Emily Heist Moss wants us to be able to talk about the appropriateness of sexual conversations in the workplace, instead of just dismissing concerns.
When I was 18, I waited tables at an Italian restaurant in my hometown. The staff was the typical collection of teenagers, college drop-outs, townies, and single moms you’d expect at a suburban casual dining establishment. Our boss, Jeff, was an outrageous flirt, but his banter was generally accepted as a harmless, occasionally welcome distraction from the frenzy of the dinner rush. One night, at the pre-dinner staff meeting, Jeff lectured us on the proper cleaning technique for the mini-fridges under the counter. You had to kneel down to get at the back corners, he explained. He paused, pointing to one waitress, “Come on, Kari, you know what it’s like to spend plenty of time on your knees….” And then, while the entire staff looked on, he made the classic tongue-in-cheek blowjob gesture.
At the end of the night, I went to Jeff’s office where he was tallying receipts. I politely told him that I’d found his comment at staff meeting to be offensive. I said that, although we worked in a casual, intimate environment, he was the boss and it was his job to set a higher bar for appropriate humor. He rolled his eyes, pointed to a poster on the wall, and said, “There’s the hot line for sexual harassment if you want to call it.” I didn’t, but I wish that I had.
Jeff’s blowjob gag was not directed at me, and I was not the one being disparaged in front of my coworkers. Kari, the target, may even have found it amusing. At the very least, I didn’t bump into her on the way to Jeff’s office to file my complaint. As an employee of Jeff’s, however, the indirect implications of his joke rippled out and created, for me, a hostile work environment. The joke itself was sexually inappropriate, but the real damage it caused was the condoning of a certain type of objectifying humor. In responding to my rebuke with dismissive hostility, he denied me a safe and comfortable process for discussing my concerns. Jeff was supposed to be the guy I turned to if I felt harassed by another employee. He was supposed to be an impartial and fair resource for the whole staff. Instead, his behavior created a space where that kind of commentary was sanctioned by the management.
♦◊♦
Many years later, I was at a work event, sitting at a table with half a dozen male coworkers I’d never met before. One of them, in casual conversation, used the expression “sucking dick.” The remark wasn’t directed at me ,and it wasn’t even about oral sex; it was merely a turn of phrase he’d chosen to describe some asexual phenomenon. Mid-sentence, he turned directly to me, “Oh man… I’m… uh, I’m really sorry… Was that offensive? Did that bother you? I didn’t mean to… Well, I hope you weren’t… Yeah…..Sorry.” I assured him his language didn’t bother me in the slightest. He sighed with relief, beginning his story anew. “Wait,” he said, whipping back to me one last time, “Are you a lesbian?” I balked. I don’t think anyone, much less a co-worker, has ever asked me my sexual orientation, point-blank. His question put me in the awkward position of revealing personal information to a slew of colleagues or pointedly refusing in front of the table. I let a raised eyebrow convey my discomfort, and he let the question drop.
After the fact, the whole exchange struck me as preposterous. I had never been offended by the language choice, but I didn’t appreciate being singled out as the only person at the table who might have been. Most of all, I really didn’t like being put on the spot about my sexual orientation.
For many professional women, depending on their industry, the feeling of exclusion is much more subtle and potentially damaging than outright sexism. Had this guy made a sexist comment at me, I know my rights and my options for defending them. This guy, however, was singling me out for specific comment because of my gender. It’s equivalent to a teacher calling on a black student to ask how he feels about reparation politics. From the moment he asked me, and only me, my feelings on his word choice, it was obvious that I was somehow a different type of colleague than the rest of the table. It was as if, since I didn’t a penis, I was an obstacle to the flow of conversation, instead of a contributor to it.
These kind of exclusionary tactics may seem surface deep—and they are—but they often facilitate professional divisions that damage women’s careers in the long run. A friend of mine had a boss who used to send pictures of women in bikinis to all the men on her team. She found herself excluded from email chains with substantive work content because she hadn’t been included on the original raunchy note. He also prefaced conference calls with, “Hey guys, just want to let you know that Becca is on the line… watch your words!” How inappropriate was their conversation if this sort of preemptive warning was necessary? Suddenly Becca is depicted as an impediment to the project instead of a part of it.
♦◊♦
The most important distinction between the restaurant experience and my “Are you a lesbian?” interrogation was the quality of management. I later recounted the dinner conversation to my male supervisor. He laughed with me at the absurdity of it, but he also made sure to ask if I wanted him to intervene on my behalf. I assured him that all was well. I had complete confidence in my boss that, should I ever need his support regarding some gender-related colleague issue, he had my back.
