To think this wasn't offensive?

[CasioBlues]

I work in an office, and after meetings, there are often spare sandwiches that are offered around.

I work in one group. A group of people of a similar level, all friends, were talking today and someone mentioned these sandwiches were brought to their group by a female member of staff, and also friend. A friend in another group mentioned sandwiches also came around to their group by a female member of staff.

A male friend in my group quipped about the member of staff who brings them around "what a slag!". A few of us laughed, one friend found it really offensive.

I think among friends, it was obviously a joke on the "promiscuity" of sandwiches, but I'm prepared to admit I was wrong to think it wasn't offensive. It wasn't very professional, but among friends?

Sometimes the collective "I'm cool with being treated like crap- it's the price I pay for popularity. Nobody likes a boat- rocker" of this place makes me dispair.

I think you had to be there. But I would've seen the humour. Some people are a bit uptight. YANBU.

At least one of the people present WAS offended, let's keep that in mind. And there actually IS legislation against this kind of banter in the workplace.

So let's forget this idea of 'silly mumsnetters just being so UPTIGHT!" The situation described is actually not acceptable in the workplace, whether or not you personally have the semiotic awareness to be disturbed by it.

OP - are you one of the post-docs or one of the lecturers?

I've been a post-doc, I've been a lecturer and this pally, going out together, joking about 'slags' atmosphere isn't exactly appropriate irrespective of which category you're in - but if you're a lecturer, get yourself sorted out now (once you've researched what 'gender neutral' actually means).

Was the sandwich slut a lecturer too? Or one of the lesser orders?

Yy to brdgrl.

I 'get' why it's a joke and why some think it's funny, but can you really not see that the only reason that is so, is precisely because it's predicated on an assumption of a woman's sexual behaviour. You really honestly can't see that? That bit I don't 'get'. How profoundly depressing.

If could come across as a very annoying or offensive remark if made by an annoying idiot. I think you would have to choose your audience very carefully. Most workplaces that have finance and HR teams are reasonably formal, so to assume jokes that you might make amongst a group of blokes in a pub are acceptable to all is a bit of a leap of faith.

This sort of workplace behaviour is dying out, not everyone is prepared to put up with that sort of language at work so YABU.

And its obvious the remark referred to the woman who was carrying the sandwich around, as clearly a sandwich cannot be a slag!

Am I the only one shocked that someone who can't understand why this is an issue, is teaching young people?

Nope, Grennie, you're not.

"Nope. Some things are objectively not funny."

...and if you claimed the joke in the OP was "objectively not funny" you would have refuted before you said it by people saying they found it amusing. So I'm assuming you can't be. :)

"Sometimes the collective pofaced, finger wagginess of this place makes me weep tears of joyless tedium."

We live in a world that has a lot of joyless finger wagging people in it, but not quite as many as some MNers like to imagine.

I've noticed a tendency of joyless bandwagon-hopping clones to pretend they are rebellious subversives who buck the system these days.

Now that I find amusing and offensive.

Bizarre definition of "joy" some people have.......

So sad when women feel that have to laugh along with stereotypical sexism in order to not be "joyless" or "uptight". And even worse, the ones so deeply entrenched in the mindset that they can't even see it when its pointed out to them.

"I'm guessing had the sandwich bringer been male he still would have used the word slag?"

And that would have been inexplicaby hilarious too would it?

But surely the only (dubious) mitigation/excuse/defense for using a word like 'slag' in the workplace would be if it was funny?

Can I just ask would you be offended if the instigator had used a more gentle word to make the same point. The person who offered sandwiches to both groups A and B was 'promiscuous' with sandwiches?

By the way the woman who gave out the sandwiches is at the same job level, and is a friend of the group

I never go near the feminist boards but I'm struggling to imagine a context in which this would be amusing. In the workplace I'd consider it totally unacceptable.

Some jokes just don't work in a workplace. That is one.

Some one who hands out sarnie is a slagwitch?

This is turning into the super-soaker thread.

OP it is just a very odd, dodgy-ground thing to say, particularly in a workplace for no discernible comic pay-off.

Really don't think tinkering with the vocab makes much difference to that.

I can see this is something that has split MN about 50/50 (if you count the actual posters rather than posts). I never really considered it unacceptable to make a joke between friends about sex, even if it's obvious that no-one was talking about sex.