has this become a debate yet? Sure as hell looks like one.
Jodi:
You say you want an example of a woman who considers “the flick” harassment? Check out post #2 to this thread, in which rmariamp said “If I am in a business context and a guy’s eyes do ‘the flick’ I am not going to be complimented. I am going to feel like a piece of meat.”
No, she doesn’t TECHNICALLY say “harassment.” But I think the meaning is clear enough. And I don’t think she’s the only one to have made such a statement; however, I’m going to move on now because I have a lot to respond to.
Such as your point that men didn’t concern each other with the ‘worldly flesh’ of their colleagues back in the day. Well no shit; nobody ever said all men were gay until women came into the workforce. Your argument blithely ignores the fact that men are (by and large, no offense to the homosexuals out there) attracted to women. Men talked about tits and ass when there were no women in the workforce; suddenly women come into the workforce and expect NOT to be treated as peers (ie the type of person you can talk about tits and ass to) but as, what, virginal, asexual, humorless beings? That’s NOT equal treatment, no matter how you slice it.
Then there’s this piece of tripe:
The nineties are over, hon. The fact that I enjoy looking at breasts does not make me a sexist little piggy, a Neanderthal, or any other epithet. It makes me a normal, healthy man. You have simply got to learn to deal with this fact. Compromise is a TWO-WAY street—what is so “hostile” about a guy having a nudie calendar in his cubicle? Admittedly, we’ve gotten far from “the flick” here, but even then—if you think the flick is offensive/hostile, why do you also say it is “not harassment”?
I’d also point out that I still haven’t gotten a good answer as to precisely WHY women are offended by men pointing out their or other women’s sexual nature. I’m not being rhetorical, here, I honestly want to know the pathology—but the answer cannot be “I can’t help it.” My point here is that I honestly don’t see why it’s any more unreasonable for me to tell you to “get over it” than it is for you to tell me the same thing. I can’t help but look at breasts, you can’t help but be offended if I do it. Well, I’VE at least got a reason—normal, healthy sexuality ingrained over the course of mankind’s evolution. What’s yours?
As for the 70 cents on the dollar thing, that stat wasn’t even true back when it was invented; it certainly isn’t true now.
seawitch:
I’m not trying to make you accountable for my behavior. I’m not trying to say you MAKE me do “the flick.” What I’m saying is that I’m not responsible for your reaction to “the flick”—that’s your department.
You are right that churchgoers wouldn’t want you to jack off in the confessional. But business is not church, worshipful though we may be of the almighty dollar. The comparison just doesn’t hold up. It seems I’m being expected to believe that sex isn’t part of the office simply because… some women don’t want sex to be part of the office. There’s nothing inherent about commerce that precludes sex, so let’s see some actual rationale instead of “well, it’s the status quo.”
This was never supposed to be about my dick. My point is that, clearly, most men have NO problem conflating sex and business, or we wouldn’t have this sexual-harassment issue in the first place. I’m searching for a rationale beyond prudishness for why so many women would, on the other hand, be so opposed to such a conflation. I’m not talking about right and wrong, here, I just want to know why.
And right now, your rationale seems to be “if a woman does not find a man physically attractive, she has the right to expect that man never to look at her in a way that indicates that he thinks she is physically attractive.” Can you honestly tell me that’s a fair or reasonable justification for this hysterical talk about “hostile and offensive” workplaces?
Cosmopolitan:
you sum up my position as
Typical gender-feminist pap. I never even came close to implying that women sat around at home eating bon-bons while the kids raised themselves. But you present a very interesting catch-22 there—if I say “of course the women were doing hard work at home and were integral to raising the kids,” you’ll just turn around and say “Well, why couldn’t the MEN do it? You sexist pig, you think all women are good for is raising kids, dusting and washing dishes.”
But yes, now we ARE forced to deal with chicks’ hangups, and we are expected to change how we operate so you’ll be “comfortable.” These are indisputable facts. If you don’t think that women still grapple with this ridiculous madonna/whore complex, you’re way out of touch. Perhaps you blame men for the madonna/whore complex. I don’t know. But just because the facts don’t present women in the most ideal light doesn’t make me a sexist pig.
magdalene:
Thanks for sharing your opinion, but there’s nothing inherently “unprofessional” about owning a sexy calendar.
And getting back to Jodi… you appear to be flailing. It’s ridiculous it is to propose that an “all-inclusive” glance is fine but a “component” glance is not. If I check out your tits, you’re a sex object, but if I check out your whole body, I’m somehow “less shallow”? There is no logical rationale for this; you’re just projecting ideas into men’s minds, as far as I can tell.
Fianlly, Brother Scrimm, “frightening”? So we’re back to the “all men are potential rapists” line of thought?
