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....

Heres another example I saw the front page of the Daily Star today and apparently Vernon Kay is dismayed at being dragged into this!!

Men..............had no idea , didnt see anything nothing to do with us

Women ...............well surely you knew what you were getting into.

It cant be both. The same tired old misogynistic gaslighting goalpost moving.

Re golf days:

When I took on a management-level role 18 years ago my departing female predecessor told me that if I wanted to stay top of mind at the firm, I needed to play golf.

So I signed up to the company golf day, having had a few lessons as a birthday gift.

Let's say my name is Karen (it isn't). I was the only female there on the day, of a group of less than 30.

Worst shot: Carrie
Furthest from the pin: Caroline
Most strokes on a par 3: Cassandra
Best dressed golfer: Coral

And on and on and on it went. The only woman in the room, and not only did they want to do me down, my actual name didn't matter.

It's only sport, Karen. It's only banter, Karen. Go on, gissa smile, Karen.

Its why working class women sometimes feel so alienated from feminism and feel it isnt for them.

@Helenadove

" They actually had staff harassing the young women if they took too long in the loo."

Since when has telling staff to work and not take too long in the bathroom been harassment? Was it also wrong that these women weren't allowed their phones on them or couldn't bring their boyfriends to work or do you think this is perfectly normal and you're making out otherwise?

I was hugely aggrieved with Rachel Johnson for her comment on that show. How dare she.

So glad David Tennant made a strong comment that it just was NOT right and should NOT be happening. .

FFS. It’s never actually going to change.

I was at a conference and there was a problem with catering.
I think the catering team were delayed so the buffet had arrived but needed setting up and drinks needed serving. Guess who was responsible for catering? Not me.

I was at a higher level than many of the male employees and was supposed to be networking. Guess who ended up with a variety of other female staff setting up the buffet food and putting drinks out?

Many of the male employees basically refused to do as asked or did the bare minimum to help. The man responsible for the catering then did a "Didn't the girl's do well" speech. Condescending little prick.

"Many of the male employees basically refused to do as asked or did the bare minimum to help."

So you didn't refuse? That's on you.

So, your boss thanked you and you use a gendered insult? No need to get all hysterical!

I was a very junior worker at a large bookshop chain. I used to work in the fiction area and have to stand around flushing the books, keeping them in alphabetical order.

The boss with his team of male underlings would not only come around as a gang and make comments about what I was wearing, or asking about my love life, but one evening I got a text from the general manager asking me what my pussy smelt like. I tried to laugh it off as banter over text, then I got texts from the rest of his male gang of senior management asking me the same question (I was 18!) they must have been all together and had a few to drink.

The next day I was called into the office by the general manager and sacked for “not having the right energy” for the store. They made me feel they were sacking me because I wasn’t gung ho enough with my “banter” or didn’t respond in the right way.

If I had been older and more assertive (especially now) I would have gone to HR and given them an earful but I unfortunately thought that it was all my fault.

I went to university up north and ended up on a sports tour with what you would call quit jock-like rugby boys. They were the ones all the girls st uni wanted to go out with.

One of them drove the tour bus and about halfway through the journey they pretended to drop me st the dose of the road and they were all sniggering. They pressured me to get off the bus in a layby. I didn’t know what kind of game I was being made part of.

Then one of them got out a stash of porn magazines with porn stories and said they would only drive me home if I read them the porn stories continuously.

I was desperate to be cool with them and to appear like it was all fine, so obliged and became the narrator of this porn for the 3 hour journey back.

I'm not sure what makes me feel more sad, the stories themselves or the women excusing them and trying to pretend that this isn't a gendered thing

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

They could have asked Rachel Johnson what her views would be if either of her brothers had been there (not that they were).

DH and I were at a Burns Supper last year. Businesses all hosted tables and invited guests/spouses.

If you've even been to a Burns SUpper you'll know there's a Toast to the Lassies (given by a man) and then a Reply to the Toast (given by a woman). Each one of those speeches was the most horrific sexist twaddle, lots of stereotyping, jokes which Les Dawson would have been proud of and just a relic of the past. And the woman was as bad as the man. DH and I very uncomfortable. His colleagues agreed.

He was at another one last night - will see how awful that one was when he gets back. (I wasn't invited this year - quite glad really).

I'm not sure what makes me feel more sad, the stories themselves or the women excusing them and trying to pretend that this isn't a gendered thing

Definitely women trying to excuse it. It just makes everything so much harder, and we look like the special snowflakes and the likes of Rachel Johnson, Katie Hopkins and Julia Hartley-Brewer are applauded by the men by having 'sensible' views, and not being so easily offended all the time.

It's the way it always goes now.

Something terrible happens
Men: Nothing happened
Women: This has been going on for years
Women: #metoo and #timesup
Newspaper article from a misogynist woman: all a load of fuss over nothing, grow a pair, special snowflake liberels
Men: Phew, thank god we've got these women on our side.

And it's over. Until the next time.

"Since when has telling staff to work and not take too long in the bathroom been harassment?"

Well it comes under disability discrimination if the employee has a condition like Crohns disease.

Sports Direct and Asos didnt fare too well over that kind of treatment.

This is not sexism in terms of unprofessional conduct. At a company event for all mid tier managers and above. 300 people in the room for a full day conference about current performance and strategic direction for the future. It was a really big deal.

A seating plan had been made and we checked our names at the door to see which table we were each sat at. Tables of 10. I noticed quite quickly that something was up, and swiped a copy of the seating plan to check. 2 women to every table. Just 2 out of 10 on every table we're female. Only 20% of the mid tier and above managers, those who were considered vital to strategic direction and future performance, were women.

More concerning was the 'people' section of the conference, led by HR. 56% of employees were female. I'm not ballsy enough to stand up in this kind of forum and ask a question, so I emailed the HR director the next day with my observations on the male/female ratio and another question. What is the comparative salary for male/female for those who have the same job title. Where did we stand on equal pay? What's the average salary by sex.

I didn't get a reply and I was forced out of the company within the year, for unrelated reasons but still really shady.

There will always be extremes that catch the headlines, but the really damaging aspects of sexism exist in the day to day acceptance of women being inferior in one way or another.

Telling staff not to spend too long in a bathroom is normal. For men and for women. If someone has a condition that requires longer periods of time, of course, that's an exception which must be allowed for.

We're mixing up different things here... in the normal workplace, not spending ages in the bathroom means 'actually do the job you're paid to do and don't skive', but in the context of this event, I think it would be far more about 'Don't try to get out of this seedy work by retreating to the bathrooms' - that's quite a different reason. It's almost like the anticipated that some of the girls would do that - why? because they knew it was damn seedy to start with and that most of the girls would rather be in the bathrooms.

If hands are put on a woman it's sexual assault (we aren't talking a handshake, or a hand on a shoulder for a photo etc), we are talking about dirty, sleezy, groping. How else can it be described? There should be CCTV and prosecutions. Doubtless some will be hard to prove, but are they seriously saying the Dorchester has no CCTV? Some of the nation's wealthiest men, with security all around, but no CCTV? hmmm