Thursday, November 7, 2013

Female Imperative: PR version

Tuthmosis responds to an MTV producer's request for him to do her work for her and find someone if they, or anyone they know, are dating a cheapskate. A modicum of hilarity ensued.
Tuthmosis wrote back: "Thank you for your note. I would refer you to our sponsorships page. I hope it's not lost on you that, in the end, you're merely proving my point that all women are cheapskates. Here you are writing me - without a tinge of irony - asking for what amounts to a free advertising campaign. It's like you can't help but try to get free stuff from men."

To which Helena Kincaid responded: "I think you're a misogynistic ass hole. Fuck you and all that you stand for."
A true media professional, is she not? Anyhow, it's worse than  Tuthmosis describes it. She's not merely asking for free stuff, she's actually asking him to do her job for her. She wants him to do the grunt work of finding people silly enough to be exploited by making fools of themselves on cable TV even though he doesn't know her and it has absolutely nothing to him.

This isn't so much women being cheapskates as it is a particularly obnoxious version of the Female Imperative in action. Would a man ever consider, for a moment, contacting a stranger apropos of nothing and asking him to please do his job for him?

Hey, I've got some leaves that need raking in my yard, Ms Kincaid. I was wondering if it was possible for you to come by and rake up a small pile of them? If not, no worries, but it would be a great help!

19 comments:

Revelation Means Hope said...

Constantly, constantly, incessantly on display here in the corporate world. And there are plenty of white knights who will rush to do their bidding (and God and Satan both know why).

Until of course, they hit the Wall and find that their meteoric rise up the corporate ladder has stalled, right about the time they need the final push to the executive suite. If they haven't developed their own set of skills while leveraging the freely given work of others, then it is burnout bitterness time.

Cue the blame game as they lament the glass ceiling.

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting illustration of how women think everyone prioritizes social exposure with the same degree of importance that they do. She presumes without forethought that men will simply jump at the chance to see their faces on TV (and tell all their friends about it) with the same verve that women will, irrespective of what the show's about or how they'll be characterized. This is why she thinks the "opportunity" to be on-screen will sell itself and she wont have to do her job and really work to recruit men to perform for her.

For women, "look at me!" has priority over "what's all this about?" and in girl-world, where men are 'tha same as womyn" the expectation is that men will have the same response

Res Ipsa said...

"This isn't so much women being cheapskates as it is a particularly obnoxious version of the Female Imperative in action."

This is the way it works at my office. I've gone total black knight and the younger females push off the work on the older females. Women don't care about anything beyond their own little world.

VD said...

I've gone total black knight and the younger females push off the work on the older females.

Why do the older women put up with it? Did you previously do the work for the younger ones?

Doom said...

Bah!

Hahahahaha!

God knows I love reading here. Some of my loves He doesn't appreciate. This one I think... I think He is good with it. I bet He is laughing Himself! The joke is on all of us, and we allowed it, so He gets it all, laughing the harder for it. "You let women what? Now you are noticing? You know you did this to yourselves, right?"... He probably questions even giving us fire, now. Damned kids.

Weouro said...

Hey, I've got some leaves that need raking in my yard, Ms Kincaid. I was wondering if it was possible for you to come by and rake up a small pile of them?

Sounds alpha. "Excuse me, Miss? I need someone to wash my dishes.

Revelation Means Hope said...

I've often wondered myself why the older women do the work for the younger women, albeit with plenty of grousing, backbiting, passive aggressive behavior, and so on.

Unless the authority figure is another woman, then productivity drops by another order of magnitude while the games increase the drama level significantly.
By the way, the older women don't work very well for the younger women, but they will get it done. Eventually.

I think I'm getting an even clearer picture of why many women only departments fail....

Brad Andrews said...

I am not convinced the initial query was trying to get him to do work for her. It seems quite appropriate to approach sites with those who you are targeting (at least possibly) and seeing if they would mention it. I might approach some game sites, for example, if I were working on a documentary on gaming.

I have seen plenty of "free" marketing and such in the past, so this is not that far out. She asked if he would run a blurb (which I assume she would supply), not if he would find the people for her.

Is everyone really saying no one tries to get free advertising except when they are pawning off work? That seems quite unrealistic.

Is she expecting lots of "free stuff" for dropping the name MTV? Almost certainly. I would also never go along with it, even if I were paid to do so.

