Pants or Pallus, Purr or Roar: Fix Systems, Not Gender

“I’d be torn apart, if I wrote about pallus the way you wrote ‘Office Power Doesn’t Stay in Your Pants,’” a male colleague told me. His fear exposed the hypocrisy we harbour: you’ll rage against predatory pants but flinch when gender scripts are reversed. Let’s rip the band-aid off. 

You sense the dissonance, but lack the language to address it without getting cancelled. But if you want to build a legacy of challenging the status quo and provoking meaningful change, that level of risk is common and somewhat expected.

When DEI gave the ‘add women and stir’ mantra, you spent millions on leadership programmes teaching women to "lean in," negotiate like men, and survive boys’ clubs. But when they succeed, you’re shocked some wield power like the monsters they replaced. Don’t train women to navigate hell. Dismantle it. Your tools are building traps. Fix systems. Not Women.

My colleague highlighted that while I’ve dissected ‘pants’ in my last piece, I’ve turned a blind eye to the quiet, lethal ways power warps female leaders and those they exploit. But my ‘pants’ weren’t about anatomy; they were a cultural metaphor for dominance. Just like ‘pallus’ stand as the cultural symbol of nurturing. This isn’t gender wars. It’s about systems that tax women’s ambition while licensing them to hunt in nurture’s shadow. Power doesn’t discriminate between Armani and Kanjivaram. It corrupts all who wield it unchecked.

You’ve seen the collateral damage. You recognise her—the brilliant woman whose promotion strained her marriage while her male peer’s desirability spiked. When men climb, neurochemical changes reward them: testosterone surges deepen voices, dopamine amplifies presence. The ‘winner effect’ makes them bolder, hungrier—leadership embodied. But for women? Social Role Theory reveals the penalty: violating the “nurturer” script triggers cognitive backlash. Research confirms it. Powerful women face higher divorce risk post-promotion. They’re taxed emotionally (vigilance against backlash), cognitively (self-monitoring to soften edges), and socially (exclusion from informal power networks). This isn’t perception; it’s quantifiable extraction. Studies prove identical behaviours get men labelled “decisive” and women “difficult.” The cost? Emotional shrinking at home, muted voices in boardrooms, salaries lagging even at the summit. Her power isn’t celebrated; it’s tolerated and taxed into submission.

Power Distorted
Flip the script. Predatory pants roar; the predator in silk deploys relational blades, camouflaging them as care. She doesn’t corner you in elevators, she ‘nurtures’ and ‘grooms’ you. She purrs. Late-night "career coaching," hands lingering under sisterhood’s guise, coalition-building through whispered exclusion. These aren’t quirks. They’re Non-sanctioned Political Influence Tactics: corporate gaslighting refined. 

Studies show that female executives are more likely to engage in covert affairs than their male peers’ overt conquests. Male subordinates often report female boss advances as "flattering" at first. Why? Culture romanticises female desire as inherently benign. We dismiss her predation as "complex" or "emotional," obeying the unspoken rule that silk can’t cut like suits. A male CFO preying on a junior is ousted; his female counterpart? "He’s lucky," smirk the victim’s peers.

Why? You’ve rewarded their compliance with a corrupted playbook. Patriarchy taught women to weaponise sexuality for survival; then you feign horror when they do.

And then, talent bleeds out: 29% higher attrition in teams with unchecked predation, ₹150-200 million lost per MD-level exit. This isn’t policy failure; it’s compliance. Just as in Milgram’s compliance experiments, the subjects kept giving electric shocks to the other group of people just because "the system" demanded it, we tolerate toxic power structures that profit from extraction.

What’s worse? Your silence enables it. Your double standard isn’t progressive. It’s cowardice.

To my respected peers in HR and leadership development: I know your aims are noble. Yes, representation matters. Yes, women deserve seats at the table. But when we focus solely on ‘fixing’ women to fit toxic systems, we become architects of their exploitation. Training programmes teaching women to mimic male dominance rituals? Sponsorship circles that replicate old boys’ clubs—just in heels? These aren’t solutions; they’re compliance rituals.

You’re confusing symptoms for disease. Teaching women to negotiate like men doesn’t cure cultures that punish female assertiveness. Similarly, hiring female leaders without auditing power structures just hands new abusers the whip.

Hunt systems; not skirts or suits.

You want true equity? Be a courage engineer.

Individual accountability and systemic reform must go hand in hand.

Stop outsourcing integrity to gender quotas and compliance theatre. Abolish gendered fixes. Train HR to hunt predatory patterns, not genders. Code NPITs—emotional blackmail, weaponised vulnerability—into conduct policies. Demolish legacy power maps. Burn old boys’ clubs AND exclusionary sisterhoods. Mandate transparent sponsorship. Promote psychological safety, not martyrdom. Slash promotions for midnight email warriors. Embed psychological KPIs in reviews. Punish equally, irrespective of gender.

This is your legacy audit. Track how late-night "mentorship" correlates with turnover haemorrhages. Measure the chilling silence after her presentations. Dissect why male subordinates grin through discomfort instead of reporting. 

Power stains silk and suit alike; but you hold the solvent. Be the leader who excavates the rot. So that teams don’t buckle. Talent doesn’t flee. And we curate a culture where ambition isn’t taxed, it’s armoured.

Investors: Toxic cultures cost ₹200 million/exit. Policymakers: Unaudited power breeds liability.

Sustainable equity isn’t won by helping women survive broken systems. It’s built by dismantling the machinery that breaks them. It’s time you pick sides. Are you reforming systems or cosplaying change? Decide now—because neutrality sustains harm, and silence writes no legacy. 

I welcome your perspective on how we can collectively dismantle these systems.