To ask how to deal with the stupid and sexist comments

[Charlie97]

I work in the office as the only female with five men. The stupid, inane and irritating comments are non-stop and quite honestly beyond irritating.

Todays range from, "I was waiting for a women with big tits to come up and I was going to give her the answer to the quiz", " I can't watch porn on my phone anymore as I have no more space", "women can't reverse park, everyone knows that" and "I'm going to tell the bitch no!"

Now these may sound petty, but when it is five days a week and constant it drives me mad.

They stereotype all men/women as men earn more, have higher sex drives and women just earn "pin money" and never want sex once they are married. They all want to drag men up the aisle against their will. All men watch porn and all women are trying to constantly tame them and their torrid affairs. (All of them are talking rubbish and when with their wives are totally subservient, that make be an interesting fact).

We have a young male graduate started, he is currently learning to drive, is a very nice young man, but he is starting the crap also! Obviously thinking this is acceptable office banter.

Some comment from him last week about women not being able to reverse, from someone that's not even passed his fecking driving test. I was tempted to make him look an absolute dick head by pointing this out and saying once you've passed your test come back and talk to me, but as he was new I decided to spare him the embarrassment.

I am sick of it, it's not funny, it's a constant battle me against the whole office. The main culprits are the partners.........who think they are hilarious.

Do I send an official email saying that enough is enough and stop demeaning me and every women by constantly talking sexist crap, this will be sent all round the office by the partners, which result in much giggling and "oh Charlie is upset" snigger, snigger! Do I come back with some wonderful one-liners? Assuming I can think of some. Please give me some!

Argghhh

Socially I've pulled men up for leching over under 18s but I haven't had to deal with them at work - next time can you point out that she's a child and that you're disappointed to see grown men looking at children in that way? Just in a cold factual manner.

You need to leave. Some environments are just so toxic that it isn't worth your personal cost to try to cure them.

Perhaps you need a follow up mail asking them how they intend to address the issue?

Unfortunately, I believe this. I remember getting on a bus once and asking for a child's ticket (so under 14 - although I think I was actually 15 at the time but looked young for my age). The bus driver - who must have been at least in his 40s) stared at my breasts top (which said 'Easily Distracted') leered and said, 'Easily attracted, eh?'

Yuck.

I don't know what I was doing with my punctuation there...

Every time they say something sexist, you could just wiggle your little finger at them.

'Jeez, have I fallen into the plot of Life on Mars? Which one of you losers is Gene Hunt? You know the writers called him that for the rhyming slang, don't you?'

And still keep a log of unacceptable comments. Keep bringing it up at your appraisals or reviews (if you have them) & have a chat with ACAS.

Been there, done that ....I was the only woman when I joined a small company of men and some of the comments were utterly hideous, but I was young, naive and didn't want to rock the boat.....HR was 'run' by the senior partner who was the worst offender so there wasn't much I could do - other than do what you did, which was to flag it to the other senior partner, tell them that I felt uncomfortable, and say things like "did you mean to be so sexist?" or "I am sitting right here you know....." which was lame but I just didn't want to engage, or get involved further. When a new (female) graduate joined and asked me to sit in on an HR related meeting, it was made (subtly) clear to me that if I got further involved, my job was at risk, which was tricky as we were in the process of buying a house and I couldn't afford to risk my job. I felt like such a coward backing down, but she ended up leaving under a disciplinary cloud anyway.

Annoyingly, the work was very interesting, and as I got older and less scared, I did call them on it more and more often.

I think that you have to decide whether you want to stay - or look for something else - I have ended up leaving the profession as I now have several children and decided to stay at home, but if I wasn't at a life stage which allowed me to do that, I would have moved company I think. It's really wearing, very boring, but unlikely that their behaviour or attitudes will change....

This is depressing; it sounds like 30-40 years ago but there was no legislation then. I hope you find an acceptable way through, Charlie.

I think I would leave the room every time it started. And be seen making a few mysterious and legalistic phonecalls. I wouldn't rise to it or indulge it. You have to keep the high ground while you're there.

I wouldn't be able to help myself when they say women don't want sex after they're married: "oh, that's not what your wife told me, she had difficulty locating your penis. She thought it'd be between your balls, but she couldn't find those either..."

Sexist twats.