Did Women Really Ruin the Workplace?
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The New York Times recently ran a opinion piece podcast episode asking whether liberal feminism (or, originally, women)“ruined” the workplace. As soon as that headline hit your feed, you knew we were going to talk about it.
“I’ve been saying for several weeks now that I wanted to talk about women’s role — their biblical role, what Christians perceive it to be, the tradwife trend, all of that,” Melissa said. “But then the Times released this piece, and they originally named it Did Women Ruin the Workplace? They walked it back, but… not really.”
So this week, we pulled the receipts, unpacked the arguments, and dug into the history, theology, and politics behind what people think feminism has done and what’s actually true.
When Accountability Gets Rebranded as Chaos
One of the claims made in the Times podcast is that “toxic femininity” is now harming the workplace. The so-called evidence? Gossip, conflict avoidance, and discomfort giving negative feedback.
But as Melissa says: “Sitting here at this table, there’s one person that fits that, and it’s not the woman at this table.”
The episode points out something the Times discussion avoided: men in power show plenty of emotion just different kinds. Rage, anger, dominance, and retaliation are also emotional responses, and they shape workplaces far more than tears ever did.
“If women are too emotional to lead,” Melissa says, “then look at the men in power right now.”
And Matthew adds: “Emotions aren’t bad. They connect us. That’s what empathy does.”
Systems Built by Men — For Men
Another argument from the Times podcast guests is that women struggle at work because they’re trying to fit into systems “made for men.”
Matthew cuts straight to the core of that: “Okay, so who made the systems? Men, right? So that argument doesn’t even make sense.”
Finding a voice at work isn’t a flaw — it’s overdue. “It is not a wrong thing for women to finally say, ‘Hey, this is wrong and y’all need to cut it out.’”
A Little History Never Hurt Anybody
We also walk through a condensed timeline of women in the American workplace from the 1800s through the Rosie the Riveter era to modern inclusion efforts showing that women stepping into public life didn’t break anything. It revealed inequities that had always been there.
At one point Melissa notes: “Women make up nearly half the workforce now, own 42% of businesses, generate trillions in GDP, and employ 10–12 million people. If they’re so bad at it…how are they doing all that?”
The numbers speak for themselves. The myth doesn’t hold.
Patriarchy, Scripture, and the Stories We Tell
We also get into the biblical roots of women’s subordination, not scripture itself, but how men have interpreted it.
Matthew points out in 1 Corinthians 7 that Paul emphasizes mutuality and equality: “Any obligation of the wife is balanced by the husband and vice versa.” Which, as Melissa notes, matters for more than marriage: the theology we inherit shapes how we see women everywhere, including at work.
So… Did Women Ruin the Workplace?
By the end of the episode, Melissa sums up the backlash pretty clearly: “When changes are happening, people’s gut reaction is to say something’s being ruined. But is feminism ruining the workplace or are norms just changing, and people don’t like that?”
Sometimes discomfort isn’t destruction, it’s growth.
And if that’s the case, then maybe the real problem isn’t women at work.
It’s the systems they finally feel free to challenge.