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?

LOL, she's clearly on a wind up now and you're all eagerly biting

"to learn!" Thanks

And I'm an academic, and if one of my colleagues made this joke, I don't think any of us would be laughing. And someone might have a quiet word with him/her afterwards to say that it wasn't appropriate: sexist and offensive.

I wouldn't have found it 'offensive' either. So there we go, another voice for that small camp.

but I'm prepared to admit I was wrong to think it wasn't offensive

From your opening post so please do so and save us all time.

I wouldn't have found it at all offensive. Yanbu.

What's coming across here is that the intent of the joke wasn't offensive, but the way some could perceive it could make it offensive

OP was it this lady's job to provide sandwiches to either or both teams?
Or is this something she does from the goodness of her heart?
Are these sandwiches she brings from home or purchases? Or distributes from the office sandwiches in the pantry?

not her job to do this, neither purchases them or brings them in from home - office supplies - if there are spare sandwiches after a meeting

Casio It is not ok to take a super-soaker to a party regardless of who supplies the water, or what the host's mum said when put on the spot.

HTH

So basically she's being nice.

Not that it would have been ok had she not been being nice.

You are not going to penetrate that particular cranium Zombie but good luck

Haha fideline but putting myself in OP's shoes, what if I didn't intend to really soak anyone too badly ? Or if the birthday child's mother was in fact a super soaker fanatic- it would be ironic then wouldn't it?

Casio - I think calling a woman a slag is no different to giving her a 'jokey' smack on the backside, or a 'friendly' grope. All three belong in the past. Then women had to put up with shit like,that - and many have fought long and hard to ensure that that sort of behaviour is no longer considered acceptable, in the workplace or indeed elsewhere.

Jokes like this, and the apologists for this sort of out-dated humour, might just as well be setting the clock back 40 years or more!

Haha fideline but putting myself in OP's shoes, what if I didn't intend to really soak anyone too badly ? Or if the birthday child's mother was in fact a super soaker fanatic- it would be ironic then wouldn't it?

No idea why that posted twice.
Double ironic then

" Or if the birthday child's mother was in fact a super soaker fanatic- it would be ironic then wouldn't it?"

As long as you were amongst friends, Zombie.

Oh God save us from web feminists.

So full of shit, and so wrong, and so dictatorial about what Just Is and what Just Isn't.

I found it a bit offensive/shocking. I find a lot of funny stuff has an element of that to it.

lumpy I wasn't aware one couldn't be a feminist on the web as well as in real life

It's a separate division Zombie. You need a license

What? Sandwiches are promiscuous??

So she is slutty because she is passing along sandwiches??? I don't think it has to do with sandwiches at all. He was calling her an offensive name regardless if she was passing around food or office folders.

I'd think it funny if he laughed and called her a 'hash-slinger'. That's related to food at least. I think it was offensive and unprofessional. Why did you laugh? Did you think it had to do with the sandwiches and not her? In what way?

Having said my piece earlier about why this was offensive, I do think some posters are taking it to extremes.

I do get that he almost certainly wasn't using this as an opportunity to call this particular woman a slag because he believes she's a slag. I think that any woman who had happened to hand round the leftover sandwiches would have become the butt of that particular "joke". (I can't be as certain the same comment would have been made if it had been a man who had distributed them...) I can get why Sandwich Woman herself might not have been personally offended as she probably recognised that he doesn't genuinely think she's a slag either.

Unfortunately, that just highlights how ingrained everyday sexism has become. If "slag" didn't = "woman who puts herself about" (complete with negative value judgement) in common consciousness, there wouldn't have been a basis for him to make his "joke" based as it was on the "wordplay" that someone who "puts their sandwiches about" is a slag.

I absolutely get what he was aiming for, OP, and I doubt that he consciously intended to offend. But he did, both at the time and here, because the word he chose to use IS offensive because of its cultural associations with judging women's sexual behaviour; judgement that continues to this day. He made a serious error of judgement even if it wasn't intended as a personal attack on Sandwich Woman's sexual behaviour and unknowingly perpetuated, even if just by a tiny degree, the widespread belief that women who choose to sleep with multiple partners are Bad Girls and therefore by implication deserve everything that happens to them.

^^ This from SelectAUserName Everything they say.

Would the colleague concerned have made the "joke" if the person handing around the sandwiches were a man? I doubt it.