Yeah, I know, with all twelve inches of your mighty manhood. :rolleyes:
This is just an example of why I never date anyone at the workplace … EVER.
As an aside, I have to say that there should be a rule that posters be at least 18 years of age, otherwise we end up dealing with crap like this. :dubious:
Absolutely. What do you want to talk about? Not sports, I hope. I find that dull.
It’s a little pathetic. No. It’s A LOT pathetic.
Unless you work for the Ford modelling agency, what’s the point of commenting on someone appearance in the workplace?
(I quoted the OP because I want to remind myself what the actual question is: “What behaviors do you see or how does it change the dynamic of the office?” I feel like in the responses the question has sort of morphed into “Are you a dick to her, or do you treat her normally?”, but I’m trying to answer the original question.)
I’m a woman who works in a male-dominated field. Not trying to call myself “stunning,” but when the field is mostly male, being a female who cares about your appearance is enough to at least put you in the “attractive” category.
A month or two ago, I was having dinner with a friend from an old job, one who was rather obviously more accommodating and helpful to me than he was to the average employee, and who freely admitted he was attracted to me. I was explaining to him how I sometimes felt self-conscious as a woman, and thought that people might think of me as less intelligent or competent as a result. I mentioned some specific examples.
I told him about a conversation between me, my manager (a male), and another guy, and how the other guy seemed to be facing and talking exclusively to my manager, as though I weren’t there and didn’t understand anything that was going on. My friend said “Or maybe you’re just an attractive woman and he’s an awkward nerd and isn’t sure how to act around you, did you ever think of that?” I found it comforting, to think that his behavior might not be due to a presumption of incompetence but simply due to being nervous around a woman.
Another anecdote: I was working on an issue with a male coworker (who has sometimes seemed more eager to help me out than he would to help out other coworkers). While he and I were sitting at the computer together, a couple other (male) coworkers approached me to talk to me about a different issue I was having, and tried to help me troubleshoot that issue. My first coworker quietly remarked to me about how people sure seem eager to help me, and they never seem so eager to help him.
I do also sometimes feel like if I walk into a room or walk down a hall, that men will look up and let their gaze linger longer than if I were a man (or than if they were a woman).
In summary: Many people don’t act any differently. Some people seem uncomfortable to be around me and want to avoid eye contact. Some people seem extra inclined to want to help me. But you could probably account for some of that difference simply by whether or not the person likes me. On my end of things, I’m more inclined to want to help some people than others, and I’m also more inclined to try to shorten conversations with certain people, and that’s not based on how attracted I am to them, but how much I like them, as a coworker and as a person.
Ok, a lot to unpack here. A bunch of moderator instructions follow:
First: I understand that this thread seems very timely, given recent discussions on threads that may venture too much into the objectification of women. That said, let’s not hijack this one with an in thread discussion about it. Feel free to create a companion thread to discuss it if you’d like.
**Second: **No sniping or personal insults
Implying someone “can’t read” or the like isn’t appropriate for this forum.
Let’s keep personal attacks on someone’s manhood out of here.
Ok, last instructions: I’m giving this one more try, lest, I be accused of lazy moderating:
There is a real conversation to be had here, even of the OP started it in an unnecessarily gratuitous way. I do NOT want to shut it down, but I will if I see any further:
Ok? Ok.
At least at first, they generally receive more attention, as people are willing to go out of their way to help or interact, in order to figure the new person out. It definitely scales with age, but the majority of people tend to remain professional, while those who work more indirectly try to throw in other bits of conversation when interacting. At the surface, the overall office dynamic doesn’t change, at least in my experiences.
You have your people who will steal glances (both men and women), and comment outside the person’s presence (again, both men and women). The majority of my office consists of women, across a range of age groups (20s-60s) and you see a rather wide range of behaviors, both positive and negative. Ethnicity tends to play a notable and interesting part, too (interactions between minorities vs the majority can vary widely). I’d also say the male-female ratio matters, as a larger group of the same sex encourages certain behaviors, for sure.
