Is that a euphamism? 
That was my policy when I was working. How is anyone’s appearance relevant in normal circumstances?
Plus, which skits or clothes a guy says is “cute” might be an issue if he only says it of relatively revealing ones.
I wonder how many men who get into trouble do so because they aren’t aware they are doing anything wrong, if they think the only punishable offense should be blatant acts of harassment.
I think I’ve posted this before, but it seems appropriate here:
The Rock Rule makes the main point in a humorous way; treat a female co-worker the same way you would treat a male co-worker. And while we’re on it, the reverse is also true; treat a male co-worker the same way you would treat a female co-worker. Don’t assume , for example, that it’s okay for you to tell a sexist joke just because there are no women in the room. A man could be just as offended by the joke as a woman might be.
The other simple rule is to listen to what female co-workers are telling you. (And again, this rule applies to male co-workers as well.) If they tell you they don’t like something you said, don’t try to argue the point and explain why what you said wasn’t wrong. Understand that your desire to say it does not outweigh her desire not to hear you say it.
Treat your co-workers with a normal amount of respect and you will find your worries will disappear. Most people, male and female, are not looking to attack a co-worker. If somebody makes a slip and says something offensive, they’ll just point it out. If the offender acknowledges the problem and changes, the issue will be over.
If you find yourself in a situation where you are constantly worried about being accused of harassing your co-workers and feel that all your co-workers are against you, you need to face the reality; you’re the problem not them. You’re not going to see a group of people all making false accusations. If everyone is accusing you of something, the reason is almost certainly that the accusations are valid.
The other day, I had a client tell me that one of my employees had beautiful eyes. I really wasn’t sure what to do with that.
Now, the one comment I will make on appearance is if someone dyes their hair. As we dye dogs as well, that is actually somewhat work related.
This would suck if you are one of the people caught up in a situation like this.
But the bigger picture is that the world has changed. Men who act like this are sabotaging their own careers. A man who refuses to interact normally with women is going to find he isn’t able to do the same amount of business activities that a normal employee is doing. His supervisors, both men and women, are going to see him as a marginal employee and treat him accordingly. If he’s the owner, he may be able to impose his views on the company. But by doing so he will make the company weaker and he will find his competitors, who treat women normally, are drawing away his customers.
Men who are unable to work in a business setting with women are a dying breed.
I’ll have to admit, this is something that has made me a bit uneasy. Pre Covid, I had an “open office” (three cubical walls). Post covid they have moved me into an office with four walls and a door.
I’m not worried about getting reported. I just worry about their comfort level of being alone in a closed space like that. I want them to feel comfortable when we are having one on one conversations.
Anyway, it’s just a tinge, but a tinge that wasn’t there when I had my open office.
Men that are harassers tend to maintain plausible deniability - they aren’t going to make a rude comment about your breasts, they’ll compliment your shirt - it a way that makes it clear to you that it’s a rude comment about your breasts.
Then they double down and complain about touchy politically correct women that get all offended when you compliment their shirt. The trick is not to let yourself be gaslighted by this.
I came up in these work environments in the days before HR departments. I think in a way it was easier - everyone knew who the creepy guy was - even if the creepiness couldn’t be adequately conveyed in a report. The other guys would call him out for acting creepy.* The women would exchange their stories and present a united front - these really helped, creeps like to make their victims feel isolated.
A functional socially bonded workplace made up mostly of people with good intentions is capable of reforming or neutralizing or ostracizing the creeps. And misunderstandings can often be resolved through conversations - one time my sales group had a vibrant young female assistant who frequently spoke in a rather racy way about her personal life. This made some of the older men in our group uncomfortable and they approached me and asked me to talk to her about it. I did, and since she was a good person with good intentions she “toned it down” and we all lived happily ever after.
But - and I see THIS as an issue that’s mostly different from sexual harassment- most every office has that one person, the one that’s insulted or offended by everything and complains about everyone. I just steer clear of him or her….I once gave that person the silent treatment for about 6 months - and it was a small office.
(She really was THAT bad, she got fired for cause and appealed to unemployment court, at the hearing she told the judge “he wasn’t a real judge” and accused him of being in cahoots with her coworkers.
At some point a “reasonable person” standard has to apply, although there will always be disagreement around that standard. But even though there are cases that are around that margin, most of them aren’t.
- A little off-topic(maybe), but good men have always been my best defense against harassment. I was a technical theatre major in college and our theatre department ran a professional regional theatre, as many of them do.
Although unpaid, leadership positions on these theatrical productions were resume builders and it was sometimes rather competitive. One of my professors decided he wasn’t going to give me a job I was vying for, and he told several people it was because I wouldn’t sleep with him.
Then I watched every other qualified person ( all men) that was offered the job turn it down because of this, and I got the job because I was the only person left.
I love this; thanks for sharing!
I agree with the OP and similar sentiments posted here. I will say, though, that I think there’s a little bit of a gray area with behavior that’s not intended to seduce, harass, or intimidate, and that might not bother many of the men (and even some of the women) in a particular workplace, yet might still be inappropriate and grounds for complaint. I worked in restaurants from my late teens through my late 20s, and they were hotbeds of this kind of thing. My co-workers and I were constantly making sexual and/or scatological jokes at one another. As far as I know, no one was bothered by it–but I could be wrong. I grew up and realized that sort of humor should be left outside the workplace, even when everyone seems to be enjoying it. But in order to get to that point, I had to realize that not all sexual harassment is deliberate, knowing, and intentional, and that portraying it that way did a disservice to everyone.
