Vile remark at meeting - what to do?

It IS vile, in as far as she was then going to ask the person to volunteer/help her in some way. To me that is disgraceful and downright hypocritical. Would she have said to the woman, face to face - “you have a face like an armpit, but I’d like you to help with such and such”? No she wouldn’t. It doesn’t matter how funny it might be, to actually say that out loud, in a committee meeting (which should be having notes taken), is actually quite questionable. It would be interesting to see if when the minutes of that meeting are read out at the next one, whether her words are read out verbatim.

I wouldn't resign because it wouldn't affect the woman at all. Infact, I would just prepare yourself for any more incidents where you can call her out on seemingly calling names like a child to appear funny. And there are some total p*ks on here replying telling you to reign your neck in/now calling you just because you have morals. Just don't make yourself suffer because of it.

Good grief.

If there is a code of conduct which prohibits comments like that, then I’m sure someone would pick her up on it. But the fact that they didn’t implies there is no code of conduct.

Anything can be a committee - I used to be a committee member for a sports club and it was rather relaxed and comments like that wouldn’t have been banned

@LiviaDrusillaAugusta why would a committee not be run professionally, charity Trustee board, board of school governors etc. They all should have a code of conduct

Why are there so many threads about "reporting" comments? Do you want to live in Korea, Iran etc with thought and morality police? Can we not just be adults and ignore when people are rude or childish and lead by example instead of telling on them like infants? It's exasperating!!!!

Blimey - do you get out much?

I don't understand how people get so upset by these things that they're going to walk out, resign, complain, write a post on mum'snet - yet at the time when you could actually do something productive - say absolutely nothing at all.

But it’s not a workplace from the sound of it, although I may have missed that.

it’s some committee, presumably run by volunteers so its not even close to a professional environment

I certainly don't it a funny remark and I don't wear pearls. Not that it would matter if I did.

100pc agree with this.
Behaviour like that in my workplace would result in disciplinary proceedings and rightly so.

I was thinking very Margot Leadbetter.

Nah, it’s originally ‘fanny like a punched lasagne’ and ‘face like a dropped pie’, but I don’t suppose variations matter.

Not exactly, the correct term is a fanny like a dropped lasagne

Yes, not a mental imagine I’d ever thought would pop into my head!!

Oh God, I’m having a right laugh at this. I couldn’t imagine what someone having a face like an armpit would look like, but now I’m picturing all sorts🤣 You clearly have a more vivid imagination than me!

Jesus holy fuck. Yes it was an unkind comment.

But vile? And worthy of flouncing? Have a word with yourself.

Does she have a face like an armpit? What is it about her face that looks like an armpit? Kind of a weird comparison. Shaved or unshaved? Does she have no features on her face like a freshly veeted pit? Or excess facial hair that covers her entire face like an unshaven one? I’d have got her to clarify

I have said in similar circumstances "Can we not make comments about someone's appearance and just stick to facts please"

I don't think it's funny. It's rude and needs calling out. Particularly if she has form for it.

Unless everyone else on the committee also thinks it's funny and then you should leave because you don't want to be hanging out with folk like that.

the correct course of action, since you didn't take it at the time (which would have been "that isn't appropriate language for a meeting - we learn in Kindergarten that making fun of someone's appearance is wrong") is to use exactly that phrase in a follow up email to everyone who was there.

Do you get minutes by email? reply to all either "thank goodness that inappropriate comment was cut out" or the phrase above about it being inappropriate.

I’ll admit that in life, I am much more drawn to people like the committee chair than people like the OP who clutch their pearls over a funny remark and proclaim it ‘vile’ 😂

Is it true though? Do they have a face like an armpit?

Secondly, are you going to tell this person what the chair said about their looks?

I vote record them and pop them online - I need more Jackie Weaver energy in my life!

It’s a crap insult. It doesn’t really evoke anything. My dad described someone as having a face like an arse pocket full of spanners. He probably got it off somebody on TV, but I couldn’t stop laughing. See also face like a welder’s bench. Face like a bulldog chewing a wasp. I don’t think insults about people’s appearance are appropriate in a committee meeting though. But I wouldn’t do anything. If other people had started joining in, that’s completely different. But it was just one woman making a tit of herself.

She was wrong. But you should have said something at the time.