In this spoken monologue, Mike Domitrz of the Center for Respect addresses a growing trend among some organizational leaders: refusing to have one‑on‑one dinner meetings with women while readily agreeing to do so with men. He frames the practice as blatant gender discrimination, arguing that it denies women access to career‑advancing opportunities. Domitrz identifies two common rationales behind the behavior – a self‑perceived danger of being alone with a woman and a fear of false accusations – and critiques both as unfounded. He emphasizes that false accusations are exceedingly rare and that the real problem lies in the leader’s own insecurities or personal relationships. The speaker connects equal‑opportunity access to better creativity, problem‑solving, employee value, and ultimately stronger financial performance. He calls on CEOs to model respect, provide equal access, and build inclusive cultures, positioning the Center for Respect as a partner in helping organizations achieve these goals.
Chapters
Recently, I was speaking with a group of CEOs, around 30 of them, from all over the country, and we were talking about different ways people can engage in disrespectful behaviors, whether it be leaders, whether it be management, whether it be employees at any level of an organization. And one topic came up that we are now seeing starting to trend in the United States that it's important we discuss. Here is what was going on. There are leaders in organizations who are saying they will go to dinners one-on-one with a man after work hours to brainstorm, to talk work, business, whatever they want to discuss, but they will not go to that same style of dinner with a woman. Now, let's stop and think about that for a second. That is blatant discrimination. You are saying, I'm going to deny, deny access. To an entire gender. That's literally the definition of discrimination. You're not choosing to deny access to a person because of their behavior. To an entire gender, you are denying access to them that you would give to other genders. Literally discriminating against. And there's only one of two reasons somebody would do this. One, you think that you yourself as a leader are so, so dangerous That if left alone with a woman, you don't know what you'll do, and therefore you have to protect yourself from yourself so you don't let yourself go to dinner with women. Now, if that is the case, you need to get help because that is a serious problem if you cannot be left alone with a woman without fearing what you're going to do and you lead an organization. Now, you might be sitting there going, Mike, that is not my situation. Well, then it's reason number 2 that we hear from leaders, which is Well, I'm just protecting myself. Now, what they're referring to there is that going to dinner with a man is safe. You know, men are safe, trustworthy. They don't lie, they don't manipulate, they don't— they're not going to put me in a dangerous situation. But women, women I cannot feel safe with because they do lie, they will make stuff up, and there's a chance that I'll be falsely accused of something. And this is the only other reason there could be for doing this. Or some will say, well, my wife doesn't trust me alone with women. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Then you're the problem again, not women. So stop denying women access. Or your partner is a problem. If they don't think they can trust you, that speaks volumes of your relationship, and not on the people that you actually employ. By the way, you hired these people. So if they're not trustworthy, why'd you hire them? The fact is that if you're going to be an equal opportunity employer, you need to equally provide opportunity. And those dinners where in-depth conversations are taking place about business is opportunity. Opportunity for that person to grow, to learn more about you, to learn more about what you want for the business so they can create that. And you're denying that out of made-up fears that somebody's going to falsely accuse you of something. And somebody going, Mike, what do you mean it's made-up fears? How many CEOs do you think you know, or organizations that are in your inner circle, that have ever been falsely accused? There's this myth out there that false accusations are happening all over the place, when the reality is they're incredibly, incredibly rare. Rare. And so you're going to deny access to an entire gender based on a tiny, tiny percentage of rare— Behavior that ever happens by one gender. Oh yeah, you seem to be forgetting that who's saying that a man won't falsely accuse you of something, accuse you of saying something you didn't do or behave in a way you didn't behave in that moment? Look, if you're going to be a great leader, then you need to show respect for all people in your organization. That means you need to give equal opportunity to all people. And by the way, when you do that, You bring more creativity, more problem-solving, people feel more valued. It ironically impacts what maybe some people only care about, the bottom line. It impacts it dramatically because you draw people who want to be part of an organization where everybody cares for each other, values each other, trusts each other, and treats each other with respect. That's what we're all about here at the Center for Respect is helping organizations build that culture. Look, we tend to work with the CEOs who do believe that every human being deserves to be treated with respect, every human being, and they want to help bring that to their entire culture, their entire management team, employees at all levels. They want to bring that to them. And we know that most CEOs do want to do the right thing. So let's start doing the right thing by stop denying access to individuals purely based on identity. Come on, by common sense we can all know that's wrong. Let's do the right thing. Let's include everyone consistently. This is Mike Domitrz with the Center for Respect.
