Use the dickpic as a mortar grenade

We have discovered in the Netherlands that men abuse their positions of power in beautiful workplaces and that here too the most victims are women. In any case, no one can accuse us of being too early. At the same time, it has become clear that enough men are prepared to condone transgressive behavior and to keep a hand on the abusers of power. Everything points to Marc Overmar’s stalking behaviour, yet in recent days I’ve heard I don’t know how many times he was an excellent technical director. Ajax itself managed to put that in its statement. “Marc is probably the best football director that Ajax has had.”

Would a school board also get that out of their keyboard about a misbehaving principal? “He shows transgressive behavior towards teachers, but otherwise the best director we have had in years.” Would a supermarket chain get that out about a branch manager? “Excellent power, everything is on the shelf on time, he sometimes shows his cock unsolicited, but look at those profit margins.”

New. So that’s not going to work. If a CEO of any company exhibits abusive behavior towards his subordinates, it’s a freaking CEO. Then what else he has achieved doesn’t matter at all, because treating your employees with dignity is a basic condition for good leadership, one that is non-negotiable.

I heard one of the funniest Dutch writers compare Overmars to an artist of the kind who can’t keep their hands to themselves. Think Michael Jackson, Kevin Spacey, Louis CK This writer said that even with artists, misbehaving didn’t mean their work wasn’t good. That comparison is very wrong, I would allow the writer to write penal rules: “It is not part of the job description of a musician or actor that neighborhood boys or women are safe in his vicinity, but a director is responsible for a safe workplace.”

You can’t be a good boss, not even a mediocre one, if you systematically cross the boundaries of your employees. Even if you make millions, even if you make enough profit to fly to the moon and back, those two characteristics are mutually exclusive. End of discussion.

Monuments

In this newspaper too, a respected colleague was quick to praise Marc Overmars all the way into the eighties. In the AD another made a bit of poetry about the socially inept Overmars and his coffee cup. While men all over the country built monuments for Marc, they themselves flickered from their pedestals.

There is a lot going on about how bad this is for the Overmars family. That’s true, but what about the women this happened to? Imagine, you are a woman of somewhere between twenty and forty, a supporter of Ajax all your life. It’s because of your dad, he was. You went to all the home games together anyway. You applied to the club and damn you got hired. You came to work at Overmars and Van der Sar’s office. A dream came true, recovery: two dreams. Your dad didn’t fit in his skin with pride. Sometimes you sent him a note on letterhead with the Ajax logo. And then you stood there with a dick pic in your phone. Overmars asked what you were wearing.

Also read: #MeToo now high on political agenda

Ever since digital stalking started, you’ve been going to the office with more and more lead in your shoes. More and more often you skip matches. When you do go to the stadium, you know exactly where he is. Is something wrong? Your dad asked recently. There is nothing.

Will these women ever be able to work for a man again without hesitating before opening every message they receive from the chief? Will they change their clothing choice? Never enter a room with him if there isn’t at least one more person there? Can they still look at their husband, boyfriend, son or father without wondering if they might too…?

When I think of those women, I hear that Meau song in the background. “That shitty feeling that arose then, it will never go away, and you did.” You Marc, you Ali, you Jeroen. Big bosses, specialized in wrecking girl dreams.

Men who display this behavior, men who condone it, and men who silently pass misogynistic comments, destroy women’s trust in men.

When a woman pronounces that, there is always a man ready to shout that you should not lump all men together. Those men can also spend their time addressing friends, fathers, co-workers, and cousins ​​who are at the root of this misery, rather than prioritizing correcting a woman who is generous with the blame division. It is not the women who have to educate men in this matter, men have to arrange that among themselves.

Argentinian commercial

In 2018, an Argentine foundation launched a publicity campaign on violence against women, starring men. In a commercial, an adult son and his father watch football on TV together. The son tells the father that he wants to talk to him about a woman. The father says: “About that girlfriend of yours? Do you have another? Do you have two? You can tell me everything.” Elbow thrust, wink.

“About mommy,” says the son. “You’re abusing her, Dad. You tell her to shut up, that she doesn’t know anything about anything. You do it in front of people.” It results in a moving speech from the son to the father about what violence can be and what violence can do. The father sulks that everything is called violence these days, that feminism blows his mind. The son replies that verbal abuse also kills. It kills pleasure, it kills joy.

Read also the commentary: Rejecting transgressive behavior is really no longer enough

As I listened to the son, I thought of the women in the offices of Ajax, of Talpa, of the PvdA and of all those workplaces where men kill the pleasure that women can have in their work with their raunchy messages, bawdy comments and digital swaffel that in the best case, does not become analog swaffel.

In the commercial, the son manages to make his father think. At the end they speak into the camera to the male viewers. They encourage them to talk to each other about their own misbehavior.

traceable

The positive thing about the dick pic, as opposed to transgressive behavior in the elevator, warehouse or phone conversation, is that the pic gives you evidence. A dick pic of the boss can become a weapon in the employee’s hands. That’s why I find it special that there is so much fuss about the dickpic, compared to the less traceable border crossings. Maybe that’s because it’s about the cock, apparently still seen by many men as God’s gift to mankind† In the light of the cock, other body parts have to fade into the background: hands that grope, eyes that peek and mouths that utter rancidity.

In the primetime talk shows where the topic was covered, the monkeys on top of the rock are almost exclusively male. Beau, WE, HLF8, Humberto: all guys. The Hilversum patriarchate talks about how shameful it is that men abuse their power, but that does not change the fact that the doors to the top remain locked for women. Bee On 1 they have hired almost as many women as men for the presentation positions, but all the women are pretty, young and with a perfect BMI. In the men, neither age nor appearance seemed to matter. The youngest among the presenters (Erik Dijkstra, 44) is the same age as the oldest among the presenters (Giovanca Ostiana, 44).

“That shitty feeling that arose then, it will never go away, and you did it”

At Ajax, the board consists mainly of men. In general, women can still whistle for high positions across society. That’s changing, but it’s moving slowly. We have 5G and Delta Works, but a woman has never been Prime Minister.

That’s why we should embrace the arrival of the dickpic. This often traceable border crosser can ensure that worthless executives self-select and open up spots in the old boys network† Those places can finally be filled by skilled, reliable women, especially if the hiring committees realize that women at the top certainly don’t send dick pics. The dickpic can become the mortar shell that shatters the highest part of the glass ceiling. So keep sending them, you bunglers.

A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 12 February 2022

A version of this article also appeared in NRC in the morning of February 12, 2022