It’s a fine line between, “You look nice today,” “You look nice today” with a leering grin and an ogling chest-level stare, and “You look nice today” if you’re worried that not looking nice might cost you your job. Contextualizing a workplace conversation helps us determine what falls on which side of the harassment line, but it’s still a distinction that’s extremely difficult to articulate, and even harder to prove. A company can’t control the actions or words of an individual employee. They can only set policies that create clear expectations of what is acceptable work behavior, and provide an easy, hassle-free avenue to address issues.
I wish I had called that hotline five years ago. Kari may have found Jeff’s blowjob joke hilarious, but my personal level of comfort took a tumble. Everyone deserves a workplace where they feel safe, respected, and heard, and damn, did that man need a refresher course.
No one should be made to feel uncomfortable or alienated in their workplace by that kind of unprofessional behavior. I also don’t think there’s anything wrong with a woman voicing her personal experience with sexual harassment just because men’s experiences are under-represented. It’s a problem for anyone who’s ever been in the minority in a working environment and they should all feel at liberty to discuss their own issues and experiences. To add my personal experience to the discussion, I’ve never been harassed at work, but I have been in other activities. Because of my autism I have a hard… Read more »
I’ve always felt that you treat people the way you’d like to be treated. I worked in a department that was all women except for me. My boss was female and her boss was female so as far as the department was concerned, the chain of command was women. They had a conversation once where they were vividly describing their underwear (not what they were necessarily wearing just what they bought). After about 10 minutes, I told them I had to leave. They seemed as embarrassed as I was. I think they forgot I was there. I never made a… Read more »
Simple oldfashioned (pre-feminist, pre-sexual revolution) POLITENESS would solve a lot of this.
My dad’s generation would NEVER make blowjob jokes in a workplace environment, or perhaps anywhere.
My mom was one of the original career women (starting in the 1940s) and if anyone had dared talk like that to her, or around, her, that man would have been fired and possibly beat up in the parking lot. She was NEVER sexually harassed.
This is a NEW problem, historically speaking.
I do not expect friendship nor romance at any workplace I am in, in fact I would refuse it if it was offered. Gently but firmly. I have seen how destructive feminists are in the work place and the best approach I have found is to be neutral, say nothing that is not work associated. I take the view I am at work to earn a living, not to risk censure by some office Miss Manners.
Absolutely, thats the safest approach to take. The man in the second incident probably” soiled himself” when he realized what he said in the presence of a woman. He saw his whole carrear flash before his eyes. You said you weren’t offended, but if you decided you were, he was “Toast”. this is what men have to deal with everyday. You can come in one morning and be Mary Poppins, and the next day be Jenna Jaminson, and the guys have to figure out which is which. My good friend , who lived in the “Corporate Jungle” for many years… Read more »
Emily, I’ve worked in my fair share of restaurants and I’ve found generally the rules are a little more lax. That’s one of the only things I found appealing about it, to be honest. It’s clear you didn’t like your first manager’s remark, but I wonder how many of your co-workers did. If 90% of the people who worked there at the time appreciated his humor and only you and a few others didn’t, doesn’t that mean your manager is keeping the majority of his employees happy? You can’t please everyone, and he did give you the number to call… Read more »
Thanks for the measured comment, Aaron. I’d agree that the second issue is more big-picture problematic. But let’s say that one of the other employees at the restaurant harassed me in a personal way (i.e. implied that i should give HIM a blowjob). Jeff’s brand of humor made me feel that I couldn’t take a legitimate (non-joke) sexual harassment issue to him, or that if I did, i wouldn’t get a respectful audience. It’s that climate of talking sexually about an employee that caused a problem for me. Making a blowjob joke into the air is different than directing one… Read more »
I dunno, is it really ok to entertain that 90% of people at the expense of making the other 10% feel really uncomfortable in place where they have to get along with everyone to earn a living? I don’t really think that’s cool. Can you honestly say you’d find it acceptable if your boss made fun of you in front of everyone in a really personal way, as long as the majority of people thought it was funny? I think as Emily says, this is unprofessional and the reason he gave her the number to call was probably because he… Read more »
I hate to say it, but every time I hear a blow job joke, I sort of stop wanting to participate in the act. Unless they’re super funny and/or integral in a comedy bit, BJ jokes tend to make something that’s supposed to be fun, hot, and awesome into something that’s degrading and creepy. Then again, ‘suck my d***’ is one of my favorite sayings. I’ll test out ‘lick my pus’ and see how it works. ^.^
Yeah, I don’t think straight men are doing themselves any favors by making blowjob “jokes” about women, especially in a context that makes it sound like giving blowjobs is an undesirable or demeaning act.
