Goddamn it, why don’t I work with these women.
Actually, I kind of do - one of the hot 23-year-old identical twins I work with (yes, really; it keeps me awake at night) was wearing a very revealing blouse yesterday and complained to me that some older guy was staring at her cleavage. I just said sarcastically “You’re wearing a revealing blouse? Gosh, I hadn’t noticed.” She got the message I think.
That said, I can’t wait until she wears it in again…
That’s when you say “Well, you know, it IS a bit cold in here”.
I know we’ve discussed this at length on the Dope before (not you and me, personally, jjimm - the general “we”), but this shit really twists my knickers. You wear a very revealing blouse (or put glitter on your displayed cleavage), you have just revoked all rights to complain about guys staring at what you’re displaying.
I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic, but that’s essentially the point. Drawing all attention to your knockers means you can’t bitch if you catch someone looking.
Revealing blouse, yes. But what about clingy sweaters?
My coworkers often “reminisce” about the time we caught our boss sizing up a young technician who was wearing a nice form-fitting sweater. The guys seemed to think it was hilarious, but I couldn’t help but feel creeped out. Women shouldn’t have to wear baggy, shapeless clothing to “earn” the eye-contact of their male coworkers.
Sometimes, though, an outfit turns out to be more revealing than you actually thought.
I work at a marketing agency. If one of the female senior managers had a nipple showing, I’d say, “Hey, your left tit’s hangin’ out!” and nobody would care. I mean, not in a client meeting.
We have a pretty laid back office. I can’t stand corporate environments.
No, I wasn’t being sarcastic. We had a long, arduous thread here awhile back about a woman in a bar (she might have been the bartender) who hiked the girls up to her neck in a low-cut top, then put glitter on her boobs, then complained that guys were staring. I think most women over 15 or so know that guys stare at boobs; if you give them extra reasons to stare at them (practically a flashing neon sign saying, “LOOK AT THESE!”), I don’t think you have any right to complain when they do what you basically demanded they do.
monstro, that’s a whole lot more debatable. If I wear a nice, form-fitting, modest outfit to work, I wouldn’t expect all the guys to stare at my chest and I would be upset if they all did. Now, are we talking about a fabric that fits well but is clingy, or someone wearing a shirt two sizes too small? Again, in the language of dressing to get looked at, extra tight is on the same level as low-cut.
I think you can safely ignore Sunrazor and Jodi’s advice.
I work as a litigation consultant. Basically it’s a branch of management consulting that more or less serves as a translater between business people and lawyers.
While I can’t give you legal advice, I can give you practical business advice.
Stop making a mountain out of a molehill. You didn’t do anything wrong and she doesn’t appear offended.
By the way, you documenting stuff does not prove you guilty or innocent of anything. It just provides a discoverable record of your actions unlike your conversation (which sitting here now, I cannot recall at this time).
It’s…uh…an optical illusion created by…uh…the pleats. I’m taking these pants back to the store.
And people like this are the reason so much time and money is wasted on stupid lawsuits.
He was not enforcing company policy or imposing his taste or style. He was simply and discretely making her aware of the fact that she was exposed in a way that she might be uncomfortible with and unaware of, given our norms.
It would be similar if a man was walking around with his fly down. It would likely be unintentional and most people would prefer to be discretely made aware of the problem rather than receiving an official memo from corporate or walking around all day like that.
If she then replied that her nipular situation was intentional, then he should simply go bout his business.
I don’t think I gave him any advice, except that if he was seriously concerned she might consider his actions sexual harrassment, he should let his boss know what happened and why, preemptively. I stand by that. One man’s “molehill” is another sexy Latina girl’s “mountain,” and my point was that if he’s reasonably concerned that a mountain will be made out of this molehill anyway, he wants to be the one to register his story first. Why? Because after the fact he will have an obvious reason to minimize or to lie – namely, that he’s been accused of sexual harrassment. Seems pretty straight forward to me.
Is this making a mountain out of a molehill? Yep. And there are certainly reasons why he might not want to do that, which is why my advice was predicated on him being realistically and seriously concerned that she might have taken his actions as sexually harrassing. If he’s concerned about that, then he might want to take steps to protect himself.
And documenting stuff does create a discoverable record, obviously. It also can prove or tend to prove that an unobjectionable intent or motive existed before the problem arose – that is, before reason existed for the accused to lie.
And FWIW, professionally I would be extremely leery of a “litigation consultant” whose idea of translating between business people and lawyers is to say or imply you’re better off not documenting stuff.
Of course you would- the cost of cleaning the carpet after you dragged your penis on it up the hallway would be incredible !! Of course they’d fire you.
I’m a 44 year old male. I’ve said similar things to women, though have not use the N word. I mean, c’mon. Gapping happens. And other stuff, and if it is obvious it was not intentional, then I’d say something. If it smacked of a fashion statement, I’d keep my yap shut.
Cartooniverse
FormerMarineGuy, it would certainly be unjust if she filed a complaint. I doubt that she will. But next time, I would just let it slide.
If it were me, I would be much more offended by being referred to as a girl. I was expecting perhaps a thread from a teacher about a student. Notice how most posters called her a woman. You’ve seen enough of her to know for sure.
The one thing no one has mentioned is that FormerMarineGuy may have a case for being sexually harrassed himself.
The fact that the woman wore somthing so provocative to work, then left the sweater open, points to wanting to be seen.
Whether she was targeting FMG or not isn’t the issue. She made him uncomfortable enough to mention it. Should he have to keep his eyes on the floor just because he’s a man? Of course not! The people around him should dress in a manner that doesn’t make it necessary.
So did you give him advice or not, cousnelor?
First of all, that’s not what I do. We’re basically a group of CPA accountants, MBAs, ex Big-4 (Deloitte/KPMG/PWC/ect) consultants and technology experts who get paid by AM100 law firms to help them understand the businesses they represent, conduct investigations, supporting depositions, that kind of stuff. We also help businesses stay in compliance with regards to maintaining records/email/pretty much anything that can be subpoenaed.
FWIW, professionally I would be extremely leery of a lawyer who advised me to create some paper trail for a non-incident after the fact that makes me appear to be covering my ass. If I was a juror, I might interpret that as him being so concerned about what he did that he attempted to smooth it over. As a business person
What kind of law do you practice and how long have you been at it? Are you an actual litigator or do you do mostly research? Do you see a lot of these kinds of cases? I ask because your response seems like a bit of an overreaction, even for an attorney.
So, Former Marine Guy, did anything else happen, or did it all blow over innocently?
Funny you should ask, about thirty minutes prior to closing yesterday she asked me what I was doing after work, definitely on the flirtatious ‘let’s go out’ side.
If you hit it off, you’ll have a charming story to tell your grandkids about what first brought you together.
But first I would have to leave my wife, who I met under far more interesting circumstances.