I’m a man and in my experience most men who say this are either scared to talk to women in general and use it as an excuse or are not the best at picking up social cues and polite help so they really just don’t want to chance it. Men who treat women as fellow adult human beings and are skilled at communication have less to fear. I fall somewhere in the middle, tbh. If anything, women are a lot more sexually suggestive towards me and probably think I’m close to asexual (which isn’t completely off the mark).
I don’t know. There was a poster on this board years ago who said something like that man offering to shake a woman’s hand was indicative he wanted to rape her or something to that effect. Does anyone else remember this?
EDIT: I believe it was the now banned ZPG_Zealot .
SECOND EDIT: A thread on it here. https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-zpg-zealot-handshake-thread-party-extravaganza/758713
Women in my office routinely compliment each other’s or the customer’s (patient’s) personal appearance. “I love your shoes” “cute top” “aren’t you a handsome/pretty young man/lady” etc.
In my opinion for a man to offer the exact same complements to women without an effeminate aura would be highly inappropriate. And to be effeminate when he is not usually effeminate, would be mocking effeminate men and/or women and thus also highly inappropriate.
ETA: I guess my point is that there are gender roles for small talk in (my) workplaces, whereby it is acceptable for women to complement personal appearances and not really acceptable for men to do the same.
~Max
I have this problem in a group I’m in. The guys are all very respectful (although I’ve seen/heard them be rough in non-professional settings). We all have matching embroidered polos. Sometimes we wear those as a group, sometimes we dress up. I’ve come to learn that the 3 guys will text each other asking if they’re going to wear the polos and leaving out us 2 women because “I’d never tell a woman what to wear.”
But, it’s not telling a woman what to wear at all. It’s just letting the group know what the group dress code is for the meeting.
I’ve tried to get them to start including me but they don’t do polos much anymore anyway, and I have some new fancy clothes to wear, and the one guy always wears a suit anyway.
Overcorrecting is sometimes just as exhausting as being a boar.
I wonder how many women you’ve worked with over the past 25 years that experienced unwanted sexual advances from your male coworkers. I bet it’s more than two.
The Rock Rule doesn’t really work if the work culture is that of a boy’s locker room - if you would be talking to the Rock about your sexual escapades or ranking office hotties. Treating women as bros doesn’t exactly solve the problem. And I bet those are the kind of work cultures where men are avoiding women out of fear of sexual harassment reports.
~Max
I think the situation you describe is similar to a very religious boss who is of a different denomination or religion. You work hard and prospects for moving up are good, then the boss makes some offhand religious comment - not strictly related to work - that really makes you uncomfortable.
You let him know the comment makes you uncomfortable. Then you stop getting invited to in-group events, passed over for promotions, etc. a whole bunch of passive-aggressive things let you know a door has been closed.
This scenario plays out many times over for many people and we would be here today discussing how some employers are avoiding Jews/Muslims/whoever at work because of fear of alleged reports of religious discrimination.
ETA: The men in the OP, or the bosses in this post, suffer from a problem where it is easier for them to exclude women/X religion from their inner circle than it is to be professional at work. The result is a toxic work environment (at least for the people being discriminated against), and the only solutions I can think of are
- Avoid the company like the plague
- Put up with it and maybe change the culture from within, at the expense of your own stress
- Lawsuit if viable or wanted
~Max
Part of the problem is that even benign things from men like “What are you doing this weekend?” and “Do you want to go to lunch?” can be taken multiple ways by women. Even if the man doesn’t mean anything, the woman always has to consider if it’s part of a come on. The same is not really true if a man says those things to another man. Two heterosexual men can ask each other for lunch and it’s just lunch. No one is wondering if it’s a veiled attempt at flirting. That’s not the same for a man asking a woman to lunch. There’s always the possibility that the man may want it to be more. Because of that, even men who don’t have ulterior motives may be reluctant to ask a woman to lunch because they don’t want to put her in the position of having to wonder if he’s trying something. The same can be true for small talk and the like. By limiting these kinds of encounters, it lessens the potential for discomfort and misunderstandings.
To be defined as harassment, there needs to be a pattern of unwanted behavior based on someone’s race, color, sex, national origin, age (over 40), religion, or disability that creates what a reasonable person would consider to be a hostile environment. I do not believe complimenting a coworker on their new hairstyle, shoes, or a piece of jewelry would be considered offensive to a reasonable person in most situations.
But you’d probably avoid men who seemed unhinged or malicious as well, right?
It’s a problem for a variety of reasons. It can make it more difficult for women to find mentors, it can affect what projects they’re assigned to, who they work with, etc., etc. which can have a detrimental impact on their careers. And its bad for the company as well as talented women leave for greener pastures. What to do about it? Management needs to foster an atmosphere where everyone is comfortable to be themselves which is why diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have been a big thing in HR for the last couple of years.
Maybe, and I am just spitballing here, maybe they are avoiding you for a different reason.
Do you work in the porn industry? If not, that’s inappropriate.
Inappropriate is putting it mildly. It is enough for immediate termination.