I’m so glad you brought up the seeming ‘cut off the nose to spite the face’ absurdity of straight men that make demeaning jokes about women giving blow jobs. These are the same men that bitterly complain at how few they’ve gotten in their lives! What morons! Nothing more inspiring than being called a skank or a fool or disgusting for giving a man tremendous pleasure because you care about them. Really turns me off.
So what offends the author is that she feels singled out because he apologized thinking he had offended her? Perhaps he realized belatedly that his comment may not have been seen as situation-ally appropriate .i.e. he forgot himself and what came into his head came out of his mouth. Everyone has situational lapses and when comprehension dawns an attempt is sometimes made to address it. Especially if the intent was not to offend or make anyone uncomfortable – at that point the attempt to recover may be well intentioned but less than graceful. Think of the intent behind the actions.
I really do not care for the direction this article seems to suggest we should head in. I cannot speak for others, but personally I am not in favor of becoming a slave to the idiosyncracies of other people. As a man, I often put up with insults that attack the very core of my sexual self-confidence. I’m short. This has always been pointed out in both innocent and not-so-innocent comments. Men are not supposed to be short. Being short is not manly. I’m also a graduate student. Graduate students are broke. Being broke is not manly, men are supposed… Read more »
Stray insults or comments are pretty easy to deflect. But if you were in an well playing work environment where day in and day out there was a disregard for your feelings on your height or financial status, where jokes about short dudes and their genitals (Im not sure what the jokes would be but you get the pictures), and if you finally asked for it to cease the group said…what’s your problem!’ My guess is you’d probably either need to quit a good job or fight to have the culture changed. If you want to quit, cool. I think… Read more »
But the point is, what makes any one individual “feel like crap” is inherently individual. Why should we all be beholden to the lowest common denominator?
Call me old fashioned but I guess the answer to your question is basic politeness and courtesy? If you’re with close friends who you know you won’t offend, then bring on the crass jokes – if they say something you don’t like, or you say something that they don’t like, they can tell you without it being uncomfortable. You don’t have that luxury with strangers or acquaintances, so it’s simply a matter of not being an immature ass. This is even more relevant when you have a group with privilege generally demeaning a group without privilege, to take this example… Read more »
GMP Please stop telling just one side of the story. For example when talking about sexual harassment in the work place, include women’s sexually aggressive attire and how flashing cleavage for effect creates a sexual atmosphere or how the problem isn’t gendered. Take a male or egalitarian perspective, the feminist slant is inappropriate, inaccurate and narrow. “Men victims of sexual harrassment Men were more likely to be sexually harassed in the workplace than women, according to new academic research. Behavioural scientists Dr Don Hine and Roberta Martin from the University of New England also found that men had greater difficulty… Read more »
I’ll review this link. If this is the case, then I”d say we need to do some serious work with everyone as they grow up to cease the behavior (bullying). It’s not fair in either direction.
I’ve had women start talking about their ex boyfriends, and believe me it can get pretty uncomfortable very fast. I usually attempt to leave the area if possible.
– You showed your boss that his behavior was acceptable by not making that call.
– Most likely there will be situations where the woman feels like an outsider, because the men will lessen their interactions with her or watch their language around her for fear of punishment
My employment has been in the medical and educational fields, and I have many jobs where I was in the minority, at least, by gender. Ms. Heist Moss, Ms. Gillis, you might be surprised at the dynamic I’ve experienced while working in these environments. I don’t want to turn it into a martyrdom contest, but I will say thay some of the ways men are treated when women are the majority in the workplace are fairly toxic. If you don’t believe me, just think back to high school and the ‘mean girls.’ I’m not saying I don’t like working with… Read more »
I wish that everyone treated each other better. I’m plenty aware of the way women perpetrate violence on each other and also on men. People can be jerks all the way round.
Quite true. So why don’t we ever see any articles calling out _women’s_ bad behavior?
Oh, Copyleft.
I’m rehearsing tonight but I’m of a mind to find articles about those very subjects just for you. I’m sure the Spearhead has a few, or Roissy, or TMZ for more mainstream tastes about naughty movie stars. Or the news about women like that chick who was just on trial for apparently killing and/or hiding her kids body? Caylee something?
If you are referring to why GMP doesn’t, I suspect it’s because they are focusing on Men, both the behaviors that would be positive and some that is considered negative.
It seems to me that one of the biggest issues men face is how women behave badly to us and disappoint us on a regular basis. Feminist sites have such discussions all the time about how awful men are, but this forum makes nary a mention of female misconduct.
