilities,” “Strong Personality” and “Willing to Take a Stand.”
The so-called feminine traits included “Affectionate,” “Cheerful,” “Childlike,” “Compassionate,” “Gullible,” “Loves Children” and “Yielding.” None of the feminine traits involved leadership ― ostensibly a focus of the training.
Oooof.
{related: the difference between being liked vs. respected as a boss}
So here's my question for you guys — what is your reaction to the Ernst & Young seminar? (ARE your brains like pancakes?) What is most offensive to you from the reported presentation; what is the least? (Would you say there's anything salvageable or “right take but said wrongly” in the mix?) On the flip side, who is getting women's leadership training RIGHT — have you been to any excellent women's leadership training, either internally with your company or out in the wild? (AND, when in your career was it helpful to you?)
Further Reading:
- Browse the #shebelongs hashtag on LinkedIn, which EY apparently uses for the events.
- ‘Rage-Inducing’: Sexist Ernst & Young Seminar Draws Women’s Reactions [Forbes]
- An Ernst & Young seminar reportedly suggested women have small brains and said they should avoid talking to men face-to-face [Business Insider]
Bloody effing hell. Words fail me.
Yeah, this.
I have several words but I’m quite sure none of them would make it through moderation…
Was this a joke? I am guessing not. Accountants are slimy. Look at Frank. I have to put up with his $hit every day, and I pay his salary with all of the hours I bill. And then I read about this? TRIPEL FOOEY on men who think of us as dumb bookends for them. FOOEY!
This sort of reinforces my desire to schedule depos when ever there is a “seminar” that is not subject-matter related to my actual job. Or a teeth cleaning. Or anything else.
I’ve always like waffles better than pancakes (though they’re more work), and I already show all those “masculine” characteristics and I hardly ever show any flesh apartment from my hands and face.
By golly, I really AM a man and I never knew it!
I wonder what that blood is every month…
I’m dying reading this! lol
I’m dying reading this, lol!!
I must be a man, then, too?
And one wearing floral skirts, FWIW. LOL.
OMG yes. Maybe 10 years ago we had a sort of “sensitivity to others “ HR training. The pre class quiz ID’d my male coworker friend as a female, and me as an (old ) dude- it advised me to take care how I interacted with women! Too funny. I think it decided that based on my use of Facts and Logic…
Geez the typos. Sorry!
Feminine Trait: Childlike.
Ummm…..
TIL all children are girls
This is insanity but I think actually offensive to both men and women. Particularly women obviously, but I know my Dad and my DH would both be incensed that ‘loves children’ and ‘compassionate’ are portrayed as a female characteristics. Did the people who wrote this live under a rock and fail to interact with other humans yet somehow get tapped to give this presentation?
Yeah that’s what I don’t get. It’s not just offensive in a workplace context, it’s offensive in a human context.
I wish it were true that this was offensive in a human context, but this is 100% the culture where I grew up.
Same here. It’s not-so-distant past for some of us. :/
My very successful husband loves children and is very compassionate.
Not justifying what this seminar did in any way, but I do think those traits are often culturally inculcated in women. To suggest they are innate or physiological is just dumb, but I suppose it could be helpful to a lot of women to point out that they have been socialized to not rock any boats, and it’s time to try to shake that socialization.
WTF.
So men’s brains are like waffles (read: they can compartmentalize) and they can focus better than women. Then why TF can they not keep their focus in the presence of a woman’s exposed collar bone? It’s always cute when two BS theories cancel each other out.
There are no words for how mad all of this makes me.
Lol yes
Obvi their brain is stuck in the “I see b@@b” compartment.
That’s the whole problem with waffles! And I love waffles! But all the syrup ends up pooling unevenly in some compartments, the butter in others, and you don’t get that delicious mix of buttery and mapley flavors in every bite like with a pancake. I’m not as much a fan of pancakes in general, but the ability to soak up syrup and butter is a feature, not a bug.
See, it’s actually true. However, in their approach to “compartmentalize” the data they actually missed the point. The fact that women absorb the data like a pancake is what allows them to synthesize it and see all of the connections. THAT is why the research is consistently showing that creativity, innovation and design thinking increases by more than 60% when teams include and/or are led by women. The waffle analogy only proves out how we got where we are today where organizations are starved of creativity and innovation. They simply missed the impact of the truth they shared. ?
This is like that episode of Always Sunny where the Gang ends up teaching a sexual harassment seminar.
I really hate the matching of ‘aggressive’ with ‘ambitious’ and ‘has leadership qualities.’ I am compassionate and empathetic, and those qualities inform and enrich my leadership and ambition, rather than taking away from it.