Jodi, one quick comment and then a longer one:
I’m sorry, but I just found this sentence to be highly amusing. I sure hope you don’t flick his package, that would be distracting.
I’ll chime in on my opinion of the breast issue in a moment. For now, I want to know if you’re truly serious about this sentence, or if you were just adding things for dramatic effect. Your hair? No one can look at your hair, EVER, in a business setting without your opinion of him being lowered? I seriously just cannot grasp this. Hell, your hair is all of two inches away from your eyes. Looking at it implies nothing sexual whatsoever unless you were a folipheliac. I’m not even sure if that’s a word…or a fetish. But where do you expect us to look? Your hair is right there on your head where you expect our eyes to be!
Now, I don’t want to get into the whole biological evolution debate here as has been brought up on other pages. But I will say that, at rest, my eyes look down at a 45 degree angle. It takes effort to look straight ahead. No, not the same effort as curling a 50 lbs dumbbell, but it takes muscle control to do so. Looking down could be as innocent as relaxing the muscles for a split second. It doesn’t have to be sexual in nature.
That sounds like a piss poor excuse. Maybe it is. But I don’t stare. I barely glance.
I think we’re caught in a bad situation here. Not just men, but everyone. If you maintain eye contact ALL the time, that’s considered creepy and intimidating. If you look away, it appears as if you’re not paying attention. It’s a lose lose situation for everyone.
Jodi, you’re a lawyer. You know you can’t try someone based on what they’re thinking because you can’t ever know what they’re thinking. I’m not saying all stares are innocent. Far from it, I would assume. But I do think that many glances may be innocent. Not all, maybe not even most. I have no idea really. But I think it’s wrong to assume that you know what that person is thinking merely because he (or she) happened to be looking downward for a split second.
Franky I find it offensive that you would take offense at something that may be completely innocent. I’m not pardoning males that do look, but I am trying to explain that you really have no idea why we’ve taken our eyes away.
I must say that it is most interesting and enlightning to read the opinions expressed here. Although I now see that I could have been more specific with regards to the situational setting posed, I’d not change a word in the OP for fear of losing a single comment.
Clearly, some of the friction comes from the rub that some are speaking in the context of a workplace encounter with uninvited, unwanted, inappropriate behavior while others are referring to innocent sweeps in a casual, non-threatning environment.
I honestly could sympathesize with every opinion I read (except for personal attacks) and must admit they’ve changed my awareness of how differently this “event” can be interpreted, depending on which side of the pupil you reside.
What a wonderful forum this is for begging the question: “Hey, this is what I brought to the table. Did I forget my fork?”
I see Matt’s point that there is a difference between seeing something because you have eyes, and a deliberate, albeit brief, look. But many of the responses that consider this to be no big deal seem, to me, to be playing both sides of the fence – that glancing at breasts is no different from glancing at hair, a lamp, or anything else visible in the room, and at the same time, breasts are a special target for glancing because of natural sexual urges. So what is it? A special target or a lamp?
Obviously I understand that if you have functioning eyeballs, you are going to see me and my body parts if I am standing in front of you. It is juvenile to suggest that breasts are or should be in some sort of invisible zone. Someone said, in one of the first posts in this thread, that noticing is a key part of the reaction … if the owner of the breasts in question notices the glance, than it is, by definition, not subtle.
The only thing I can think to compare it to is wearing a name tag. I hope that someone will agree with me that one can often tell at what point in the conversation the other person reads your name tag, even if there is no verbal pause. A general glance should take in the fact that I am wearing a blue dress, glasses, and a name tag. “The flick,” however, is when I know that you know that the name tag says “Hi my name is Delphica.” I’m sure there are plenty of excellent stealth name tag readers out there so again, that gets filed under “subtle.”
By no means am I saying that name tags are meant to be read, so therefore breasts are made to be looked at. Think of a scenario where the president of your company has to look at your name tag to figure out who you are, **after **pretending to know who you are and talking about what a fine job you’ve done. “Sheesh,” you might think, “I’ve worked here for 10 years, there’s only 30 employees, you would think that guy would know my name by now. It’s obvious his praise wasn’t sincere because he wasn’t even sure who he was talking to.” Likewise, if you’ve spent time around women before, you should know they have breasts by now, so I’m not sure what new information you’re gleaning by looking at mine in particular.
Hey BickByro, how would you feel if a chick in your office had a nudie beefcake calendar in her cube? Wouldn’t that make you feel just a little uncomfortable? You probably don’t want to have a photo of some guy’s schlong in your face when you’re trying to work, & we don’t want to look at a pair of silicone titties. I’m not sure why this is a difficult concept.
