A male executive was recently quoted as saying that the most important business lesson he ever learned was this: when things get really bad, cry. His theory was that when a man in a suit starts to cry, people pay attention.

This theory, as any woman can tell you, applies only if you are a man. When a man in a suit cries, we don’t just pay attention — we stop dead in our tracks. When a man in a suit cries, we assume something Very Big has happened. A loved one has died. War has been declared. He has been indicted. His presidency and marriage are in danger because of a dalliance with an intern. Whatever it is, it’s Big. In our society, the perception is that men cry only for good reason. If I ever saw my father cry, I would be so convinced that something horrible had happened that I would start to cry before I even knew what it was. When men cry, we say, "Oh God, what’s wrong?" and our hearts skip a beat.

By comparison, when a woman in a suit cries, we say (never out loud), "Oh Jesus, she’s crying." We cough self-consciously and avoid making eye contact. We silently hand her a tissue. When a woman in a suit cries, we think, this is why women will never break through the glass ceiling ... too emotional. A woman in a suit cries and we assume it’s because she’s tired. She’s getting her period. Her child is sick, but not sick enough to keep her from coming to work. She had a fight with her husband or boyfriend. Or she just needed a good cry. We never think "horrible disaster." We think "overreaction."

And here’s a dirty little female secret: even other women think these things when they see a weeping woman in a business setting. We want to reach over, shake the woman in question, and ask her if she realizes that she just set back the fight for equality a notch. We (or at least I) want to scream, "Can you please wait until you get home for your meltdown?" Even if war has just been declared.

Tears, you see, are one of the last strongholds in the gender wars. Tears are the Maginot Line, the Great Wall of China, a seemingly unbreachable line of defense that separates one side from the other even as all other common borders are crossed with impunity. I believe that one day, when the battles for equal pay, equal access, and equal opportunity have been won, tears will be one of the issues that prevent society from finally making the last, small leap to true equality of the sexes.

The reason for this is simple. Back when men ruled the world, a woman’s public tears were the ultimate expression of her vulnerability, her emotional fragility and temperament, her innate frailty and inability to handle the stress of the big, bad world. Men, on the other hand, were brought up to believe that it was preferable to lose a limb than to shed a tear. The unspoken assumption: men strong, women weak.

Then women entered the workplace en masse, and, in the mistaken belief that success required them to be more "like men," tears became one of the ultimate no-nos for working women. Tears at work became a symbol of all the vulnerability and fragility that the professional woman hoped to leave behind in her struggle for a seat at the corporate table. Tears were a symbol of all the stereotypes she hoped to help shatter. At work, tears became as taboo for women as they are for men.

Or were for men. Apparently, men are now co-opting tears for their own purposes, and using them as a management tool. What a uniquely male way of looking at what is a highly personal experience. As if men don’t already have enough advantages in the workplace, now they will start using tears to reveal their inner helpless creature — packaged in Armani, of course — a virtually unstoppable combination. Hell, I’d even fall for it. Damn them.

But even the Maginot Line eventually succumbed to the Germans, and if men keep whipping out the hanky every time it suits their purposes, they’ll find out just what women realized long ago: eventually, people just roll their eyes and pretend not to notice. Society has a way of weeding out much of the bullshit, and one day, it will become either entirely unacceptable for anyone to blubber in a corporate setting, or it will become as common as a poorly written memo. So let them sob away, if they must. It is yet another management tool available to men that women don’t have. On the other hand, women still have the breasts, one of the most powerful business tools ever created. And I’m pretty sure that men won’t ever co-opt them.

Kris Frieswick can be reached at k.frieswick@verizon.net