To ask for your stories of sexism at 'corporate/professional' dinners

[PurpleGreenWhite]

In the light of the story about women being sexually harassed at a men only charity ball - AIBU to ask for your stories of sexism/inappropriate behaviour at 'corporate/professional dinners'.

I'd like to highlight that the extreme behaviour reported above is part of a continuum of #everydaysexism within the corporate world.

See also thread in FWR - which is discussing the recent men only charity ball

I've name changed for this - and suggest others may want to in order to keep their professional life separate from any usual MN name.

Year: 2017

Context: Large marquee type Christmas dinner event for multiple businesses (I attended as part of a mid sized accountancy firm)

Issue: Scantily glad women dancing in a sexual manner on a raised platform - in costumes which were basically bra and knickers with sheer material attached to the top of the knickers.

Issue: Male employees gawping at the above.

Issue: Silent auction being advertised by women walking around with signs held above their head. Very senior male employee says 'There's girl's for sale over there. Ha Ha etc'

I will add some more lowlights from other dinners shortly....

2015: Dinner at a big magic circle law firm. Senior legal man making suggestive comments, I laughed them off and decided to go back to my colleagues. He grabbed my bum and squeezed it and asked 'well why don't you come back with me Vlad'. He was a good 20 years older than me at that point and more than senior to my most senior boss.

Whilst not on the scale of lots of the stories shared -I also hate the fact that at these dinners a lot of the men see it as a licence to be 'touchy-feely' 'kissy-kissy' - hugging you etc and hand lingering on the back for too long.

NAMALT obviously - but I find it's the ones who I have down as being sexist arses generally - talking about 'getting a pass to stay out late from the wife'. Men I find who treat me as equal and come across well in the office never do this.

When I was at college many years ago, I worked part time as a waitress. I remember one all male event where the men would grope us waitresses when we passed, and I even had one man put his hand up my skirt. When I complained to the mananger he just laughed it off saying something like that's men for you. I never went back there.
To think that groping women still goes on is shocking.

I was a very junior employee and we had an all day training followed by food and a disco and on overnight stay.

I was propositioned by 3 male bosses during the course of the evening. I told all of them to fuck off and by the last one - who owned the firm tried it on and I got really angry and told him I'd the tell him the same as the other 2 knobs that had already tried it on - fuck off.
I then complained to my other boss
No one said anything at all about my language or rudeness to them.
Wankers

Apparently the Equality Act made employers responsible for protecting their staff from harassment from customers, clients or contractors. The relevant section was repealed in 2013. A change.org petition is asking for it to be reinstated: chn.ge/2F9DNZi

Yes, I was coming on to say about that. Can’t believe there’s no protection in place. Have signed petition.

Whilst not so leery, it always grates on me:

Golf Days (yes I know many women play golf). In my experience of such days though, they're predominantly male orientated and at the very least give off the vibe of 'if you're female, it's probably not your thing'.

The invite lists always start off with all male names, and then a few token ladies invited as an afterthought (if invited at all). They're arranged by men (at the concept stage) and the whole damn thing is male focussed. It's just a pet peeve of mine!

Oh gawd... too many to list, sadly. Worst examples might be:

• female sales rep in the 1990s - required to wine and dine (old, male) clients and boss suggested we (the 'girls') should be willing to do 'whatever necessary' to land the business
• worked for a retail organisation with lots of outlets. The boss in Head Office had a chart with his deputy where they ranked the physical attributes of the female store managers. There were constant jokes in meeting I attended which I was just expected to ignore. The whole environment was toxic and when I raised a complaint with HR they offered to pay me a large lump sum and give me a good reference to leave rather that have it raised further. I'm embarrassed to say that I took the easy option and the cash, rather than the fight. I had a young toddler at the time and just didn't have the time and energy for it. I was very much a lone female in a very male-dominated office and it would have been very difficult. At that point I just wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as possible!

@Pebbles574 I'd have done (and have done in the past) the same. The alternative would have been to raise it further to no success and leave feeling bitter and resentful, and penniless.

Where the hell are you lot working? I’ve worked in professional services for 20 years, never been offended, blokes grading women, but women doing the same about the blokes in the office. Tbh I’ve been far more offended by the comments of groups of women and a lot of very bitchy comments. Most men are actually a lot more pleasant than women in the office. I did once work in a team of all men who decided to go to s strip club for a night out - instead of moaning I just went with them all very well behaved.

Dipity Every workplace has its quirks - some worse than others. But the point here is to demonstrate the systemic undermining of women as a class. I agree that women can actually be a lot worse than men when it comes to bitching and passive-aggressiveness in the workplace but i'd much rather a few women gossiping about my new hair cut than powerful men creating barriers to my professional success by demeaning me because of my sex.

I was at traditional industry dinner in November 2017 - i.e., probably only 8 weeks ago,
where the host for the night, very well known current, Saturday evening / daytime BBC1 quiz show host opened the evening with:

question: "What has 200 legs and no pubes? Answer: the front row of a Justin Bieber concert

Cue lots of laughing from the 95% male attendees.

Fair to say that one stood out for me because generally the comperes these days are more satirical than sexist.

Working in one of those winter pop up ice rinks as a student, circa 2006

Venue was hired out privately by a big property investment fund/developer for Xmas do.

