In the wake of the horrific rape and sexual harassment allegations that have surfaced about Harvey Weinstein this week, some people are proposing a (deranged) solution: Men should simply never spend time alone with their women colleagues. This is also known as the “Mike Pence Rule,” as the vice president reportedly refuses to dine alone with a woman other than his wife—Second Lady and “That’s My Towel!” Charm, Inc. creator Karen “Mother” Pence—nor attend events where alcohol is served without her.

“If Weinstein had obeyed @VP Pence’s rules for meeting with the opposite sex, none of those poor women would ever have been abused,” Sebastian Gorka, former adviser to President Trump, tweeted last night. Gorka’s sentiments were echoed by conservative blogger and radio host Erick Erickson, who, in response to Heather Graham’s Variety story saying she was indirectly propositioned by Weinstein at a business meeting in the early 2000s, wrote that it was time to revisit Pence’s policy. “Mike Pence could never be accused of wanting to have sex with someone other than his wife in these sorts of situations,” Erickson wrote, “because he avoids putting himself and the other person into these situations.”

This modus operandi of avoiding one-on-one time with women colleagues works well for Pence, and at least he’s consistent: He denies not only one-on-one dinner meetings to women, but reproductive rights, too! All the easier to see women as subhumans whose bodies should be subject to government control when you can’t so much as sit across from and share a burger with one. But generally speaking, for most other non-Pence working people of the world, women and men colleagues gender self-segregating like seventh graders at a Sadie Hawkins dance is not a solution to curbing sexual abuse.

For one, banning alone time with women colleagues yet again puts the onus on women—that their mere presence is tantamount to a sexual elephant in the room, or sirens gathering around the board room table, instead of colleagues and equals. According to Gorka and Erickson’s logic, when a man and a woman get together, even if it’s to discuss a PowerPoint presentation, there is either underlying confusion about whether spontaneous sex is on the table . . . or the risk of potential abuse looming in the air. But it’s not typically women who make meetings automatically or uncomfortably sexual, or, for that matter, most men, either; it’s sexual predators who do that. Women shouldn’t have to avoid the meeting as a means of protecting themselves. Instead—crazy idea—how about men have respectful professional interactions with women without whipping their penises out of their pants?

Shutting women out in a supposed effort to ward off sexual harassment would be tantamount to punishing them for abusive male behavior, thwarting their career opportunities, keeping them from forming key professional relationships, and perpetuating the toxic bro culture that led us here—in the throes of the Weinstein allegations—in the first place. There’s a precedent for sexual harassment scandals like Weinstein’s making innocent men feel cagey around women at work, reluctant to mentor or sponsor them, for fear the relationship could be misconstrued as something romantic or sexual. But in a world when women are already paid less than men (and are statistically far less likely to be executives), one of the worst things male colleagues can do right now, in the wake of Weinstein, O’Reilly, Ailes, Trump, et al., is cut off women. If men really want to support their female colleagues, be their champions. Reach out and work together on something big. Start figuring it out over lunch.