It also depends how the person carries themselves or interacts with people. You’ll see some people parse more general behavior into extremes-- for example, assertiveness may be chalked up to arrogance, or a greeting may be taken as flirting, when neither is intended. In any scenario, they tend to deal with a lot of perception issues (prejudices) and projection, but these usually pass with time as they settle in (save for the times they don’t, of course).
And this is also why I’m confused.
Why are so many of you convinced that rudeness is perfectly acceptable behavior but a handful of positive statements about someone are unacceptable? That kind of morality is confusing to me.
If I were at a store and one of two things happened
Which one do you think I’d report to a manager? I don’t get you guys.
This isn’t even a snipe or personal attack. I don’t understand why so many of you think shameless verbal and psychological abuse are perfectly acceptable behavior but non-derogatory positive comments on someone’s appearance (male or female) are not.
I’d rather have someone think I was handsome behind my back than call me an idiot to my face. Isn’t that normal?
Is there a pit thread we can continue this aspect of the conversation in so this doesn’t get derailed or upset the mods?
Because there is a long standing history of women being judged on their looks rather than their accomplishments and being harassed in the workplace. Through decades of fighting, women finally have systemic procedures in places to minimize this: harassment laws, overt training on this subject, cultural shift away from objectifying women in the workplace. If you’re genuine friends with someone, it’s less of an issue. But when you’re new, or just work colleagues it’s more difficult.
Like it or not, that history weighs heavily on most women.
*Comments like what you are describing can have a chilling effect on a woman’s ability to work with colleagues (is he thinking about me sexually while we’re talking? Is he judging how I look right now?).
*It also can fuel implicit bias by reinforcing the legitimacy of considering women’s appearance (more attractive women get more professional opportunities).
*Not all men mean well (will the guy who gave me the compliment follow me in the garage, grope me at the holiday party, call me a “bitch” if I don’t smile back). Nice guys look like creepy guys. Why should women have that additional burden when they just want to get their work done.
*Finally, it’s easier to call someone out on being rude. The damage is obvious. It’s a hell of a lot harder to call someone out one being “nice”, when the the “niceness” actually causes harm.
I think this conversation in this thread is fine- it’s on topic. Conversation about whether this thread is a board culture issue is not.
And thats all perfectly fine and well. I’m glad women have so many resources to keep themselves safe at work and are taken seriously in positions of power. Women have a lot of human capital to contribute to society.
But I’ve seen women make statements about good looking guys at work too. I’ve seen women call other women pretty behind their backs.
The tone of this thread is basically this:
Only men comment on women’s appearances. And when they do they do it in a cruel, derogatory fashion and it makes them not take women seriously as people or coworkers.
What I’ve seen in real life is this:
Both men and women will comment on an attractive coworker, male or female, in private but it isn’t rude or derogatory, and it doesn’t affect their ability to have a professional working relationships with that employee.
As I said, in real life I’ve seen just as many women engage in this behavior as men, and as far as I can tell I never saw it affect anyones working relationship.
The tone was set by the OP, focusing on attractive women.
As much as you don’t like it, the history of men and women in society is different, and current social mores reflect that. Men are not living with the weight of systemic and social acceptance of objectifying and limiting women in the workplace. They just aren’t. Happily, harassment laws protect everyone, so if a guy s being harassed he has recourse. But the culture and impact of this stuff is simply different on women and men, in general.
You can wish it weren’t so, but ask yourself- who bears the bigger burden? Men who have to refrain from making unnecessary sexual/appearance comments, or the women who are more likely to be impacted by them? In this case women have earned the right to have the pendulum swing their way, for now.
One day I was driving to a school function with my future wife and there was a gorgeous woman walking down the sidewalk. I of course pointed her out. Unfortunately, the gorgeous woman was walking to the event we were driving too and then was in all of my classes and eventually in my study group and finally came to work for me at a company I started after graduation. Needless to say the fact that her and I became friends was awkward since I’d started out telling my wife I thought she was hot. Eventually I told the gorgeous woman the story in front of my wife and they both laughed at me since it was obvious that she was smoking hot.
