Is this acceptable in the workplace?

Sad state of affairs if you are the one to suffer for calling out this comment , but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit . Fair play to the lads that dm’d you . At least you have MN and them to quote as supporters 😜

Schedule a meeting with him on his return & tell him that his behaviour is unacceptable in the work place & the poo emoji just shows his lack of respect for you & colleagues. Let him know if he does anything like that again you will take it higher with a complaint.

Disagree completely. It is not a professional way to behave at work, unless of course the work at hand is sex work.

Just wondering if next time instead of calling it out you took a screenshot and forwarded it to HR. Sometimes saying less is more powerful. I find the comments in poor taste and I'm pretty ok with most things

I don't know which is worse the misogynistic comment or the completely disrespectful and dismissive poo emoji!!
Initially he was making a poor attempt to be funny, but then to respond back with that gets my back up moreso that I would want to take his lack of professionalism further.

I’d pull someone up on that as well. For a start, I haven’t a clue how long a Bonnie Blue line is, secondly, I don’t want to know. What I do want to know is how long something is going to feasibly take and when I can expect an update on progress.

It also doesn’t matter what people on here think - whether it’s sexist etc - if someone is offended and it goes to your HR - they will be reprimanded . Remember teams chats aren’t private. Everything you do and say at work can be monitored, so just behave like it is.

This ..we all make mistakes but when a "throwaway" comment is offensive..take responsibility & learn! Its not okay to huff & ignore ...especially when it's your manager (who happens to be a woman). It shows a lack of respect as well as immaturity. I would also be p*ssed off, however .. as everywhere else .. we have to pick our battles.I would keep a record of it, even if You don't ’t act on it now.

I had to Google who she is.lol

Considering she was a porn actress yes it is unprofessional and he should be pulled over it.

I’ve really thought over this one OP and if I’m totally honest with myself I think my opinion would depend on how I felt about the people involved generally. I can imagine finding this mildly humorous said by one of my colleagues but absolutely repulsive said by another . Not rational, I know . The emoji makes me suspect that I would not like your colleague and would find him somewhere between annoying and vile .
Not impressed with the other male colleagues … quite cowardly to private message rather than respond publicly.

Disgusting. Flag it with management and even hr

It’s people like you who give women a bad name and mean that real sexism and misogyny is easily dismissed.

No, it's the men who found the comment inappropriate and didn't speak up that allow sexism and misogyny to continue without challenge.

Actually it's the poo emoji that does it for me. Instead of apologising for his inappropriate remark he's actually doubling down and effectively saying her view is shit.
And so now we've moved from mildly inappropriate comment to targeted bullying (or at least starting to). And that would make me want to raise it with HR, maybe informally in the first instance.

How rude and senseless this comment is.

It's the poo emoji that makes it a problem, I think. If he had responded with, "yes, sorry, won't do it again," I doubt this thread would have been started.

He probably just intended to be funny, but the point about harassment is that it's not the intent which counts (to avoid all those defences of, "it was just a joke, can't you take a laugh?") but how it makes you feel, and it made the OP uncomfortable, it was witnessed by colleagues (though why won't men don't speak up publicly?) and he didn't apologise when called out on it.

I don't know if I'd go to HR at this point, but I'd definitely keep screenshot, including of the IMs.

Quite.

@Gymrabbit

It was a joke about a mainstream media figure

Explain how it was aiming to remind OP she, and all women, are lesser?

For me, if I had no other context with this person, I would consider it slightly inappropriate for that kind of meeting, but not massively. It's a slightly off colour current events reference.

In a break room kind of chat it might be fine depending on the people.

Normally with things like this I think it is better to say something in private first. Some people really are just quite bad at judging comments of this kind, whether they cross the line or not.

If he's a twit generally that's going to colour your feelings and it's probably really further evidence he is a fool and a jerk rather than just awkward. So it may well have been reasonable to say something at the time. I might have gone with something like "Nice." in a way that obviously means it's actually a bit off-putting.

If I were his supervisor, or even a friend, I might then make the leap to say something after. However, given your history with him, I don't think I would, I would leave it where it is. It's just going to have the potential to seem petty and inflame the situation in ways that will ultimately not serve you. It's better to keep your eye on the more serious aspects of your issues with him.

It was comment meant to remind you women are lesser ..it’s simple misogyny…then his non verbal reply ..his confession

Can’t see anything wrong with it myself. It’s referencing a well known recentbwoveht, quite witty really.

With his second response l would now take it to HR. Most unprofessional in his initial & then second response. I'd also include the DMs to show that you were not the only one who felt this.

No it's not minor. It's "a broken window". He thinks he's got away with it and it's just "bants". It isn't. Yuk.

You answered your own question in your OP.
If I'm honest I wouldn't be offended by the comment. I wouldn't think it was wrong of someone to tell the person their comment was inappropriate but I'd think it OTT to go any further than just calling it out at the time.

This thread is a perfect example of why misogyny is so rife within society now.