I don't think Vox's cover artist asked for it, but wasn't the post on that recently on VP the same kind of thing?

Anonymous said...

I don't know, there seems to be a grey area. People cold e-mail you looking for advice and you seem to oblige with some regularity. Then again, they aren't getting paid for the work you produce.

I will call up people who barely know me, if they are an expert in something I am trying to do, and ask them tips or traps to look out for. And I of course, I do the same when I get similar calls. Its how networks are built.

And there were a lot of general queries to Usenet back in the day (and probably still) that got asked and answered that were if not somebody's work, somebody's pet project. But then that is asking the world rather than a specific individual.

tz said...

Then there's Man-fault dining

To which Helena Kincaid responded: "I think you're a misogynistic ass hole. Fuck you and all that you stand for."

To which he should have responded (assuming her SMV is sufficient) "Fuck me and I'll do it". Alternately, "Up your(s) bid".

Bertrand Russel's "Madame, we've established what you are, we only have a disagreement about the price" updated.

Jill said...

"Would a man ever consider, for a moment, contacting a stranger apropos of nothing and asking him to please do his job for him?"

Yes. It's happened to me, as it probably has happened to almost all authors. I'm asked to do free editing work all the time from perfect strangers. Gender seems to play no part in people trying to get their work done for them for free.

Anonymous said...

This is an interesting illustration of how women think everyone prioritizes social exposure with the same degree of importance that they do

I think it actually goes a little beyond that into a woman's thought process of "everyone should do my work for me." If I had her job and was trying to get some people to volunteer for interviews, I'd phrase my request to Tuthmosis something like "Hey, we're doing a story on dating cheapskates and if you or any of your readers would like to share your stories, you have an open invitation to contact me by email."

Sure, it's the same request underneath, but it's phrased as me doing them a favor (hey, get on TV!). But this woman phrases her message as "I'd like to you do something for me and post this on your website."

redlegben said...

I agree with Jack. I think this woman perceives her status to be a big deal. She thought she was doing him a favor. OTOH, her true belief is later revealed by her replies. I doubt MTV is doing an expose. I think they want trainwrecks for viewership.

Res Ipsa said...

Why do the older women put up with it? Did you previously do the work for the younger ones?

I think the older women sees it as a work ethic issue. The new chic is a girl that worked off and on through college on a part time basis. She adds no value to the organization, except one thing. Her and the boss (also a female) like to gossip and run down people, especially the bosses husband. So the two of them set in the office and chat.

I informed the boss that I would not be picking up this persons slack and I don't. (I also documented cases of lost revenue, commission fraud and some other violations that this chic did before we brought her on full time) This has resulted in the boss and the princess not talking to me. Which is great. I also got saddled with a thorn in the flesh as a act of retribution. Even that is working out OK.

No I've never helped the princess out. However I have become professionally disagreeable, I'm polite, competent and not willing to lift my little finger to do anything extra without being told. So far I'm getting away with it. Of course I still produce more than 50% of the revenue we generate which isn't bad considering that I'm 1/4 of the staff.

Peregrine John said...

Meh. Men do this to me as often as women do (in my own creative field). One artist I know well is convinced that everyone asks her for free work because she's a she. So I'm not at all convinced that the idiotic request is primarily gender-based, even though in many areas of life "something for nothing" (or a variation like "something mutual for something one-sided") does seem to be a conscious goal among the women I know.

Now, the instant flip-out she went to when called out, that does seem to occur almost always among the feminine, including effeminate men. A mature response would have been to restate so it didn't seem like sponging, adjust tack to have more quid pro quo, or apologize and ask instead for advice on the subject.

Brad Andrews said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Brad Andrews said...

I would agree that the flip out shows more than the initial request. We do have to watch out assume demons under every rock by default. Some stupidity is just laziness and/or a feeling of entitlement.

Dexter said...

Constantly, constantly, incessantly on display here in the corporate world. And there are plenty of white knights who will rush to do their bidding (and God and Satan both know why).

Yes. And the hotter they are, the more likely they are to have beta orbiters to do their job for them.

Men do this to me as often as women do

And this works for them?

I have never had a man try to get me to do his work for him -- because he knows I'd tell him to fuck off.

Unknown said...

Awesome blog over here! Thanks for sharing this very useful information about Online-PR . I will visit your blog again in a couple of days to check if you have some new articles

Post a Comment

NO ANONYMOUS COMMENTS.