MSN beckons me to the dark side

I usually try to avoid MSN's career advice. It's not that it's bad, it's just that office politics are a way more boring subject than sex. But today's subject is supposedly "metrosexuals" and how they are doing better at the office than their counterparts, which I guessing are "beer-swilling buffoons", but it's really about how to be a better woman than women so that men can keep all the good jobs.

That's the buzz word, engendered by the popular TV show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," for a straight urban man who has become increasingly interested in appearance, grooming, home furnishings, the arts and food.

In other words, a man who pays more attention to his "softer" or "feminine" side.

I don't think I have ever heard them say "metrosexual" on "Queer Eye", because if they had invented the word, I'll be they would have copyrighted it. But it's no matter--we're here to learn how men can use their more feminine side to get promotions. It isn't as simple as just sending your wife to work in your place.

"The impact of women in the workplace has had an enormous effect on how men are expected to behave as leaders," said the executive, who first noticed the change and the advent of metrosexuals in 2002.

That would be the year that women started entering the workplace. As you can imagine, the effects were dramatic.

And that behavior, says Halpern, means being a metrosexual, which includes "fabulous communication skills, how they dress, their haircut and posture; if they are kinder and gentler, are consensus builders and have good emotional intelligence--traits traditionally associated with women. The kind of drive to get the result no matter what it takes no longer is acceptable if it translates into abusive behavior."

All these lessons would have helped Bill O'Reilly get what he wanted--dressing up, some kindness and gentleness and his assistant would have been vibrating right along with him. But instead he abused her in the old-fashioned, hetero-, not metrosexual way.

The executive career coach was "so struck by the popular culture success of the metrosexual that I wondered how it translates to the workplace."

I'm sure it had nothing to do with trying to use a stupid new buzzword to get your name in the papers.

As a result, she recently wrote an in-house paper for The Strickland Group that is titled "The Feminization of Men."

Apparently, using a vibrator on yourself is not feminizing enough, Bill. So pay attention.

"A senior executive in financial services was known for being a bull in a china shop," said Halpern. "He thought his behavior was OK because his productivity was so high, but his boss said it was unacceptable and his staff thought he was overly aggressive. Talented people who are subjected to tyrannical bosses say, `I won't put up with this. I have a life.'"

Quid pro quo demands for sex in exchange for keeping her job are highly productive in the short term, Bill, but in the long term women sometimes sue.

"And he got promoted, where before they were talking about letting him go," she said.

See, by getting a man to become more feminine, they were able to promote him instead of having to use the last resort of promoting a female employee with those valuable traits.

He had learned "it's OK to admit you don't know everything, to see how much more successful you can be by using so-called `softer' skills, ones usually associated with women," she said.

Women's main skill is apparently not knowing everything or at least faking that effectively. If this guy keeps it up, he may even be able to bag himself a husband.

He had become a metrosexual.

For some reason, once he took on the soft, feminine trait of not knowing what he was talking about, his interest in appearance, grooming, home furnishings, the arts and food grew until he became a metrosexual.

If being a metrosexual--being a kind, caring and inclusive executive--is becoming so important for men, why doesn't it also benefit the people who invented those traits, women? Why is the glass ceiling still so firmly in place? Why are so few women on the "glass elevator" that propels men to the top?

Good question. I think I know what the answer is going to be, and it won't involve the word "sexism".

"Because women not only are a minority, but they also get conflicting advice," said Halpern. "For 20 years, they've been told to be more like men--and clearly that doesn't work."

Your boss sees right through that fake mustaches, ladies. It's not enough to pretend to be men in order to get promoted, you actually have to be one.

Though the arrival of metrosexuals in the workplace suggests that adapting female traits may pay off for men, women's struggle to obtain equality will take much longer, she observes.

And it would have nothing at all to do with arguments like this suggesting that women can't bring anything to the office place that men can't do better.

"It's extraordinary, but progress [for employed women] is happening very slowly, bit by bit," said Halpern.

But it's much faster for metrosexuals.

That last line was a little ominous, don't you think?