Feminists demonstrate in 1970s New York. Image via YouTube.

It may have only been bar talk. Or maybe these men were truly upset. But this #metoo reaction makes me fear for our careers.

This wasn’t just the kind of casual whining you’re seeing on Twitter and Facebook from men saying that the office flirting is now too risky, let along office romances.

Or the complaint that men no longer feel safe complimenting women at work, with some even worrying that “hello” said in the wrong tone could be seen as harassment.

We know both of those are just knee-jerk reactions from guys who aren’t thinking this all through.

First of all, pleasantries should never go away. And the primary reason to be at work is, well, work. If a consensual relationship between peers takes place outside the office, that’s their business, as long as it doesn’t affect ours.

No, the idea that chilled me comes from a casual conversation a friend relayed after a business meal.

A group of male executives, bitter over the reckoning that is taking place, insinuated that if women keep this up, their response will be to stop hiring and promoting women.

According to these men, who indeed had the power to control their staff members’ fate, women now present too much of a threat.

One word from an upset female, and a man’s career could end in a flash. (That’s obviously an exaggeration of what women are doing, of course.)

So, the safest thing, these people reasoned, is to block women from making it to the boardroom, the C-suites and the development pods. Keep the power in mens’ hands, and keep women where they can’t do any “damage.”

Well, I have a message for anyone who thinks this way. Stop right there. Don’t you dare try that.

First of all, you’d be setting yourself up for a repeat of the lawsuits that took place in the 1970s and 1980s, when women had to sue to get access to equal opportunities.

Those legal actions had a significant impact in the media world, affecting publications such as The New York Times and Newsweek. Women argued that they had systematically been denied equal pay and opportunities.

Although we think of her now as a feminist heroine, Katherine Graham, the publisher of Newsweek and the Washington Post, was said to be perplexed by how to reply to the suits.

“Which side am I supposed to be on?” she famously asked.

In the end, the answer was to reach settlements with the women. That opened the door for women across many industries to enter companies where they had not been welcomed, and to rise within the ranks to the upper most jobs.

To be sure, those lawsuits did not make it any easier for women to function within the workplace, but at least they got a chance to so.

In the view of my generation, such lawsuits seem to be to relics of the past. But we should be prepared to see them pop up again, if men such as these truly act on their threats.

Of course, any attorney would tell these executives that they would be in clear violation of one of the tenets of sexual harassment law. That is, creating a hostile workplace where woman are not able to do their jobs.

And by reducing opportunities for women, these executives would fail in one type of fiduciary duty to their shareholders. They would risk cutting off their firms from half of the consumer market.

Think of it. Are men truly so scared of putting a foot wrong in the workplace that they’d limit the audience for their company’s products?

Studies have shown that when companies have women on their boards and in top ranks, they do better with women customers as a whole.

After all, women know where women can excel. We read those lists of The 100 Best Companies For Women, and we talk to each other.

We know when a company has a bro culture that drives women away, from both jobs and the goods and services they provide. We know which executives don’t work well with women, and which ones don’t promote them.

All that said, I’m pretty confident that this is just guys trying to get a handle on a situation they can’t yet control. Men all across the economy are freaking out at the awesome determination that women are displaying as 2017 come to a close.

Clearly, some men aren’t willing to admit that their brethern’s behavior is the reason. Other men simply don’t want to have to follow rules that are probably already in place at their companies, but which they’ve flaunted to see whether they can get away with it.

Deep down inside, they know they can’t retreat into male-only bastions, the same way we women can’t really pull up the drawbridge and operate from female castles, much as we may be tempted to try it.

But, just in case some idiot tries it, here’s my homework assignment.

One, document how many women your company employs. Find out the ratio of men to women where you work. If you see it dipping in coming weeks and months, speak up.

Two, keep an eye on who gets interviewed for jobs. You know who is coming in to be considered for openings, since they’re probably dressed well and a little nervous.

A number of workplaces, including universities, are required to interview women and people of color for jobs and to document how many non-male candidates were considered.

I’ve been a hiring manager and I can tell you I was not allowed to make a a job offer, unless I demonstrated that our candidate pool was diverse. If you notice that only men are finalists for job openings, ask why.

Third, pay attention when you hear that women are leaving. If you know them, try to get them to tell you why they’ve decided to move on.

They may truly be leaving for a better job, or have a standard non-committal answer prepared. But if you know that they were unhappy, make some notes to yourself. See if there’s any pattern that emerges.

Fourth, talk to your network and see if anyone else in your industry has pulled back on hiring women. Again, if it happens elsewhere, it’s likely that the same idea is spreading across different companies.

Too much of what has happened in the past with sexual harassment is because we didn’t speak up, out of fear of being singled out as troublemakers, out of a reluctance to get involved, or out of the perception that nobody would believe us.

We can’t let that happen with our jobs. This is too important to our families, our children and our sense of self. Our mothers and aunts and grandmothers and mentors fought way too hard to crack the glass ceiling.

We don’t want to see it sealed with concrete before we’ve had the chance to shatter it.

Follow Micheline Maynard on Twitter @mickimaynard. She’s also on Facebook.