I find it pretty pitiful that a number of men argue that it as their “right” or “innate characteristic” that makes regarding a female co-worker in a sexual manner is either unavoidable or acceptable. I also find it highly offensive that “feminism” is often regarded with hostility. Per the dictionary:
fem·i·nism (fm-nzm)
n.
Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.
The movement organized around this belief.
Everyone is entitled to a reasonable professional environment. No-one should have to endure an environment in which they are made to feel uncomfortable, demeneaned, or threatened. If a man engages in behavior that can make a reasonable woman feel uncomfortable in the workplace, he is guilty of sexual harassment:
ha·rass (h-rs, hrs)
tr.v. ha·rassed, ha·rass·ing, ha·rass·es
To irritate or torment persistently.
It matters not whether or not the male thinks his actions are reasonable. If a reasonable woman would consider the behavior harassment, the man is putting both himself and his company at-risk.
Such are the “legal” arguments. Ethically, it is unconscionable to treat a woman as a “sexual object” in the work environment. Women are entitled to fair, equal, and courteous treatment. Expecting to be treated with courtesy and respect in a professional environment is a very reasonable expectation. Any male who considers it acceptable to lapse into behavior that threatens a comfortable, healthy professional environment is immature, abusive or hedonistic, and grossly inappropriate.
It’s a perfectly reasonable argument that a man could both be evaluating a woman for sexual attractiveness and be dealing with her as an intelligent professional. Unfortunately, people are not always perfectly reasonable and this may not be what always happens.
Personal experience on this: if I suspect that someone is able to both “scope out” my assets AND pay attention to whatever I’m telling or teaching them, I would be perfectly fine with it. (I say would be because I’ve never yet met such a critter.) I personally can’t check out someone in that way without devoting enough brainpower to it that I get distracted. “Huh? What were you saying?” If someone else can do it better than me, power to them. That’s a work-based thing, though. Inability to pay attention to your job is kinda annoying for whatever reason.
In a non-work environment…I’m MUCH more impressed by other actions. My reasoning is that I don’t want to feel like just the “next notch on the bedpost”; if a guy’s interested in me, he’ll pay close enough attention to find something that’s not right out there in front. Tell me I have nice ta-ta’s and you might get me into bed; quote Heinlein to me and you might get me on the couch, the chandelier…well, um. Anyways. If you want to show interest in someone…try applying your ears, not your eyes.
Right on Creaky! I tend to see it as a reflex. I really, really don’t care if someone glances as long as they aren’t staring and drooling. Of course, excessive glancing could end up being the same as staring, but honestly, I don’t get the big deal. I’ve got 'em, you see 'em, I see you see 'em, end of story. Sheesh. Neurotic much?
A short, subtle, appreciating glace can be considered a compliment by me. Being admired for a certain attribute - any attribute - is nice, and I don’t see how it being my breasts makes any difference.
Maybe I’m strange. But yes, I would consider it a compliment.
Maybe you should get a cloak of invisibility so no one can see you at work?
You know, when I wear a nice dress to work I want people to notice. It’s a sad state of affairs when a man is afraid to say to a woman “You look good today” but that is where we are. NOT a statement of “I’m a lust-filled pervert and I want to rape you now” but simply “You look good today”. That doesn’t make me feel like an object, or give me an urge to “crawl away and hide”.
A quick glance on a body part is NOT offensive to this woman, as long as the rest of the man’s conduct is proper - in other words, 99% of the conversation involves eye contact or the equivalent, he’s clearly listening to what I have to say and not dismissing me, etc. And if a woman disagrees - well, honey, you better not have ever looked at a man’s ass or any other bodypart but his eyes yourself!
So, men, keep the looking to the absolute minimum you can at work and when you are dealing with women treat them with respect, listen to them, and otherwise treat them as equals.
Now, women - DON’T wear low-cut shirts to work, or miniskirts, or see-through fabrics, or clothes so tight they look like bodypaint if you don’t want men to look! No, what you wear shouldn’t matter but it does. Everyone, male or female, takes the woman in the business suit with a high collar more seriously than the woman in a miniskirt and scoop-collar shirt.
I spend a lot of time at an airport on my off-hours which means I’m frequently the only woman among a group of men. I delibrately “dress down” - crew neck shirts, no short-shorts, etc. - because I really don’t want guys flying airplanes, or repairing them, to be distracted. They aren’t going to forget I’m a woman, but they don’t need me to be rubbing their faces in the fact, either. It’s a courtesy to them to avoid displaying “nipplage” or the like in that situation. Doesn’t mean I look like crap, just that I’m not strutting. Yeah, the guys look at me. Know what? I look at them, too. Just be discreet about it and take the person you’re talking to seriously. I know it comes as a shock to some women, but men don’t want to be treated as a sex criminals just for being normal men any more than women want to be treated as empty-headed sex toys just because they have normal female attributes.
Okay, for those ladies out there who think this is something guys should be able to control–stop looking at ties. Not even for a second. Every guy you meet who’s wearing a suit, don’t look at the tie. Not even to see what color it is, or what the pattern is. Not even a “flick.”
