The blue pill! Take the blue pill!
Speaking as someone from a culture where that can be acceptable, and who on occasion has specifically tried to provoke it, that “can be” again depends on the details. An age-appropriate dude yelling from a distance “long live your mother, gorgeous!” and smiling with his hands in full view is OK to me; an age-inappropriate dude yelling from a distance “come here!” while grabbing his privates is definitely not. And yet, taken out of context, the first sentence is just weird and the second one seems completely neutral.
Go ask your wife if she would always and without fail be perfectly fine with being referred to as a chick (hot or not) . This includes by you, by her kids, by her boss, and by HR during an performance review.
Now, if she doesn’t enthusiastically respond that yes, she is totally cool with being called a chick no matter what! Think about context. Are there circumstances where being called a chick is not a good thing?
The thing to me is that, it basically did go unremarked. The only moderator instruction was to get back on topic, and only after another poster had asked for more info about the hot chick.
Had UltraVires (who, to his credit, has at least dropped it at this point) just not whine about it, and then refused to accept the answers about it being off topic, none of this would have happened.
It’s not like Jonathan Chance said “Don’t call any woman a ‘hot chick’ again or you’ll get a Warning.”
Yes, it’s true! All I was doing was going about my daily business and while breaking a $20 bill the women helping me called me “Sweetie!”
I was so outraged I may take my business elsewhere. I’m a real live human being person and there’s so much more to me than just being “sweet!” I have hope and dreams and ambitions and wants and desires and problems and everything. I even have thoughts. And I’m sorry, but for her to judge me on such a superficial level, as though there’s nothing else of value about me is just beyond the pale!
I didn’t say anything though and I’ve been kicking myself ever since! It’s way past time to speak up and let people know that we’re not going to stand for this kind of superficial judgementalism. It’s not my job to be “sweet” in the first place! It’s her responsibility to conduct her transactions professionally and to offer no comment whatsoever as to anything about my looks, personality or attitude. In fact, she probably shouldn’t have even looked at me.
I’ll be glad when all these sappy middle-aged women die off so the only people left are those who are woke enough not to ever comment on any aspect of anyone’s looks, appearance, dress, manner, or whatever, in any way ever for any reason. Only then we will we all be able to live the sort of drab, boring, lifeless and characterless existence that we’ve all been working so hard to create.
I’m really glad to have gotten this off my chest and to revel in my newfound liberal mindset. I can’t wait for iiandyiiii to see this. He always says I never learn anything here, but look at me now!
[del]YEE HAW![/del]
(Oops, sorry! Must have been a little leftover testosterone there. Hopefully it won’t happen again.)
The point, already beaten at least half to death, is that commenting on the sexiness of random women is not always appropriate. It doesn’t matter if you, as a guy, would love to be catcalled by a woman. It doesn’t matter if you mean it as a compliment. It doesn’t matter if your wife or daughter (generally) doesn’t mind being objectified- or if you as a man deal with said objectification on her behalf and YOU’RE fine with it. It’s not about what you think about your remark. What does the object of your admiration think?
Random woman? Doesn’t want to hear it. Coworker? Pretty sure she also doesn’t want to hear it. Your acquaintance? Probably not, or she would be a lot closer to you as we speak. Your blood relative?! Jesus, I hope she doesn’t want to hear it, but maybe she does. Your significant other? Yeah she probably wants you to say it, but you know her better than I do.
Jesus, men who don’t yet get it, just keep your penisfeelings to yourself if you are not pretty damn sure the recipient wants to hear it.
Wow. You really are colossally stupid aren’t you?
You have to ask?!
OK…mentally remove the ? and replace it with an !
Starving Artist, I’d like to hear your opinion about the post I sent earlier this morning. As I said, the words ‘hot chick’ were not used, but some of the principles you and some others are defending in this thread are, in my opinion, pretty well exemplified.
Would you say Mister Biggus Gunnus (below) is perfectly entitled to talk about (in this instance) guns and his prowess anywhere and anytime? Despite being asked not to by his cohorts? Do you think his response was appropriate?
Really interested in garnering your opinion Starving Artist, and others who agree with his stance in this thread.
Well, bless your little heart, sweetie.
Oooooo…coming from a southern woman, I’d be shitting myself if I were you SA.
