ABC's "This Week" actually used the occasion of Congressman Anthony Weiner's (D-N.Y.) sex scandal to discuss whether this was "a good moment for women."
During a lengthy segment, host Christiane Amanpour along with her exclusively white female guests proceeded to bash members of the opposite sex with ABC's Claire Shipman actually saying, "A group of all white men are not going to reach the best decisions" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: You'd be hard-pressed to find a sex scandal involving a female politician these days, which begs the question, what if there were more women in politics and in positions of power? Would they change the way business is done from Wall Street to Washington and beyond?
We decided to explore that issue this morning with Torie Clarke, the former assistant secretary of defense for public affairs in the Bush administration, with Cecilia Attias, the former first lady of France who was married to president Nicolas Sarkozy, and she is the founder of Cecilia Attias Foundation for Women, and ABC's Claire Shipman, author of "Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules For Success."
So this is a great moment to discuss something that we always try to discuss. What would parity mean? We're not trying to say that if it was all women and not men the world would be different. We're trying to understand, would there be a difference in attitude, in behavior, in results?
So let me start with you. You think this might be actually a good moment for women, this scandal?
CLARKE: I do. In politics, in the public sector, often women are seen as more honest, more sincere, those -- harder-working, all of which I think is true, so this may be an opportunity for more women to step into those positions. But I'm thinking -- you know, yes, we want parity in so many ways. Where we don't want parity is that when they get to those positions and they get the power and adulation that Senator Ensign was talking about, we don't want them to behave in the same way. So I want parity of a certain kind, and I'm very hopeful that women do achieve more of these positions, they're not going to engage in the same kind of behavior.
AMANPOUR: It is interesting you say that, because there has been a study done in the Netherlands about power and suggesting, by polling, you know, perhaps women might behave that way if there were as many of them in power. But I want to ask you because you've written a book specifically about this, and there is a lot of research that talks about what the effect on society is of more women in various areas of power.
And it's true. What you find -- there are half-a-dozen major studies that show the more women you have at a company, the more senior women, the more money it makes. There are studies -- there was a recent study that was done from 2000 to 2009 about women hedge fund managers. They doubled the rate of success of their hedge funds compared to male-managed hedge funds. And they manage this way. They don't manage -- the hedge funds don't go up and down.
There's also an economist at the University of Michigan who has studied diversity and decision-making and has found that, in every business decision, diversity leads to better decisions. In other words, a group of all white men are not going to reach the best decisions.
Imagine for a second a televised panel of exclusively white men discussing why a group of non-white men or an assemblage of females of any ethnic group would not reach the best decisions.
The network, the producers, and the anchor involved would all be required to make public apologies.
Yet, as we've seen from the media in recent years, attacking white men is not only acceptable, it's all the rage.
I don't know about you, but as a successful white man who has raised two wonderful children that both will likely be very successful members of this society, I'm getting awfully tired of the reverse racism and reverse sexism in this nation.
Is this really what my son who has just graduated from college has to look forward to the rest of his life, or is all this white male-bashing going to some day soon run its course?
As an aside, Shipman is married to Jay Carney, the current White House press secretary.
Makes you wonder what he thinks about white men or if he shares his wife's disdain for them - especially as he is one.