FTR, as I have mentioned before…I don’t mind the flick. I don’t grasp why it’s not possible for a guy to understand simultaneously that a) I am an intelligent & supercompetent human being and b) I have nice boobs.
& you can tell your dirty jokes as long as you don’t mind when I tell mine.
Not anywhere near as uncomfortable as I’d feel working with someone I have to be afraid to look at. For your information, one of my coworkers is a gay man and has plenty of sexy man-photos up in his office (no actual naked schlongs, but i’m not talking about spread-vulva calendars here, either). I really don’t give a shit. So there.
It’s quite possible. In fact, it’s the core of my argument.
Ah! Ah! Ah! I should have previewed, because Enderw24’s comment is a perfect illustration of the difference that I am trying explain between seeing and flicking.
Ok Ender, you and I are at a meeting, and since you are in front of me, I cannot help but see your shirt. You see me see your shirt. Now, as sometimes happens in this imperfect world, this is one of those times where you notice me suddenly not only see your shirt, but take a quick look at it. You look down, and realize that you have a dribble of milkshake or an ink spot or something on your shirt front. Something I did made you look down. You perceived something similar to “the flick.” This is the difference between “I’m seeing you, and your shirt, and your hair” and “I’m looking at something.”
When I get the flick, sometimes my first reaction is to look down and see if I’ve got some cookie crumbs taking up residence on my blouse.
So if this keeps happening, and I am cookie-free, then yes, I think the other person is being unprofessional and I am annoyed.
A thousand pardons. When you said “nudie calendars”, I assumed you meant “calendars with naked photos of women”. If you mean something more along the lines of swimsuit calendars, I personally wouldn’t have a problem with that, though I think some women would.
I do have to point out, for some of the male Dopers who have been reading along, that I do not by any means think that all men are pigs. As a matter of fact, the great majority of the men I work with are friendly, appropriately businesslike, and not offensive in the least. There have been one or two guys in the past who ogled blatantly, but I’m assertive enough to handle that directly with the ogler. I’m also reasonable enough to know that one ogler != men are evil.
Unfortunately, there have been some posts to this thread that indicated a certain beetle-browed, waiting-to-discover-fire, painting-the-cave-wall kind of mentality. I’ve gotta object when suggestions to combat someone’s offensive behavior include quitting my job, curing my neuroses, or getting a double mastectomy.
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If you’re a man who does indeed do “the flick” innocently, no harm/no foul. We’re all human, not automotons. I think that fits the behavior described by most of the men posting here.
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If you do “the flick” excessively, you might not be as subtle as you think, and might offend some people in some situations. If you’re reasonable and intelligent, you no doubt already know this.
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If you defend your right to ogle “chicks” regardless of how you make them feel, and regard your self-indulgence as far more important than respect for your fellow humans, you need to either graduate from junior high or check yourself for sloping brow ridges.
I want to register my opinion on the “please don’t give me the flick in the workplace because I do notice and I don’t like it” side (in case someone’s keeping count). And thank you, Jodi, for staying the course.
Beltane, you had a serious question about wage disparity, and yes, it is still a fact of life for a lot of women, along with a lot of other workplace disparity issues. I would love to discuss this further, if you would like (in GD, of course :)).
There is also a whole issue of life disparity, which has been partially addressed here. Women are coming to the workplace with different life experiences than men are, and we have different reactions to situations because of this. A valid point that I think should be mentioned is that a single flick itself is mostly harmless; is there a woman on these boards that has encountered only one, single flick in her lifetime? That single flick you gave the hot new chick in the department was sexual glance #34,456 in her lifetime, if that gives you a better idea of why women don’t like this in the workplace, ByckByro. Some of us like to feel like the workplace is a haven from being objectified.
YES, YES, YES, YES, YES! I could not have said it better, and I apologize if any of my comments took the discussion to a less civilized plane.
Well, naturally there’s a whole weird double standard with women’s nudity—men with their shirts off vs. women with their shirts off, etc. Not to mention that women can have their pants off without actually “going gyno.”
It’s pretty clear, however, that even though it is not considered “nudity” for a man to be shirtless, there is a certain buff-muscular-six-pack sexiness about the photos in my gay coworker’s office. Naked breasts vs. naked abs-n-pecs shouldn’t be different, but of course they are considered different. I wouldn’t even want to begin parsing out the reasons for this.
But frankly, I wouldn’t be offended even if my coworker had pictures up in his office of fully erect penises spurting semen, as long as it didn’t interfere with HIS (not my) job performance.
Dear BickByro.
Please refrain from speaking for me. I DO NOT consider a Flick*, standing alone to be harrassment. Standing alone, a single flick is an annoyance which I am easily able to handle. If it becomes a pattern of sexual advances, or non-sexual threatening behavior then it would be harrasment (to me).