The crusade to get people to understand the english language is an unending and thankless one.
On the other hand, being unconcerned by the flagellation of hapless idiots is more of a state of being - it not only isn’t a crusade, it requires no effort at all. I just stand and watch pathetic misogynists make fools of themselves by being themselves. It would be dinner and a show except no dinner is provided and frankly it’s not even amusing enough to bother watching.
Back to the more interesting subject of the english language, the term “sweetie” can be recognized as a term that is not inherently insulting, and perhaps more importantly it should be noted that the term makes no reference to the appearance or dress of the person in question. Pretending that the discussion is one about attitude, or that there’s a chance in hell that SA has ever acted sweet in his life and thus that the term was even intended to describe his attitude, is an extreme stretch.
First of all, I don’t agree that your work situation dovetails with what we’re talking about here. Your situation involves a private group of co-workers, primarily female, and here we’re on a public message board where people are pretty much considered free to post what they want within the rules of the board, and the board is primarily male.
With regard to your male co-worker, I would want a more info before stating an opinion:
[ul]
Was he aware of or apprised of the suicide and how you and your co-workers felt about it?[/ul]
[ul]Was he aware of or been apprised of the fact that some of the women had been subjected to violence and that gun talk was therefore disturbing to them?[/ul]
[ul]How exactly was he asked to stop talking about guns? Given the way you described him, and his response, I’m suspecting snippiness or condescension.[/ul]
And finally, if I’m going to respond further to your apparently sincere and polite request to give my opinion on this subject, it might behoove you to knock off the insulting /taunting remarks.
My final answer will likely have to wait until tomorrow though as I’m about to leave the board for tonight. And I may have more questions after reading your response.
Yes, but it’s still a private board. Nobody can waltz in and start posting, they have to be members, and with membership comes certain responsibilities, would you agree?
It was national news here in Australia. Since that first instance, there have been two more tragedies, the last being just three days ago when a young father shot his wife, young kiddies and his mother in law. He seems up to date with all the other major news stories here, I doubt he would have missed any of the gun-related ones.
When he first raised the subject a few weeks ago, we (me and another coworker) asked him to dial it back because of the sensitivity of the subject. It was totally polite (we are not allowed to swear on chat) but he felt aggrieved that he should not have the opportunity to talk about his guns and his shooting skills.
See above. When he went troppo on chat after the first request, I contacted a Team Leader (male) to ask him to deal with the issue further. This was obviously done, because Mister Biggus Gunnus has been invisible on chat since that time. Until this week when we got a new Team Leader who happens to be female.
So Mister BG went off his nut at the meeting yesterday, obviously testing out the resolve of the new TL and to see how far he could push his ‘right’ to talk guns
And how about you start to LISTEN to what people are telling you here. And how about you stop with the faux-outrage posts like yours above, Sweetie.
Of course. Again, what time-zone are you in? It’s early evening here in Australia…pretty sure it’s early am for most of the US? :dubious:
You lying fuck.
Gary, you left out the sweetie.
I’d like to propose that henceforth we all address SA as sweetie every time.
In a nutshell, it comes down to:
Somebody posts something that might be construed as offensive.
Multiple posters show WHY that something might be construed as offensive.
The original ‘somebody’ disappears, but others come in to say that ‘something’ is NOT offensive to them.
Multiple (and the majority of) posters explain that the views of those posting that something is NOT offensive, are not necessarily correct in the 21st century.
*
Rinse and repeat…for page after page.*
In my example at work, somebody posted something that might be construed as offensive.
Multiple workers (including management) explained WHY that something might be construed as offensive.
The original ‘somebody’ gets irate that he is being censored and that nobody should find his views offensive. Explodes at the injustice of it all.
Hopefully no more rinse and repeat for my workplace though.
Given the stats on violence in the world, it is a safe assumption that a woman old enough to work for a living has been subjected to violence of some sort in her past. That you need this pointed out is yet another sign of ignorance.
When a direct report shows up for the first time in a blue suit with a neutral shirt and sensible pumps, you may comment on how professional she looks. Actually, even then it’s probably best to compliment the outfit. Nevermind.
That does not objectify the group “old, white men”.
I kind of agree with this one. I hate people calling me ‘sweetie’, ‘dear’, ‘honey’, and really do think people should know better.