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....

I think everyone knows that many men are saddos entirely led by their penises. Some 'returning' hostesses were very clearly aware of that and presumably manage to capitalise on it a great deal. The Melania Trump effect...

I just don't think that portraying the women as naive, stupid girls who had no idea what they were getting into is very accurate or helpful.

I've no doubt there are many more strip clubs for men than for women, possibly because women have better things to do, and also tend to hit the menopause and lose their libido!

I find the whole industry male or female abhorrent, but it has existed since the beginning of time.

This is not the only type of event of this kind. There is a St George's Day lunch (into afternoon and evening piss up) at Grosvenor House Hotel every year. Men only, zero women allowed apart from waitresses.

3 of my senior management team colleagues go most years, something I have complained about. This year I have refused to sign off their compliance request (the irony that it is a woman that has to approve their attendance). And it's toys out of the pram time.

It's blatant discrimination and misogyny.

Helena, as you say, you had a choice. Each to their own.

After school I worked in a shop for £5 a day at one point.

ILoveMrDarcy - oh well done, I love that!

Need to close all these wretched events down.

Workfare where you are not paid a wage is not really a choice

Your privilege is showing again.

Thankyou for proving the point about how working class women are viewed.

This is a power and class issue as well as a feminist one.

Hahahahaha you know nothing about my (lack of) privilege. And since when was £5/day a living wage?

I have been

• homeless
• sofa surfing
• made unemployed x 3

oh, and daughter of a coal miner

Even if they were asked to wear short, skimpy dresses and matching underwear, they have the right not to be groped.

... and your arguments about their dress come very close to victim blaming. Like arguing that women who dress in a particular way are 'asking for it', and that if they're assaulted or raped, then its their fault.

Around 2005, was wearing a loose shirt and my boss stood beside me putting his hand inside my shirt and onto the skin on my back.

I did a lot of casual work as a student up until 2008. I was grabbed, hand held tightly, and sometimes fully picked up off my feet and over the shoulder by men. I'm so small that when they did this, I physically don't have the strength, compared to them, to do anything about it. Customers would follow me around my workplace, grab me and sometimes follow me home. Male colleagues rating female colleague's boobs and listing in terms of fuckability. Male colleagues sticking their tongues in female colleague's mouths, hassling for "massages", trying to corner you etc. There were so many incidents that I can't even list them - it just became the norm.

Even if they expected the men to be "annoying" and were asked to wear "sexy" clothing, they may have still expected security to protect them and to support them when attendees made inappropriate comments and touched them. They may not have realised that their phone would be taken away and that they would not get a chance to read the NDA.

Even in knowing that sleazy mean would be attending, they may have expected NOT to be assaulted.

Sad world where we just let men do what they want and we have to expect to be sexually assaulted. And, if we mention it, it's our fault anyway.

And even sadder to see other women trying to rationalise it or explain it away.

Anymajordude ..... yes

And even sadder to see other women trying to rationalise it or explain it away.

Yes. Very sad.

If you wouldn't want your partner seeing what you did on a night out, or at a function, then you already know something is wrong. The vast majority of these clandestine functions are secretive in order to facilitate shameful behaviour.

There may have been some men attending for the first time who were unaware of the nature of it. It is possible, just as some of the women may have been aware. However it is far easier for those men to turn around and leave than for the women. The women are economically disadvantaged which places a significant restriction on their ability to object.

I am speaking in terms of the male and female groups as a whole. There might have been exceptions on either side, but as a collective, the men wanted to attend, the women needed to attend.

... and given the presence of the security detail, who were making sure that the women didn't spend too long in the toilets, I doubt they would have been allowed to leave!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-42823776

Interview with one of the girls.

Would it be the end of the world if all 'networking' events ended, other than maybe the odd alcohol free lunch?

Can't see anything wrong in networking if it's the genuine aim is what it's supposed to be - men and women in business with some shared interests seeing if they can combine resources in some way and do business.

But it seems many confuse business networking with personal networking and don't spend time with those that can do the best business, but those that are the most sexually appealing. Put a good looking man in a room full of businessmen, and I think you'd be hard pressed to notice any real change in female behaviour - perhaps the odd glance at most. Put a good looking woman in a room from of businessmen and you'll notice a change right away. Three or four men will swarm to her. If she moves away from them, that's not the end of it, another group will approach her.

edit: that ought to have said 'a good looking man in a room full of businesswomen' - no obvious behavioural change.

No I don't 'use my femininity' to get what I want. No I was not happy when a stranger grabbed my arse on my own doorstep, even though I'm middle aged and fat. No I don't think the waiting staff at that dinner were victims; I do however think what the guests allegedly did constitutes incidents of harassment and sexual assault and I don't consider that OK. I doubt that any of those men would put theur hand up the skirt of the Duchess of Cambridge if they met her at an event. Why not, if it's such a natural, complimentary thing to do that any pretty female should expect from men? Because she has male protectors, and status, that's why. In fact, she's the same as all those women employed at the event.

As always with these events.

Women: not shocked at all, not surprised in any way, and come forth with a multitude of stories from past and present

Men: We had no idea!!!!!!

Well catching up with The Last Leg was a mistake. Just listened to Rachel Johnson victim blaming the young women who did the hostess jobs at The Presidents Club. Adam Hills and David Tennant disagreed with her

Mail on Sunday column to come.

Not sure I can bring myself to watch her. Rachel Johnson came out with an awful article after HW scandal.

Rich, white, privilege. Doesn’t have a clue. And it does so much damage to her gender. Why?!?!

Then again, would like to see her being challenged. By two men.

Is it me, or is there simply no logic to the presidents clubs arguments?

That ‘these’ women, know what sort of night it is...

...yet the men didn’t see anything, didn’t do anything?

Baffling.