However The Flick is not a compliment (the question in the OP). I don’t wear revealing clothes at work. I am usually seen in baggy t-shirt and jeans (casual office) and old scruffy Doc Martens. If a man cannot keep his eyes from my perfectly average chest in this context – and oddly enough, some can’t – at best, I would think less of the Flickee. It is a reminder that for reasons unconnected to my job performance, my body is being appraised for its “worthiness” to the Flicker. Hence the phrase “a piece of meat.”
Now, if I am at a bar, wearing something snug, feel free to size me up. That is a completely different situation, and has nothing to do, IMHO with the OP, which specifically indicated a professional environment.
*a phrase I am proud to have coined, as it has been taken up by all and sundry of this thread. A Straight Dope first, for me!
Hey, you’re the one who said it made you feel like a piece of meat. Unless you were WAY overstating your reaction, I don’t see how that’s any different from feeling harassed. Or is “being made to feel like a piece of meat” somehow considered “not as bad as being harassed” in the New Feminist Dictionary? If you’ve been degraded to the point that you feel like a steak, how much more does it take to make you feel “harassed”? The semantics boggle the mind…
Y’know, I’m going to restate my position until it seems to me that everyone at least understands it, if not agrees, and I am going to continue to refuse to allow it to be misrepresented. I fully understand that it would be easier to take issue with what I did NOT say, which is one of the reasons I will insist on defending only what I DID say. But for those who have not taken the point:
The question asked originally (remember it?) was "Do you mind when men covertly glance at your breasts at work (a/k/a “the flick)?” It is clear from the OP that the context is “looks intentionally, to check 'em out” – not “my eye passed over them on its way to someplace else,” not “I was mindlessly looking down and whoops! there they were,” not “I was glancing around the room and they floated into and out of view without my intent to look at them.” No – this is “We’re at work and I’m trying to take a look at your tits on the sly and you catch me – does that bug you?”
I am answering the OP. That is the ONLY question I am answering. And I my answer remains “Eh, since you asked, yeah, it kind of bugs me and, no, I don’t really care for it.” I have not said it constitutes sexual harassment; I have not said I make a big deal about it – in fact, I have repeatedly said I don’t even mention it. But I note it, and I don’t particularly like it, in a low-level way. Shoot, I wouldn’t have even joined this thread if REVTIM hadn’t posted, essentially, that men do it because they can’t help it – an idea that made me go, “Hang ON; you can’t be serious.” I was and am far more “bugged” by the very idea that men are helpless to their urges than I was by the question of the flick – an idea I can’t believe men aren’t bothered by as well. Heck, if I responded to a thread by saying “We’re girls; we can’t help it,” 90 women would take issue with that, and rightly so.
If my position, and its limited nature, continues to elude anyone, then please review the posts of MAGDALENE, SEAWITCH, and FEATHERLOU – they are saying the same thing.
Everybody clear on where I’m coming from?
Just for the record, I’m not in the “it’s as innocent as looking at a lamp” camp. It’s sexual. For sure.
Errr…thanks for that clarification, BickByro. I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that.
Surely we all knew the results before the OP was posted. Some people don’t mind, some mind a lot. How and when it occurs makes a difference.
I’m a #2 on seawitch’s list, at least during day-to-day life in our culture. I work hard to be subtle, but I don’t completely repress the visual enjoyment and appreciation of other individuals, though I come regrettably close at work.
Something that has only been mentioned obliquely in this thread is the possibility of pointing out the behavior when you find it offensive. Nicely. Confidently. Someone said that women notice, and they talk to each other. I would encourage everyone to consider how much more helpful it would be if we conveyed those feelings to the person who offends. Without dumping the weight of the previous 24,873 offenses on them.
“Controlling” the urge to check each other out has been discussed already, but I want to share a personal observation. I find that the entire game becomes oppressive at times and there’s a place I go to recapture a more healthy way to live and interact: the nude beach (or nude anywhere else for that matter). Honestly, spend a little time with a bunch of naked people and all this stress disappears pretty quickly.
And for me, that’s when I really start to see people’s faces.
Please. As has been previously noted, the EEOC’s definition of sexual harassment includes:
“Unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature constitutes sexual harassment when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects an individual’s employment, unreasonably interferes with an individual’s work performance or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.”
(Bolding mine. Source: http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sex.html)
As previously noted, an isolated incident does not make my work environment feel “hostile.” It makes me feel “annoyed” and suspect that the “Flicker” may very well be a “jackass.” I return ONCE AGAIN to the subject of the OP, which simply asked if it was a compliment. I said no, and that it makes me feel like an object. (More like a prize cow than a steak, by the way). Never did I say that it was an intentionally or overtly hostile act.