Then please provide us with links, copyleft. Write an article and submit it. Don’t just complain in dribs and drabs, be proactive and assertive and write posts that lay out just how we women disappoint all men on a regular basis. Start a blog, make videos and so forth.
Oh Julie. The point is that most problems written about and blamed on men are not “men” problems as they are so often portrayed by feminists and women like yourself. Those very same behaviors are also exhibited by women, which makes them HUMAN problems. You may wish that those individual who point out that FACT would just go away and do their own thing, but we won’t. We will comment here each and every time we see femininst bias against men. After all, this is supposedly a site for men and about men.
Actually, I’ve been quite vocal here and in my day to day life about focusing on humans treating humans better, boys and girls getting equal and fair treatment in schools, straights and LGBT getting bullying protection, etc ad nauseum. I’m a feminist, sure, but a humanist, a diplomat, and a proponent of love, compassion and everybody trying to not be jerks to each other. (I’m also aware during various points in history, groups have decided to stomp on other groups. Men on women, whites on blacks, straights on gays, women on kids so forth and so on. People can be… Read more »
“But I just don’t see much point in complaining if you aren’t gonna write/take a stand etc in a way that makes an actual change.”
– Writing and taking a stand in the comments section in response to an article can be just as effective or ineffective to making “an actual change” as an article itself. BTW, pointing out factual information, incorrect assumptions, or the fallacy of someone’s argument is not baiting or being passive aggressive.
I have no issues with information being corrected (with cites preferably, though I know all of us are busy and can be hard to take that time). I do have a hard time with snark and sarcasms, because it doesn’t really add much to the conversation. Are the folks engaging in dialogue, or arguing in good faith, but just doing drive by angry comments that poke at the other commenters or the author. I suppose it gets down to: are you (the general you) using the site and comments to let off steam and frustration? Or to be in a… Read more »
Why can’t it be both, Julie?
TGMP is a place for men to discuss men’s issues. Quite simply, feminism has no place in that discussion (except, perhaps, on the list of problems we have to deal with).
If you want a link for rational, thoughtful discussions of the problems with feminism, check out http://www.feministcritics.org/blog.
In the meantime, we men will continue to stand up to feminist male-bashing both here and everywhere else it occurs. There’s no reason for us to put up with a barrage of anti-male messages, stereotypes, and blamefests HERE of all places.
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your comment. I absolutely agree that this kind of workplace issue can happen with the genders flipped. It can also affect different racial groups, religions, sexual orientations etc. I can only address my own situation, since I have no experience being the “other” in a way besides the one that I am. But, that being said, I completely agree that there are fields where men may be made to feel uncomfortable, and that that is equally inappropriate.
Emily
Mike,
Thanks for making that point. This issue is usually presented as if we are in 1950 where women comprised a small percentage of the workforce instead of here in 2011 where women are the majority of workers and bosses, and in some cases the vast majority – such as in the medical field. So, clearly, this goes both ways, not just one.
So you had one boss who made inappropriate comments and created a potentially hostile workplace, then several years without problems working other jobs, then you had a second experience where a man made an inappropriate comment. Those are unacceptable comments to be sure, but considering how few and far between those experiences were, they were obviously the exception for you and not the rule for your work history with men. It seems like you are trying to make this seem far more wide-spread than it actually is. You can’t stop every jerk you encounter in life from being a jerk.… Read more »
The point is it shouldn’t happen at all. Saying she’s exaggerating about something that clearly is a problem and clearly affected her is such misdirection and so besides the point, I can’t even.
Yes, it shouldn’t happen at all. But like I stated, you can’t stop every jerk you encounter in life from being a jerk. If these situations are only occuring rarely, which seems to be the case with this writer, then its a problem of encountering individual jerks, not men in the workplace or men in authority. When you cast the behaior of a few indiviuals to an entire group, that’s called stereotyping, Gaby. Heard of it? That’s not besids the point, that IS the point. If you can’t grasp that Gaby, then I can’t even!
No, not “several years later”, “MANY years later.”
Not much of a foundation upon which to frame men in general (by implication) but not women as guilty of workplace gender discrimination. But if you’re determined to grasp at straws, any straw will do.
I happen to value banter in the workplace; it’s fun, and if done right can contribute to a good social climate in the workplace. Unfortunately, inappropriate banter is far too common. Some of it *does* come from people who just do not get it, but in my experience the most common situations are like the ones you describe – people who generally mean well and do have a clue, but experience brain failure or have misunderstood what is “funny” in a workplace setting. I think you did the right thing in the two situations. In the first situation, speaking up… Read more »
Women comprise over 50% of the workforce and over 50% of supervisors and managers. Therefore, the odds of men being made to feel excluded are higher than women. Simply based on the numbers.