90pc men. Endless hassle and propositioning of the rink staff. I was working in the boot room which at least kept them the other side of the desk but two reached over and grabbed my chest.

The girls working on the rink (supervising etc) had it much worse. We rounded up all the male staff at the rink and got them to swap roles and took all the women off after about 15 mins.

Oh yes, the bloody golf days. At my old company, despite many women playing golf, only invited men to play, all off on a jolly, whilst being paid, and female colleagues left in the office to pick up the slack.

Golf days are a very good way of segregating men & women under the guise of inclusivity - i.e., all golfers invited, just unfortunate that most of them are male, not our fault.

Not many working women have hobbies that take 4 or 5 hours every weekend.. funny that.

Golf days - we have managed to get golf days stopped here as so many colleagues and customers were excluded. My first real job - I can still remember the golf days organised at a club that in those days did not allow women full membership (16 year old boys sure come on in, adult women hell no), I was told to pipe down when suggesting we take our business elsewhere.

Now I'm in a hightech environment at a company with a deservedly great reputation for inclusion and forward thinking, and yet....
I have requested a colleague stop displaying a Pirelli calendar on his desk (open plan office), he claims it's okay as 'they are a client'. This is a man in his late 20s so sorry no generational excuse. Calendar was only removed when every woman on the floor mailed our manager. Manager agreed but in the discussion we were told we need to be less sensitive and appreciate that he was being 'ironic'. FFS.

We have a huge event worldwide to which partners are invited, events are laid on for the partners - every sodding year the word partners is slowly replaced in the discussions by 'wives'. Being called 'girls', 'sweetheart', being kissed on the cheek instead of a handshake, being assumed to be the note taker every fucking time....none of it is earth shattering in itself but it is so very tedious and wearing.

worked in hospitality as a room attendant - it was rife

often got called to clean a room to find a man naked on the bed having a wank, a man in a bathrobe that would 'accidently open' as I was emptying the bin, men in the bath or shower - it was vile and nothing was ever done by management

A while ago and a different country - however I was working for this company in the UK when this news came out and it was a very discomfiting feeling for all of us women in the office really, showing what the company values were.

munich re reward salesmen with prostitutes

The other point here is that it also indicates that ?all of their sales people ?all of their top sales people were men, or that any women who may have won would have been passed over as clearly the "prize" would have been wildly inappropriate / and the women may not have kept quiet about it.

The men also used to have loudish conversations in the open plan office about going to strip clubs that always left the women sitting there looking a bit like they didn't know where to look or what to say.

This was a few years back - my current company there's nothing like this or even close. I got a right shock recently at a drinks thing when a man I didn't know was asking me whether I thought another woman's breasts were "real" or not - I thought fuck me I haven't had anyone speak like this for years! And it made me realise and appreciate how much things have changed in my parts of the industry / companies at least.

However I can still easily imagine all the male bosses happily going to this dinner that's in the news and joining in with gusto. They aren't actually different - they just hide it. This is why you get all these men saying they find it very hard to "know what they can say to women" - they still want to come out with all sorts of shit, lots of them, and it's a struggle not to, bless 'em. Sometimes someone will say something really sexist and you think, oho the mask slips...

One of my first jobs after graduating, I was a pharmacist in a big city pharmacy, all the pharmacy assistants were women and the uniform was a short skirt (I didn't have to wear it). There was a full length mirror behind the floor to ceiling perfume cabinet you had to squat to the floor to unlock. Also there was a file of CV's people brought in, each got a mark out of ten. Owners were 2 men.

Bloody hell. Have I been lucky?

Mid 1980s started as an engineer in an engineering firm. The only thing I recall objecting to was the gynaecological calendar on one wall. I described it as such, the chap looked ashamed and it vanished.

Early 00’s, being called to another department on a quiet Saturday morning to be shown a porno mag and asked if I could manage any of the poses. Being asked by a young lad barely out of puberty if I knew where my G spot was. I told him I had a damn sight more clue than he did. Reported the porno mag incident straight to my manager but as it was a family firm and it was his brother taking part in the heckling, needless to say nothing happened.

Oh my fucking god would they get both barrels now. They’d shit their pants if anyone mentioned anything legal.

When I was a wee trainee in my first job out of uni, my senior's senior boss ran his hand up and down my thigh under the table at a Christmas do. I moved away but later he grabbed my bum and squeezed it in a pretend "woops I meant to touch the small if your back" sort of way.

He was the president of my qualifying body ( professional qualifying body) at the time. Dickhead.

When I reported it to (all female!!!!) HR I was told not to rock the boat and that was just how he was.

JaneyEJones, I tried to make a similar point about the glamour girls in F1 and boxing etc. Admittedly it's not a great analogy, but to me, it invokes precisely the same feelings ergo it's similar 'to me'.

If you need drinks serving, fine, but why does it have to be women, and not just 'people'. I think precisely the same when I see a woman parading around a boxing ring... why? why do you to be scantily clad.
I've no objection to it being a woman if it's by pure chance, but it's not, it's 'entertainment for the men'. But our TV stations are still happy to broadcast it. The very same broadcasters that are condemning seedy men's clubs events.