Unprofessional or Discriminatory?

Newsweek has some more information on the "Phoenix Four/Morgan Stanley strip club visit" case.

I think that such visits are grossly unprofessional. They not only damage the company's reputation; they have a corrosive effect upon the attitudes and values of the participants.

The mistake is in viewing loutish behavior as demeaning to women and hauling in the antidiscrimination laws. Why is it not also demeaning to men? Who is in the position of control in a strip club: the stripper or the patrons? I recall journalist Carl Hiassen, who interviewed strippers for his novel Striptease, saying that the power was clearly with the strippers. They knew just the right moves and words to manipulate the schmoes in the audience.

Creating a low threshold of sensitivity to women also reinforces a view that women are fragile victims. Mixed signals are routinely sent. Women can handle combat (and feminists would argue that only sexism would bar such assignments) but can't handle an invitation to a strip club?

Organizations are better advised to address such cases as gross lapses of professionalism instead of violations of the sex discrimination laws.