This is obviously an extreme example, but when I was in Big Law, a lot of the “women’s network” meetings focused on emphasizing the need to be more like men. I don’t think they ever described women as “childlike” but we were definitely told that women were meek and easy to please and men were strong and naturally better at leadership. So yeah….definitely not just an EY thing.
…and when we act more like men, we are called b!tches, difficult to work with and dramatic. Ugh.
Yep. Literally all the female associates/counsel got one of two criticisms at review time: “not assertive enough” or “difficult to work with.” There’s literally no middle ground for women.
Childlike?! Barf.
The pancake/waffle analogy (alternatively, spaghetti and waffles) is super common in evangelical churches. What they think it accomplishes, I do not know.
Yes! I was gonna say this. I’ve had, like, this exact seminar times a bunch labeled as “women’s retreats” at churches.
Rage at the evangelical church, mostly. LOL.
I have never been to a female focused professional development opportunity that I found helpful. In general, the only thing I have found useful is the dedicated time spent with other women that I might not already know well or work with. Honestly when I read this story, I wondered if I had ended up attending that course, I would have had the strength to walk about and tell whomever thought it was a good idea to offer it (HR?) how offensive it was.
This. Thank you. I agree 100%.
I wonder how something as awful as this EY seminar got scheduled. Like, are the whole top ranks this bad? Or a handful of people with terrible judgment and no one who will tell them that? Reminds me of the partner responsible for leading my biglaw firm’s US offices who would relay blatantly sexist and uncomfortably sexual stories to large groups of associates.
That said, I have found events for women helpful when they’re lead by top women in the firm and geared toward helping women with actual development. For example, I really enjoyed a firm event that helped build relationships between the firm’s lawyers, clients, potential clients, and other important women in the community.
I’m really wanting an explanation of how this happened, too.
Alternatively, punch them in the face. Because I am aggressive and difficult to work with.
(I’m really not. Haven’t physically attacked anyone since childhood. But my boss does claim I will if I don’t get my questions answered.)
I read a study once that said men are not as good as multi-tasking as women. Something about hunting requiring focusing on only that one thing, whereas women always had to focus on lots of things. So maybe men are like waffles, but I don’t think that means women cannot focus?! Also, this whole training seems really off because I think some of the best leaders I have known are “compassionate” and “yielding” (at the right times, like knowing when to back off and let someone junior handle something as part of training them up.) I think I am compassionate and cheerful, but also all of the traits listed as masculine. The whole thing seems offensive to everyone haha.
If men’s brains haven’t evolved at all since hunter/gatherer times, that’s a huge issue on a number of levels. Not to mention that hunting was not an exclusively male thing throughout history and prehistory.
I agree that this gender stuff is made up, but hunter/gatherer times were not that long ago for some people (and the hunter/gatherers of recent history didn’t somehow miss out on evolution).
Wow, those lists of masculine and feminine traits were really horrifying – who actually thinks this stuff!
I’m in a leadership program right now for in-house attorneys, and it’s been amazing! The first two days were taught by the CEO of Shambaugh Leadership (who focuses on coaching women in leadership), and she was awesome. I highly recommend her programs!
I’m in-house and looking for a seminar to attend next year. Would you mind sharing the name of the program?
Who was delivering this seminar? Did E&Y contract a 3P? Just curious….I had a professional coach a few years ago (sponsored by my employer) that worked with a lot of professional women at our firm and many others. She was probably around 60 years old…anyway she was helpful but maybe antiquated in some of her views on male/female dynamics? She oddly encouraged her female coachees to wear makeup in order to be treated well by men in the workplace. She also focused a lot on how women needed to change their behavior in order for men to behave properly. She would do her career coaching for 75% of the day and then take you to the Saks or Nordstrom’s makeup counter for a makeover. She was very smart but this was just so behind the times….and this was just 2 years ago….so don’t assume that only men were delivering this seminar. There are also women that subscribe to these views….
Articles said the 3P training was led by an older woman who had some connection to / worked with Ross Perot and now runs a company doing this. So Texas politics in the ’90s…sounds about right.
OP here…oh boy that sounds about right and might be same one!
Third party, the original article names the trainer and her company. From the details in the article it also sounds like an optional training that was part of their catalog, not something done at a company wide level. Something like 150 employees went through it, E&Y has 270k employees total.
I’m not surprised to hear any of it, or that it was taught by a women, or that most attendees opted in because they heard good things about it. 10-20 years ago this was very much what we were taught. Just this year a senior women in my professional services firm insisted we do a session on “Dressing for Success” as part our women’s leadership efforts. So many complaints from junior women but the session happened because no one was willing to stand up to her on the issue.
I work for EY, and know multiple people who have taken the full 12 day course. They absolutely loved it and raved about how great it was. It was highly recommended to me.
