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Notes -
Sinic as in northeast Asian as a catchall. China, Japan, Korea. Extends to legacy diaspora that maintained their cultural continuity too, like the overseas Chinese in southeast asia and the old holdouts in Flushing, Queens (the foreign Chinese are entirely bleached otherwise).
The point about agility being traded off against personnel excesses when implementing HR practices and the presented modal sinic organization being identical to all small enterprises holds, but I still maintain that sinic management companies are unique in ways I have to take time to articulate. I am myself Chinese, I have worked in large and small organizations white and Chinese and Japanese and Indian, lead and followed and strayed. There exists a unique quality of dictatorial fiat extant and expected of higher management, most analogous to an normally absent but overwhelming if present paternalistic military hierarchy.
Specifics on work style and internal strategy are secondary to the issue at hand, which is women speaking out against harassment. The non-HR system was obviously prone to abuses, with unworthy men exploiting their position to the detriment of junior female hires. However, I suspect that the HRfication of companies allows unworthy men to be deemed so by their failure to exercise the now-female hidden levers of power. In the older system, the unworthy men were exploiting a relationship arbitrage: their power distance to the overlord was shorter than the underlings, so suffer they must. In the HR world, the power distance is relative to the org tools each party can exploit. This levels/upends the playing field significantly, and lets juniors have a means of undermining superiors when it was impossible before.
Why would women complain about this? I will risk the ire of many here, but I am 100% sure it is a case of 'know your place, trash'. How dare this man, no matter his station, dare sully my environment with his unwanted affection. If the woman could, she would reserve her energy only for the most deserving of chads that are in her orbit, whether colleagues or clients.
Why do I posit this with such certainty? Because the greatest pushback against fraternization punishments in professional partnerships here is from women. Specifically, powerful senior women who boosted their early careers by dating and eventually marrying senior partners or clients. The entertainer gets to determine who is worthy to be entertained, and these women judge the game to be fair now as it was then.
No one wants to be sexually harassed. But once they have a taste of power, women have also found themselves indulging in its trappings and seeking means to perpetuate it for themselves.
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