Did Women Ruin the Workplace? I certainly hope so

The “Good Old Days” Weren’t That Good

Originally titled “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?”, a New York Times opinion writer is now asking if ‘liberal feminism’ ruined the workplace.

You know what? The answer is yes. Yes, we did. Let’s stop pretending that we didn’t ruin the 1950s workplace, and the ‘60s workplace, and the ‘70s workplace.

We ruined them because they sucked. They only worked for white men of a certain age and disposition—for everybody else, they were a nightmare.

This workplace we supposedly ruined: women weren’t allowed to have decision-making input or resist male advances, Black people didn’t even have the vote until 1965, and most immigrants were relegated to crappy jobs unless they came over as professionals—and then they were tokenized.

The majority of the work was designed to extract free female labor, so men could hang out, drink scotch, and objectify women while pretending humans weren’t real things that needed care and consideration.

When we challenge this system, we’re told it’s just about qualifications and merit, and our lack thereof. Let’s have a look at the current state of our economies and communities though, and they don’t seem to be doing great right now.

If women working for free running a household and taking care of children and making sure everyone is fed and the school bake sale doesn’t poison people is required for the economy and our communities to be healthier, why are women the ones who are dumb?

And if men are so smart, and women have ruined the workplace, why don’t men just leave since it’s so awful now, and go garden.

Or start community groups to replace what us callous women have left behind?

The Pipeline Excuse

For years, we’ve been fed the line that C-suites and senior executive positions were mostly white men because “there just wasn’t enough talent moving up.”

Let’s decode that excuse. Yes, hiring practices were part of it, but there’s a deeper truth: women, Black people, Indigenous people, and Asian people were not willing to sell out their values to get promoted.

Why would you want to advance in a system designed to kill your spirit?

So we left. Then the next generation tried, and some stayed, but many left too. It’s not that there isn’t a pipeline—it’s that the pipeline is full of sewage, and people with dignity choose not to swim in it.

And this is where the real resistance to change becomes clear.

What We’re Really “Ruining”

And here’s where it gets interesting. The real challenge isn’t about competence or qualifications—it’s about power.

People (coff, coff, men) in the executive suite are refusing to let go, convinced they have a divine right to be treated like princes and kings while viewing the rest of us as livestock. Did women ruin that system? I certainly hope we did, and I hope we keep ruining it.

Because what we’re really talking about isn’t ruining work—it’s reclaiming it for our dreams, and the dreams of our families and communities.

Work as Medicine vs. Work as Poison

Our work is the most powerful thing we have. It’s how we make manifest our purpose here on earth. It’s how our gifts are developed. It’s how we heal. Our work is the avenue through which we make our dreams real. Or at least, that’s what it should be.

Instead, we’re trapped in an economy that reduces this sacred exchange to mere transactions, paying us poultry money to build some lunatic sociopath’s dreams of becoming a trillionaire, all while sacrificing time with our families and communities.

Resisting the temptation to make work about money and instead embracing its true value in building our lives is the path to freedom. Because our power lies in this knowledge, we have been told that money is more important than time with your children or clean water and healthy ecosystems.

The Real Resistance

This is where the machinery of oppression kicks into high gear. Look at how hard AI is being pushed, despite widespread resistance.

Why? Because it’s another tool to avoid accountability, to maintain control, to keep building their dream—not ours. Our work is being turned against us, twisted into something that serves their vision rather than our communities.

That future is maintained through violence, intimidation and fear which is one reason it feels inevitable and also why so many of us are bent under the yoke. There is an alternative though.

The Future We’re Building

Our work is our medicine. With correct focus, and a few community lunches, it’s the way we heal ourselves and our communities.

Liberal feminists, and all the people that colonization and colonialism keep trying to silence have been saying this for generations.

To all the influencers who say “I can’t believe nobody said this before”—get over ourselves. People have been saying this since Columbus hit the ocean, and actually probably before that. What we need to say is “Following a long tradition of people who refuse to be controlled, I resist my work and my worth being commodified.”

So when they ask if we ruined the workplace, the answer is “Yes. Thank you for noticing.”

Embrace the “Ruining”

We ruined it by wanting to be respected. We ruined it by demanding time off. We ruined it by speaking up when we disagree. We ruined it for the men who think they are gods, and I am here for it.

I am absolutely here for ruining any workplace that requires our souls as admission price.

The frustrating irony: this “ruining” might actually save the men who resist it most. Look at the male loneliness epidemic. It will definitely start to address the youth mental health crisis.

These are direct products of the toxic workplace culture we’re dismantling and the unsustainable future it was building. By “ruining” their playground, we might just help them find their humanity again.

I don’t even need to read the article to know that whatever this person with an opinion wrote about whether women ruined the workplace, the answer is yes. And we’re not done ruining it yet.

Want to be part of the rebuilding and not sure where to start?

I have 2 spots open for November to get tailored coaching from me.

Building something new can be intimidating, for support for you or you know someone, book a call with me here https://tidycal.com/trisha2/30discover