Quite a number of decades ago, the first steel-framed skyscraper in New York was the Flatiron Building.  This edifice, which still stands, is located on 23rd Street.  Back in the day, winds whipped across 23rd St., causing insecure footing for pedestrians, thus the antique expression “23 skidoo.”

On Dec. 2, 2016, executives of 27 major corporations directed a hurricane at their male employees.

The heads of Bank of America Corp., American Electric Power Co., Coca-Cola Co. and 24 more large global companies have pledged to boost the number of women in their top ranks to parity with men by 2030.

Behind this move is a scheme called “Paradigm for Parity” (PfP), which claims it offers a five-step program for corporations to rethink existing attitudes that hinder women from reaching high positions.  The authors of PfP point out that today, just 20 CEOs of the 500 largest companies (4%) are women.  Unless the helpful ladies of PfP intervene, it might be another century at present rates before women get within shouting distance of parity.

Women who do the work and get the results certainly deserve their places in boardrooms.  The relationship between business success and the PfP scheme has yet to be tested on a large scale.  Changing male bosses' attitudes might lower some hurdles.  But at this point, there is no sure way of telling whether PfP's brand of massaging the deep recesses of corporate minds will bring in more dollars, which, after all, is the real bottom line.

What can be said with more certainty is that, if PfP is put in place and enforced, males will have their chances of rising through the ranks to the very top of these 27 firms cut in half.  It is also highly likely that the criteria for advancement in companies will include not only business results as traditionally measured, but also attitudes, specifically whether men harbor recognized wrong thoughts – or the species of nasty unrecognized prejudices that only "experts" can sniff out.

Men, especially those who endured politically correct feminist educations in modern universities, might be cool with the idea that they have to step aside to let some ladies pass them by.  But their wives might not be so sanguine.  Just as men have a third ear for detecting when other men are trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the targets of their lusts, women have little tolerance for other women who get things from the stupid sex that does not always think with its head.  “You let her get ahead of you?” will be said by many.  “She knows how to pass tests, but she doesn't know how to make a buck.”

Note also that PfP shoots its quiver at the cushiest fruit in the corporate tree, the highest and best paid jobs.  Where are the programs to insure parity among workers in less desirable jobs?  Where are the programs to ensure parity in the hazardous jobs that nowadays tend to be exclusive male bastions, jobs where occupational injuries and death rates tend to be more numerous and serious than paper cuts?  Perhaps there is virtue in parity in more places than the boardroom.

Sidney Raphael, an occasional contributor to American Thinker, is working on his next book, How To Stop Beating Your Wife.