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?

I get it - it's just that way out humour

Its just saying she's spreading herself around via the sandwiches - it works because its such a prim topic. Is he normally edgy with his humour? Would the sandwhich sharer have got the joke?

What SelectaUserName said.

The whole 'well obviously it isn't offensive because this particular woman couldn't possibly be a slag" just reinforces the idea that women's sexual behaviour is something to be mocked and censured.

The joke is founded on a very fundamental idea that women's sexuality should be kept within strict boundaries.

It's not the fact that he was laughing at/insulting this woman that was offensive - it was the fact that he was laughing at/insulting women who don't conform to an old, outdated idea of what women should do with their own bodies.

Well, let's face it, the word "slag" is offensive when used about anyone who isn't a by-product of iron smelting.

Valdeeves and you find that funny ?

Upthechimney your comment is far funnier than the (not at all funny) joke.

Great work, Upthechimney :)

I haven't read all the way through this thread because I can't bear seeing grown women justify slut shaming like a group of unaware teenage girls

OP, I'm going to spell out how this is slut shaming. I get the joke, 'oh how dare she hand out sandwiches to two different groups, what a slag, haha.' The analogy that's being drawn is 'I can't believe that woman chooses to sleep with different men, what a slag.' Note how there isn't any laughter at the end of that? Because it's a judgement which is still unfairly made. There is an insidiously sexist culture in our society, passed off as a 'joke'. Except that they're not jokes, they're sexist commentaries on women's behaviour, encouraged by little men who don't like that women can behave in a way that used to be seen as a bit 'boy's club' (drinking, choosing sexual partners, not being financially reliant on men).

You yourself are evidence that this insidiously sexist approach works. You describe the woman referred to as happily married, couple of kids, the implication being that she obviously isn't a slag, because she's ad 'naice girl' (not a woman). So are women who choose not to marry and have multiple sexual partners slags?

I am currently studying at university. A large part of my course focuses on gender inequality, treatment of women over the past few centuries. If I discovered that any of the staff teaching me held such uneducated views as yours, I'd have to wonder how they held the intelligence to hold an academic position.

Please stop contributing to our slut shaming, sexist, judgmental society by downplaying insidious sexist humour and gendered language.

oooo caitlin thank you. My first MN joke!

And MorrisZapp Not like your namesake, I hope!

Yes I am like my namesake.

I'm surprised that a bunch of academics, at work, either don't understand or don't care that using offensive names that demean a whole bunch of people who share a protected characteristic is wrong. Would you call a black colleague the 'n' word? If a disabled colleague dropped something, would you call them a spastic?

If the joke had been, "Ohh, you are giving them sandwiches too - but we thought WE were your favourites .... sob sob" - that would have fulfilled the intention behind the joke without the nasty word.

Casio - I think you should stop defending the indefensible, accept that your colleague was wrong to use that word, and maybe have a chat with your colleagues about more sensitive use of language. I doubt you will, though.

SelectAUserName

I think I need to bow out of this thread here, because I can see how someone would be offended, but I still think it's because they're not understanding the context

"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 understand that stereotype exists in our socieity

As someone else said, "the whole 'well obviously it isn't offensive because this particular woman couldn't possibly be a slag" just reinforces the idea that women's sexual behaviour is something to be mocked and censured".

I think that's a far too literal reading of the joke, and actually the joke is actually at a level beyond that - that women's sexuality shouldn't be mocked, and therefore it's ridiculous to call someone a slag for doing something as mundane as giving sandwiches to both two groups.

I think my friend who made the joke needs to be a little more aware that everyone is going to see that joke on that different level.

As someone else said "Please stop contributing to our slut shaming, sexist, judgmental society by downplaying insidious sexist humour and gendered language."

Alternatively, it could be seen as fighting slut shaming sexist behaviour by ridiculing it.

because I can see how someone would be offended, but I still think it's because they're not understanding the context

No, it's because you're not thinking logically.

I think that's a far too literal reading of the joke, and actually the joke is actually at a level beyond that - that women's sexuality shouldn't be mocked, and therefore it's ridiculous to call someone a slag for doing something as mundane as giving sandwiches to both two groups

And this is disingenuous sophistry at best. You are really having to twist and turn to justify a sexist joke.

But still, I suppose if you're not offended by sexism, it's not an offensive joke, eh? So why don't you leave your job, and get back to the kitchen. Because clearly, sexism isn't offensive and women really aren't fully human.

Sheesh.

I'm struggling to see how it's sexist to think that women's sexuality shouldn't be mocked

Genuinely, where do you stand on Pub Landlord (Al Murray humour)? Is that not a recognised form of humour?

Take this joke - is that offensive?

"“A beer for the gentlemen, and a wine or fruit-based drink for the ladies. Those are the rules. Where would we be if we didn’t have any rules? France. Where would we be if we had too many rules? Germany."

I hope the person present who was offended suggests to your manager that there are some training needs within the department.

I get the joke and think it's fine between friends, even possibly funny if you were there at the time. Long thread but there's only a few posters posting going round and round and round so not a huge tally against the op. Imgine many poster have looked, agreed with op and then backed out slowly at he frothing.

Don't friend make jokes like this sometimes or do folk never say anything a bit stupid in case they break the mn code of po faced acceptability.

'Sandwich whore' would have been funnier though.

Ah- so now you're saying that it was said ironically, to highlight the unacceptability of the language, like Al Murray does- why didn't you say so at the beginning! Er- you do realize that's what Al Murray's doing,don't you?

Al Murray is funny. You, not so much.

"what a slag" doesn't imply he was talking about the sandwiches.

It implies that he was calling the friend it for 'putting it about'. Except what she was putting about was the sandwiches.

If that makes sense to anyone but me, well done!

I think it was offensive.

Martorana, thanks, I do realise that's what Al Murray does. Excellent

"Don't friend make jokes like this sometimes or do folk never say anything a bit stupid in case they break the mn code of po faced acceptability."

As has been said- it's not po faced to think you shouldn't call people slags.