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Unpopular Opinion: Women Make Terrible Leaders

Welcome to Unpopular Opinion, a new semi-regular series on Going Concern addressing topics impacting the accounting profession from the contrarian perspective. Have an unpopular opinion to share? Get in touch. Note: opinions are not necessarily mine. 

Diversity and inclusion are hot-button issues not only in accounting but in the business world at large these days, with entire teams of old white guys declaring a renewed focus on building teams with diversity in mind. This attitude extends to leadership roles, with Cathy Engelbert as a recent example of a woman heading up an accounting firm. Wait, maybe she’s not the best example since she only lasted one term.

What was I saying? Oh right, chicks in accounting. Unless you’re a Big 4 firm in the heart of San Francisco where 95% of new hires are Asian women, chances are your firm is a little light on the ladies, especially in leadership. Know what? That’s totally OK, and here’s a few reasons why:

Why change something that already works? Look, this great nation was founded over 200 years ago by old white guys. Old white guys are literally the foundation America was built on. If you’re any kind of patriot, you’ll acknowledge that old white guys are part of what makes America the greatest country in the world. Why mess with something that clearly worked well enough to create America out of nothing but other people’s land and dreams of freedom?

Women are emotional. Look, I’m a woman so I can admit that we can sometimes be emotional. The whole reason the word “hysterical” exists is because some women in old-timey days were crazy bags of emotion, annoying the shit out of their husbands. We can’t have that, especially in business. It’s not like grown professional women are capable of making rational decisions, what with our feral lady parts and constantly surging hormones running the show.

Hair. Hair everywhere. No one wants a boardroom that looks like a second-tier state university dorm bathroom. And the bobby pins, so many bobby pins. As we all know, men are obviously way cleaner and don’t leave their head yarn stuck to every chair they sit in.

Kids. The female sex is capable of nuturing life, and while this is pretty amazing, it’s also really inconvenient when you’re trying to run a business. And then what happens when your female CEO has her baby? I bet she’ll have the nerve to ask for time off to be with her newborn child! Who is gonna make all the important decisions while she’s neglecting the firm to bond with her baby? Eww.

So that’s all I’ve got. Thankfully all that diversity and equality nonsense is mostly limited to press releases rather than practice anyway. So forget Lean In, ladies, go ahead and Sit Down.

3 thoughts on “Unpopular Opinion: Women Make Terrible Leaders

  1. I suspect that this article is sarcasm, but I’ll go ahead and take it seriously. I don’t think the problem is that women in general are bad leaders per se. I just think that many women who have put themselves into position to become leaders find a way to fuck it up, because they are essentially insecure about how they are being perceived by their male colleagues and underlings. They don’t want to seem too soft, or too easy to pushover, or not committed to the job because they have a family…so they completely overcompensate for these by be out-of-control hard-asses, completely lacking empathy and workaholics.

    At my Big 4 firm, I had the honor of working there at the same time as the very first woman auditor was admitted into the partnership. She was the biggest workaholic in the office and everyone was scared of her. The men secretly complained about her style and the women (of course) all hated her because they viewed her as setting the standard for what it takes for a woman to make partner…a standard that almost all of the other women were incapable of, or willing to try, achieving.

    Or maybe I have this all backwards. Maybe women really do have to work harder to succeed. Look at Hillary Clinton for example. If she were a man, she’d probably be getting her face carved onto Mt. Rushmore a year or two from now. But she’s a woman, so she’s an evil bitch and we must vote for anyone but Hillary…even a corrupt, incompetent, senile, phony billionaire who lies every time he opens his mouth.

    1. I don’t think the sarcasm couldn’t have been laid on any heavier….

      I’m at a middle sized firm and we have one female in our tax department who is close to making partner. Her biggest problem is that a very small portion of the staff love her while the rest of the staff hate her and would rather prep 990’s than work on her corporate clients. There’s no middle ground on this individual, very polarizing.

      Women definitely have to work harder to succeed. We have a couple of male partners that people don’t like working with, but the hate for this female is far more passionate than the hate for the males. I can see her trying to improve every day while the bumble fuck male partners do jack shit to try and improve and overall they are far worse at their jobs than she is.

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