Ooooooo, ISWYDT. 
I worked in an office that was hiring, and a good looking young woman came in to be interviewed, showing a lot of cleavage and most of a tattoo. She caught the office manager looking at the tattoo during the interview.
He was gay, and not used to being caught looking at breasts, or at avoiding being caught doing so, and was extremely embarrassed. He was blushing again just telling us about it weeks later.
Are you sure they’re not just angry at you?
If your reaction to thinking that a woman seems angry when it’s not instantly clear to you why is to conclude that she’s a bitch to be avoided even in a professional context which calls for you to be around her: I’ve got to consider the possibility that the reason you think they’re angry at everything is because they’re always angry around you.
I guess he’ll just have to avoid you.
I’ve seen it directed at other people as well; it’s not just me.
Or, I could be a normal person about it and just ignore it IRL, because complaining to HR is a dick move that’ll cause a bunch of discontent in the office for not actual reason.
We have a responsibility to sort out genuine issues affecting workplace culture and help our teams succeed, not facilitate entitled Gen Z whining about how they can’t bring their dog to work or didn’t get their project element completed by deadline because they’re anxious about the impending climate disaster or whatever.
I was suggesting that you might gently raise the issue in conversation with a female HR staffer about her own beefcake calendar, not about a calendar put up by one of your co-workers. Would that gentle inquiry really “cause a bunch of discontent in the office”?
Gosh, it just seems odder and odder that any young women at your workplace would seem to you to be acting angry or “narky/snide/sarcastic”. When you’re treating them so respectfully and working so hard to help them succeed and all.
I’m not suggesting that you’re obligated to encourage people to bring their dogs to work or miss deadlines. But I’m not entirely convinced that the whole problem is actually the sole fault of “angry young women” gratuitously being “a bitch” and their “general bitchiness and unpleasantness” and “entitled Gen Z whining”. I mean, they’re not the ones we’re getting the whining from here.
Perhaps my experience was atypical. But I had a long career in management. I had literally hundreds of people working for me at any given time and thousands over the course of my career, a substantial number of whom were women. I also had female supervisors and female colleagues who were at the same level I was.
But I never felt I needed to avoid female employees (which would have been difficult anyway) or adopt any special practices when working around a female employee. And I never had any problems with female employees due to their gender nor was I ever accused of sexual harassment.
That’s because there’s almost literally no-one on the boards under 30. I don’t think you or many other people here appreciate the effect that has on collective attitudes to stuff (at least as expressed).
Hmmm. Personally, as a college faculty member who is constantly talking to people under 30 and hearing their conversations with each other, I get the impression that I accumulate quite a bit of information about young people’s “collective attitudes to stuff”. Of course, attitudes at your workplace could very well be different from the ones I’m seeing.
The women I knew weren’t angry at everything, they were angry at stuff that today you wouldn’t be surprised that they were angry about. Back then lots of men no doubt had problems understanding why anyone would be angry with their sexist comments.
And any man expecting that people around him would respond to his obnoxiousness with sweetness and light was going to be sorely disappointed. And probably wasn’t going to make it through MIT.
And, BTW, my year at least I think it is safe to say the women were on average smarter than the men, hardly surprising given greater selectivity. But the Student Government issued guide for freshmen had a little section denigrating MIT women. Not all the sexism was subtle.
I would imagine they are. And while we both work with significant numbers of younger people, that still doesn’t change the fact there aren’t any of them (or more than one or two) here on the boards to provide some first-hand thoughts on the subject (or any subject at all), which has wider issues for general discussion elements.
The OP herself falls into that category.
Yeah, I remember the old song lyrics: “My girl’s from MIT, she is a travesty, Girls who go for engineering Are not so hot-appearing”.
People just get tired of the contempt, you know?
About men touching other men: it’s common, but I think it is a means of asserting dominance or solidarity. Men don’t slap a large strong man (think The Rock!) on the back if they aren’t friends. The trope is even seen in movies where a guy starts to move for a back slap and holds back for fear of offending the strong man.
Phrase this a different way. If a colleague states that a meeting was an “old boy’s network” with zero examples, I interpret that meaning as an unfounded smear meant to damage my reputation or get me fired.
Be specific. State specific examples of what “old boy’s network” was exhibited in the meeting. Otherwise, it is akin to hearing “my colleage dropped the n-bomb in conversation” with the sub-text that he’s a racist piece of crap. OK, maybe poor analogy.
Someone saying the “old boy’s network” to HR or to a senior level manager, is levelling an emotional accusation that I’m a sexist a-hole sans evidence or even examples. IMHO that is a total dick move. I have no choice but to go to defcon 5 to make sure I keep my job from an unfounded (IMHO) accusation.
I’m totally fine with “you said xxxx, and it made me uncomfortable.” That’s open and honest communication, and I self reflect and more than willing to change to not make others uncomfortable.
That I never heard. Not like we men from MIT were so hot appearing either.
But what I was referring to was worse. It said that “coeds” (what MIT women were called back then) were rumored to be various bad things. In reality, it said, they are worse.
So not exactly surprising that freshman women started off with some anger.
I can hardly imagine how much worse it was 10 years earlier.
Oh–you’re analogizing being accused of being an old boys network to being accused of using a racial epithet, not to the use itself. That makes way more sense. Thank you for clarifying!
I’ve encountered almost none of this. No men afraid to interact with women, no inappropriate calendars of either sex, no angry young women. I’ve heard sexist comments, but rarely. Nothing that would qualify as sexual harassment.
Am I just lucky, am I oblivious, or is it that there are many people who have no issues, but they don’t bother posting in threads like this?
So, the lowest state of readiness?