There is an article today reporting that Zoom meetings et al. have been a means of leveling the working field. (Well, it is hardly a "playing field" is it? Unless all of employment is just a game.)
The article makes a number of good points but my reading of it is that a well run virtual meeting is better than a sloppily run meeting in person (surprise!) and that self-absorbed pushy white male extroverts are starting to find methods which allow them to dominate poorly run virtual meetings in ways equivalent to how they dominate meetings in person (surprise!)
• Prof Jacqueline O’Reilly, co-director for the Digital Futures at
Work Research Centre [says] "The tech itself is not what makes it
inclusive, or exclusive and discriminating. It’s how people use
it."
I wonder who is going to be first to figure out how to use the tech. The problem of course is that pushy white males are still pushy white males when online and they are still pushing everyone to conform with their narrow and twisted view of good order.
In the pre-pandemic workplace conforming white males may have a half-step advantage over other white males. This might be only because the dominant players assume the conformers are actually in agreement. Non-conforming white males may still have a half-step advantage over non-conforming black males or conforming white females but perhaps not always.
• Heejung Chung, an expert in flexible working and reader in
sociology at the University of Kent, argues that … In physical
offices we have what sociologists call a hegemonic masculine
organisational culture, where white male characteristics are
seen as virtues.
As a white male I object to labeling hegemonic traits as "white male" traits. There are plenty of white males whose views are being excluded and those who aren't excluded are under enormous pressure to adopt the practices and attitudes of the hegemonic leaders.
I've noticed older white males walking away from "hegemonic masculine organizational culture" very often show little or no support for that culture. More often they express relief at escaping the pressure to conform with Chung's "white male characteristics".
The lesson I take away is that running a physical office or a virtual meeting is difficult and it requires specific skills to do well.
In actual reality that is the same lesson I learned by watching poorly qualified managers stumble through weekly status meetings 45 years ago.