Okay, I want the attention of every woman in this thread. I want to see a show of hands…How many of you have NEVER noticed a good looking guy? We notice, right? Okay, how many of you have NEVER EVER EVER, as a good looking guy walks by, looked at his pecs, his butt, his bulge, etc? NEVER? Are you positive you’ve NEVER checked out a guy? Okay, if you say you haven’t, then I’ll take your word for it, but I find it VERY difficult to believe.
Now, there is a difference between being subtle and being offensive. Unfortunately, every woman out there seems to have her own definition of offensive. And therefore, every woman out there has her own definition of harrassment. Yes, it does have to be deemed reasonable, but how long has it been since our justice system (generalization) has been reasonable?
Men, if you’re constantly leering, you’re going to be offending someone. Even I would be offended by that in the workplace. But in the same token, ladies, an occasional “flick” shouldn’t be considered offensive if the man has done nothing else to suggest that he is a perverted pig.
I know I’m in the minority of women here, but I feel it’s just as natural for men to look at women as it is for me to look at the butt of that cute guy that sits in the next area when he walks by oh lookie there here he comes now check out the butt on THAT guy! WHOOOO!..POW
Wow, a true thought crime. Personally for me what a woman wears will effect if I feel the urge to look, not that I necessarily would. If you’re wearing a business suit then it probably wouldn’t even cross my mind, you’d be sexless. Unless you bend over to pick something up, but then you wouldn’t see me looking.
And it’s hard. Work is usually boring or oppressive. So is talking about work, being in work, discussing work. And they just sit there like a little dancing leprechaun and the more you think about not looking the stronger the urge to look gets. A quick little peak and some men are revitalized and ready to focus again.
Or maybe you could build a “Defantalator.” See Dilbert (May 24, 1993 - May 28, 1993)
BTW, maye that’s what was in the briefcase that amazed everyone. A truely angelic pair.
First, the episode of Seinfeld where George was caught ogling. Jerry scolded him that “Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun! You glance once, quickly, then turn away before you hurt your eyes!”
Second: In May I was in England, walking down a street, when I met a woman with large, beautiful breasts. These are what I noticed first. The next thing I noticed was her t-shirt, which was screened with the words “I’m up here” and an arrow pointing up toward her head.
Hell! This is how I make it through the day! Every guy I look at, I try to picture naked. We have a client coming in TODAY that I know will be hot, and my boss right now is talking to one of our German clients and I can barely sit still in my chair.
But then again, I was one of the women who wasn’t opposed to being glanced at.
If a woman has large breasts, and wears a shirt in which her chest is popping out, then she has no right to get pissed when a man looks or stares at her chest. She is advertising what she has, so she should expect to have the merchandise looked at. On the other hand, a man that wears “painted on jeans” or a speedo has no right to get mad when a woman looks or stares at his merchandise. If you’re going to show it off, expect people to look. Geez. How hard is that to understand. If you don’t want it looked at, DON’T SHOW IT OFF.
if you’re wearing a tight sweater, expect to get looked at. If you don’t want men staring at your breasts, don’t wear skimpy or skin tight tops.
Well, it’s a compliment when you call them “breastas.”
My boobs have been preceeding me into rooms and conversations since I was 11. I know people look at them, and think whatever they’d like about them. But a colleague who checks me out at work isn’t giving me a compliment. These things are attached to me through no will of my own, I didn’t affix them there to serve as sexual beacons to the male of the species, and the fact that I have breasts isn’t an invitation for uninterrupted staring, catcalls, or uninvited comments about them.
Someone who gives me a once-over at work isn’t harrassing me - everyone checks everyone else out all the time. I have been a combintation of amused/offended/embarrassed/threatened by people staring there - one time I was in a job interview with a man who was staring at them so intently that I asked him “If I’m hired here, will the novelty of my breasts wear off after a while?” and left.
In closing - glancing at someone at work isn’t harrassment, but it isn’t a compliment. Guys, know that we notice, that we don’t really like it, and that we talk to each other - I used to work with a guy that the women of the office nicknamed Curious Georges because he couldn’t mask his fascination.
I don’t know how to quote somebody (I’m too new to this), but I did have a breast reduction surgery and it did bother me that much that men have been leering at me since I was 11. As far as glancing goes, I’m happy to say I’ve never noticed it. As for “checking out” men’s “packages”…eewww. You guys really overestimate the appeal of those things.
This, of course, makes no sense. The “equality” of “urges” is hardly the issue, and does not make “moot” the point that so long as you have the ability to control your urges – which I continue to assume you do – then you ought to do so in situations where you know that indulging them is not appropriate. If you truly suffer from uncontrollable urges then I would suggest that says far more about your lack of self-control than it does about the sensitive of people you may offend by indulging them.
And a thousand apologies for having mispelled your name.
If you manage to glance at my breasts for “a split second” in such a way that I don’t notice it, it is obviously unintented, or I am not sure that it wasn’t, we are not going to have a problem. If you do it in such a way that I know you’re doing it, I’m going to annotate my personal opinion file on you with a note that reads “not above staring at my boobs on the job, and too clumsy and/or dumb to do it with any finesse.”
