Phyllis Chesler is an 83 year old woman famous in the feminist community as a so-called second-wave feminist (1960’s-80’s) writer (18 books). Second-wave feminsim took the movement from original things like women voting(first wave) to other legal inequalities, plus sex, family, etc. Outside that she’s probably better known for her clashes with the Islamic world, courtesy of being married to a “moderate Mulsim”, an Afghan man in the 1960’s and seeing that ideology’s treatment of woman up close and personal.

In recent years she’s begun to clash with fellow feminists and leftists, arguing that they’ve abandoned Western values in the name of multicultural relativism, leading them to align with Islam, and things like the Trans movement.

But in the following Spectator article she writes about something very different, she’s observed among here recent run of assistants that she needs for research and editing, the absence of a work ethic in Gen Z:

One rather excellent young woman seemed perfect — at least until I asked her to alphabetize my contacts. She did so — by alphabetizing a thousand people by their first names!… I dared to correct her. I sent her back to re-do the task. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.
…
Another very smart college grad made an unfortunate mistake. It seemed to have spooked her. I assured her it was not that big a deal, that we could deal with it. But I saw that it was eating away at her. I did not know this but she had begun to leave her coat and her bag by the front door “just in case she had to run out suddenly.” Her mistakes seemed to shame her and she feared that I “might” yell at her and that is something she could not bear.

Now in observing social trends we have to remember history, including the history of old fuddy-duddies who forget the slings and arrows aimed at them in their own youth, which the following collection of newspaper clippings over the course of 130 years.

I have to admit that the Gen Zs I encounter have no time for my stories of pulling work weeks of 60-80 hours in the IT world. They make it quite clear that they have no confidence that such efforts will reward them in terms of buying a house or starting a family. They just want to work 40 hours and that’s it – and they have absolutely no time for “Yay Team” efforts in the places where they work.

However they have other cultural traits that are only marginally connected to a work ethic but proving to be a problem, and Chesler has examples of this:

I actually managed to keep such a tech-savvy assistant for almost three years, (bless her), but she kept arguing with me about my views on the trans issue, the importance of not using “dead” names, as well as the advantages of new gender pronouns and a “queer” identity. 

Plus people cancelling interviews when they look at her website (despite her “warning” them that she has “politically incorrect” and controversial views). But they don’t just cancel, some actually castigate her and advise her to change her views “if I wanted to be seen as a good role model.”

She’s not alone: stories like this are popping up in business magazines and elsewhere. She quotes a NYT editor talking about their hires, who opines that that “colleges aren’t preparing new hirees to be tolerant of dissenting views.”

That’s why they’re increasingly not into free speech. The universities deserve much of the blame, especially since a big part of varsity is supposedly encountering a multitude of ideas that one may not agree with and learning how to argue and debate them:

She says “I think it’s a false narrative” three times before moving off. That’s some debating move. At some point, you’ve got to be able to articulate what you think is true or false and why. Otherwise, you’re trying to beat something with nothing. But that apparently is how she’s been taught to argue and debate, probably at high school as much as university. But hey, you can always just flick them off with “get out of my face” and walk away. That’s real cool.

It’s easy to see how such personal and intellectual inadequacies translate into being lousy at work. I’ll leave the last word to Chesler:

What in God’s name is all this girlish fragility about?
…
If these are the views of our coming generations — then I fear all is lost, that Western civilization, rational thought, history, literature, science, tolerance for intellectual diversity, high standards, a work ethic, and respect for authority are now on auction: Going, going, gone.