My perception on the gender related content is that it was used to drive a discussion, not that it was a diagnosis. One women I know even talked positively about take aways from this section. In a 12 day course over multiple months, I imagine the trust was there to have honest discussion around societal norms and how to bend them. When they tried to extrapolate to a 2 day course, this fell flat.
I’m out on the pancake/waffle pseudoscience through, full stop.
Yeah, as I said above, my sense is that the article pulled the scope of the training out of context a bit. It’s an opt in thing, not a company wide training, right? I can see how some of the discussion of societal norms and assumptions makes sense in a conversation embedded in a longer course but then don’t really work when compacted down to 2 days. Also agree some of it just seems like outdated BS.
Overall though I think E&Y may be getting dragged out of proportion to the scope of this training.
Just a note that it was Emily Peck, not Emily Post.
DOH… thank you, fixed it!
This is genuinely infuriating.
My reaction is what the actual f—-?! The most offensive item is the assertion that men and women’s brains process information differently resulting in men being better and compartmentalizing/focusing. I’m dying to see what “study” that assertion is based on.
The suggestion to avoid sexy attire is nothing new and stated differently would probably be fine, but I don’t know that it has a place in a leadership seminar. And frankly it’s advice that’s repeated so frequently by the time one has been working long enough to have attended an event like this I’m sure they’ve gotten the message.
Even the advice about clothing becomes more questionable when it’s presented as a universally human mandate. I know there’s a global professional class with consistent expectations, but in local business places, how much skin to show at work and how tight clothing can be does vary strikingly regionally and culturally.
Agreed. It’s such a red herring to get women worrying about this with respect to job performance/achievement; if we’re all busy worrying that our grooming/clothing matter, we won’t have as much time to notice all the real shit that’s going on, and less to actually DO work.
Of course this blog is an exception. Kat, thoughts on ideal attire are appropriate here, because it’s a corporate themed fashion blog! But I look at this for fun and inspiration. Can you even imagine a seminar for adult men spending any significant time talking about appearance???
So, EY contracted some training from a third-party vendor that was sub-standard and behind the times. Someone leaked it externally and their comms dept has a temporary sh t storm to deal with. Moral of the story? Screen your vendors, people ;)
This is 100% the moral of the story. Get your vendors in line. :)
So bad, I have a hard time believing this is real. I am an optimist, so want to believe this was from maybe the 1950s? But sadly, it’s like a lot of things we’ve found out in past years – we haven’t evolved nearly as much as we’d hoped. Being a 60 year old woman in high-tech for almost 40 years, I’ve never focused on being female, but being the best I can be as a contributor and leader in all ways. I think I’ll keep on doing that, and hope the lash back to EY teaches them that is how we succeed.
Dang it, now I want waffles.
LOL this made my morning.
I work for EY. When I first saw this story, I was shocked because it goes contrary to every other women’s training I’ve attended. On the whole, I’m proud to work for EY and I think the firm does a lot to empower women. I’ve attended leadership training for women that focuses on growing your network, empowering yourself, projecting confidence, etc…basically the opposite of this training.
I have heard from people who attended this training that while this segment was awful, the way it was presented in the article was mischaracterized. Several women went to management after the training and the external vendor was replaced and the training was retooled.
Proud of the way EY has handled this. Our US firm is run by a woman and she’s been out front on developing women and promoting women through the ranks. When the story broke Monday, we got an email then a video explaining that yes we screwed up with this vendor, we’ve revamped the training, and this is not representative of our values. Every company makes mistakes and EY made a big one here, but on the whole it’s not representative of my experience at the firm.
I have first hand knowledge of a training with the same vendor and can confirm that this was mischaracterized. Yes, some of the content was dated (see Ross Perot reference and age noted above), but the module was focused on understanding the stereotypes that exist in the business world and how you can get past those. The vendor was sharp in many other aspects and I did not hear about waffles versus pancakes, which is completely inane if true.
As you pointed out this is insulting all the way around. My husband works in a female dominated industry (he’s a nurse). In some hospitals he has been required to use the nurses locker room and showers. Guess what?! He’s been able to be around women all day, even changing in the same room, and not become sexually crazed. A bra and underwear is generally no more revealing than a bathing suit. This is like a throw back to the bad 80s.
The company that invented this seminar thinks that they can lay low, rebrand and rerelease their “training sessions.” I’ve been watching them like a hawk. They stormed google reviews trying to counteract the negative ones posted after this news broke. They killed their old website and released a new one. They obtained new phone numbers. The company is Marsha Clark & Associates. They are now called “Marsha Clark’s Power of Self” on Facebook.
why would they do this?….Yikes!