While the woman was gorgeous I hired her for her brain and she was one of my best employees. The closest we ever had to a problem was she was the head of sales and occasionally when I was having trouble with a male customer I’d ask her to go solve the problem and she would dress up and make the problem go away. Were we objectifying her, you bet, was she ok with it, and did it make her better at her job, you bet. Sometimes I feel bad about it but I think looks are just one way of manipulating customers and since she was and is ok with it I think I’m morally in the clear.
Still meaningless objectification is a weird way to start a friendship that I’ve had for the better part of decade now.
In the context of this thread, it’s something like “have you seen the new hire Mary? She’s gorgeous!”
So talk about something else.
Same point as talking about your kids, or movies, or so-and-so’s new car, or any other non-work-related topic.
People can figure out, or at least I can figure out, what topics are hot-button for my co-workers, and avoid those topics. I don’t talk politics at work, because that triggers rants about Trump, and I get enough of that on the Dope. There is another colleague that I know not to mention family around, because I don’t want to hear about her problems. If someone wants to lecture me about misogyny because I noticed that the new admin assistant is really pretty, fine - another topic to avoid, or maybe just not bother talking with that person on anything not work-related.
If the idea is that any mention of any woman’s physical appearance is automatically demeaning and harassment, well, we will have to agree to disagree on what constitutes professional conduct in the workplace.
Regards,
Shodan
I work in a gender-diverse office, with guys who range from hormone-driven boys fresh out of college to old men. There’s also a very attractive woman in the office.
In private, I hear the normal share of comments about which actresses are hot, who was the cutest Olympic athlete, etc. I have never heard anyone comment on our attractive coworker, or on the physical appearance of any other coworker. Never. I’m sure many people think it to themselves, but even the resident horndogs refrain from it. It’s pretty easy to establish that kind of culture at a workplace, and I’m glad my company did.
That’s not the idea.
I work in an open plan office. Some of the people I work with are quite attractive. I notice them but, as other people have, make the effort to be pleasant and professional and not to ogle or objectify anyone I consider exceptionally attractive.
If my co-workers are gossiping about each other, it’s not within my earshot. I’ve heard a few mild comments about people from other companies we’ve just had meetings with, more commonly from female co-workers about attractive men, but even then it’s very low-key and not at all lurid or inappropriate.
And it certainly doesn’t change the work dynamic. I work with good people.
There is another world right next to ours that you may not be aware of … it’s called the spirit world. Those men were hitting on her to get her reaction and to see if they could go farther than just a hello.
Some men win and some loose, but it all starts with a “hello and I would like to get into your panties”
No stunningly beautiful woman has started working anywhere I’ve been. I’ve worked at places with good looking women, but they were there before I started. Plus I work in software development, and the engineers have generally been segregated from other departments that have a preponderance of good looking women (i.e. marketing).
People have quietly commented on how hot someone was, but honestly it is few and far between, discrete, and fairly tasteful.
Bingo. That’s why so many women don’t take catcalling as a compliment - those guys are basically yelling, “HEY! I WANT TO FUCK YOU!”
Uh, no, not really the “same”. There’s a significant difference between talking about impersonal topics or family anecdotes, etc., and discussing your opinions about the physical appearance of a female co-worker. The latter is tainted by a long history of men treating female co-workers and employees as though their physical appearance is the most important thing about them in the workplace.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, nobody’s “lecturing” or criticizing anybody just for what they notice.
It’s when you draw other people’s attention to your noticing a female colleague’s attractiveness that you’re encouraging a long sexist tradition of behaving as though attractiveness is what really matters about female co-workers.
It’s not our fault that this long tradition of sexism is making well-meaning people come across as misogynistic assholes when they make remarks on women’s looks in a professional setting, even though they don’t intend any harm by their remarks. So you’re wasting your time holding a grudge against us for it.