New Problem in Mens’ Laps: Lady Colleagues

Published May 9, 1985. A few weeks ago I was invited to speak to BYU's graduates in business management and their spouses. I gave a few remarks about the importance of balance between occupation and family life.

At the end of my talk I asked if there were any questions or comments. One young man said he was a little perplexed about his forthcoming entry into the business world.

He explained that his field of business management employees many women. As a married man, both he and his wife were concerned about how a married man could or should relate to women on the job. A married woman in the audience voiced similar concerns. How should a married woman conduct herself around her male co-workers?

We had an interesting discussion on how the work world has changed. Men and women have always worked together, side by side, in the factories, farm and office. But in earlier times, women usually worked in subordinate positions.

But many of the men in the audience acknowledge that they would be working with women, single and married, as equals.

In their business management training they had been given differing opinions on how to cope with the new male/female relationships in the work world. One philosophy was very cautious: Don’t ever be caught working alone with a member of the opposite sex.

And there is merit to that logic. I remember when I was a Boy Scout in Mariel Hansen’s Troop #561. Scoutmaster Hansen used to tell us if we wanted to avoid fire, keep our flint in one pocket and our steel in the other. We followed his advice and I can’t remember any of us ever getting burned. There is a message there for men and women in today’s work force.

The BYU graduates were also advised that to succeed in today’s business world men and women must learn to work together as peers and equals, married or single. They wanted to know what I thought of that advice. I replied there was logic to that thought as well.

I shared an experience I had a few years ago when I was teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. We had thirty in the Family Life Department, with a near equal number of men and women. Some were married, some single. We worked well together, and frequently groups of three, four or five would walk over to the student union building for lunch.

There were two young single women on the faculty. Both were in their late twenties, intelligent, attractive, and both also happened to be Latter-day Saints. Naturally, we shared many things in common.

Then the thought occurred to me. Should I, as a married man, socialize with single women in any way, even if it is job related? I thought and thought about it and did what I believed was the only sensible thing to do. I talked it over with my wife, Susan. She suggested we invite them to our home, so we all could become friends, and that would solve the problem for her. We did that, and I told the BYU group it solved the problem for me also.

To this day, the two women – both now married – are among our best friends.