Insofar as the legalities are concerned, a person alleging that sexual harassment has created a hostile work environment (which would be the type of sexual harassment we are taling about) must show (1) offensive unwelcome conduct (2) occurring because of sex or gender (3) affecting the terms of conditions of employment and (4) imputable to the employer. (This is the rule in my jurisdiction.) And, yes, the offensiveness of the conduct is a question of fact, decided under a “reasonable person” standard.
Is the conduct we’re talking about – glancing at a woman’s breasts – sexual harassment? Probably not. But the OP didn’t ask about legalities, it asked if having men glance at your breasts at work offends women. For this woman, the answer is yes. I’m not saying I’d slap your face for it (or even mention having noticed), but I do not appreciate it.
And I obviously agree that women who dress in such a way as to invite sexual attention are in a poor position to complain when they receive it. But I do not dress provocatively, at least not at work, precisely because I understand that if I expect to be treated as a professional I must look like one.
LEXICON –
Sounds like a cranio-rectal inversion to me. If I don’t like your unwanted and unasked for attention, I should remove a part of my body?
This is also the reason they fart, burp, dig around in their crotches, and do a host of other arguably unattractive things. But they manage to restrain themselves from doing so in mixed company at work. Why is expecting them to keep their eyes off my assets any different?
Who gives a shit what you like, when you’re making me uncomfortable? Yes, I have breasts; I had no control over that. Yes, I’ve been told they look nice; I have no control over that, either, except to the extent of not calling attention to them at work, which I do not. The “damage” is that I do not appreciate having my component parts gazed at when you should be concentrating on what I am saying and the job at hand. I will be okay with guys giving “the flick” to my breasts at work when they spend an equal amount of time giving “the flick” to my male coworkers’ dicks.
Utter bullshit. This thread is a perfect example of why sexual harassment laws are necessary – because offensive ogling or staring at a woman’s chest – which I realize is NOT what we are discussing here – can be justified as merely a male “urge” that we women should learn to live with since, hey, we have breasts in the first place. (Again, this sort of harassment is NOT what we are discussing here, but the rationale used to excuse “the flick” can just as easily be used to excuse true harassment.)
In other words, MAGDALENE makes the same point I am making:
I do not say this is every woman’s opinion but it is mine. And I am far less irritated by “the flick,” in all frankness, than I am by the lame-ass argument “we can’t help it, we’re men.”
Makes no sense? Are you seriously saying that every urge takes exactly the same amount of effort the resist? I hope I’m misunderstanding you, because you are one of the few posters here who I have noticed that I almost always agree with. I have a lot of respect for your opinion (obviously we differ on this issue), but if you are actually arguing that it takes the same amount of effort not to shit on the floor as it does to prevent one of the tiny muscles of the eye to not aim it at an item that catches your eye, then you are obviously off the deep end on this one.
What galls me the most about this issue is that you think you have the right to tell me I cannot even glance at something for even the barest of split seconds. I agree men shouldn’t stare, but for Christ’s sake, you have look at something first to identify that it’s something you shouldn’t be looking at! Eyes wander around the room, it’s natural, and it’s going to happen that by pure chance they eyes are going to land on your chest. It’s no less likely than them landing on the lamp across the room. Somehow, we are supposed prevent this too? And please tell which sense I should use to inform my eyes that there are breasts in the direction I want to aim them at, since obviously I can’t actually LOOK in that direction to identify what is there without being a drooling, uncontrolled pervert.
And let’s ignore the sexual aspect of this. Suppose I walk into a room, and say “OK, nobody can look at my left elbow. Not even for the split second.” What fucking gall to order people that their eyes cannot even for a split second look at something in the room! And this is even without a deeply ingrained sexual response.
“Oh crap, I just looked at his crotch!”
Helen Hunt in What Women Want.
Ummm. I’m sympathetic to unintentional glances that we’d both rather not have acknowledged.
But if it’s a really good friend, I’ve been known to taunt him by smiling REALLY big when the gaze moves back to my face. I don’t think I could survive the same treatment. Evidently my friends are nicer than I am.
Uh…Revtim, settle down. It’s natural for people to look at each other. The OP asked if looking at breasts in the workplace is a compliment. Women have weighed in to say “no, it’s not a compliment, and men should really try not to ogle women obviously at work.”
People have many urges that can be and should be controlled in certain situations. If you are trying to say that you cannot control the urge to “check out” your female coworkers, be assured that a) they notice it when you do and b) if they notice it enough, they will think you are a dipshit. No one is saying you can’t look below a woman’s waist EVER, just try not to do it when she’s talking to you about next month’s sales projections, okay?
Frankly, some of the anger of men in this thread disturbs me. The idea that men cannot “control” their urges towards woman is why the Taliban force women to cover themselves completely and why St. Paul encouraged women to cover themselves so that they don’t sin by provoking lustful thoughts in men. I think that logic is indefensible anywhere, and certainly indefensible in the American workplace.
Remember Married With Children? “Grandma got “Love” and “Hate” tattooed across her chest years ago - think of how she looks now with those two verbs resting on her knees.”