Do you troll *every* article on the internet that’s remotely to do with women’s rights?
Ya…its not like he is a man commenting on a site ostensibly devoted to discussing men’s issues.
Emily, a couple thoughts: I agree that your first boss, Jeff, was outrageously out-of-line in his dismissiveness towards your discomfort — though perhaps the initial joke was intended in a friendly fashion. (His reaction to your complaint makes that seem unlikely.) I only mention this because in my workplace (military) we say shockingly offensive things to each other all the time (at least I’m told normal people would be offended). The practice is friendly in nature, though of course there is a competitive edge to it. As far as your second conversation goes, I don’t think it’s accurate (or even… Read more »
I don’t know, It sounds like the gentlemen are being passive aggressive about the power dynamic in the work place. I think they’re intentionally saying off color comments followed by throwing themselves at the mercy of the all powerful Sexual Harassment victim.
It’s little childish.
“we men are often told (by many other women) that this is necessary in order to make women feel included in male-dominated spaces:” So if it is a white dominated space, do you get to leave african americans out? If it is a hispanic dominated work place, is it polite for them to make a white employee feel included? We are all people, yes? All humans? And while we all have different cultural backgrounds and ways of communicating. But in a work place, while there does need to be cameraderie, there also exists the awareness that not everyone is the… Read more »
I think you’re misunderstanding. Emily was complaining that the group used an “exclusionary tactic” by apologizing for saying “sucking dick.” She stated that she wasn’t offended but that it bothered her they felt the need to treat her differently by thinking she might be the one offended. I’m merely stating to her that, per your comment, men are often told to moderate themselves based on their audience so these guys were probably trying to do the right thing.
Ah, sorry. I misread.
Rick, I think YOU’RE misunderstanding. Emily stated (to her co-worker and to her audience here) that the ‘sucking dick’ expression didn’t bother her: ” I assured him his language didn’t bother me in the slightest.” What DID bother her was his exclusionary tactic of asking her about her sexuality: ‘He sighed with relief, beginning his story anew. “Wait,” he said, whipping back to me one last time, “Are you a lesbian?” I balked. I don’t think anyone, much less a co-worker, has ever asked me my sexual orientation, point-blank. His question put me in the awkward position of revealing personal… Read more »
“I hear men saying, women should toughen up. But why should we toughen up just so a man can make blow job jokes about a young female employee… It’s a public space that we all share. Is there some kind of common denominator in place we can agree on?” Sure but the common denominator should be much much lower. We don’t live in the 1950’s anymore. Television discusses blowjobs. Sex is depicted. Vulgar language is common. It may have made sense 50’s years ago to censor language because women were not used to it. But now they are so I… Read more »
Again, I’ll ask this from a different angle. If you are in a 50-70% white environment (after all whites built the company) and you have a habit of enjoying some racist humor, should the blacks just toughen up and deal with it? Why shouldn’t they change to accommodate you? Seems like they have done nothing but complain about pesky hiring policies and equality in the workplace after all. Or is that another method of black dominance over whites? End sarcastic example. The short answer is because we are all human beings and human beings might could take better care of… Read more »
“Why is this about “submission” to the great lash of feminism and not about just treating people well?” Its more than submitting to the great lash of feminism…its submitting to the great lash of women, society and everything else. I don’t really want to submit to anything at all. Not the women with their rules. Not the society with its rules. Not the workplace rules. I want to come late. I want to dress however I want to dress. Say what I want to say. Live with few restrictions. That is my nature. “you have a habit of enjoying some… Read more »
Assman, I’m actually okay with their being anti-harassment rules in place, and some level of speech codes. I think most speech codes and anti-harassment rules are on the heavy handed side. My main thrust would be if the work-sphere needs to change to accommodate women to facilitate equality, then the same should happen in family spheres. While hundreds of companies have been having their first time CEO, and women have been blazing a trail as astronauts, supreme court judges, and presidential candidates the rate for fathers to win sole physical custody of their children have remained fixed for 40 years.… Read more »
@ Julie Gillis “Is there some kind of common denominator in place we can agree on? ” I completely agree. That’s why I oppose the reasonable man and reasonable woman standard. If a reasonable woman feels something is harassment, but a reasonable man doesn’t then he has no criminal intent and is not guilty of harassment. If a reasonable woman feels that a behavior is harassment and a reasonable man doesn’t, she has criminal intent whether he knew he was victimized is irrelevant. The only reason having two standards makes sense is if you apply a double double standard. A… Read more »