'I don't shake women's hands'

[canary1]

In a work setting today, a client was seen by four colleagues, 2 male, 2 female. The client shook hands with the two male colleagues at the end, and when I held my hand out in expectation, this is what he said. I know many muslims and never ran into this before, though this is his reason. I'm disgusted at such overt sexism dressed up as religion. I can't say that's just his beliefs any more than I can excuse any other overt discriminatory behaviour. How is this regarded as an acceptable way to behave?

I have business contacts that are Orthodox Jews. If we (society) claim to be open then its to be expected that hand shaking is something they don't do. With women.

I don't claim to be open to being dismissed as being nothing more than my sex while doing my job. And I don't want to live in a society that claims this either (well I already do to some extent but it is changing and I am hoping for more change).

Being open does not mean accepting everything anyone wants to do without criticism.

If a man doesn't want to touch women at work for whatever reason, I have no problem with this - his choice. the correct response from him is to touch no one. That shouldn't be much of a sacrifice right?

You dont want to touch a female by hand or hug according to some long dead lord? Fuck right off. You have no place in modern society with modern rights. And I dont give a flying fuck if those sacred hands save lives. Save them in your backwaters that give a shit. Don't bring that divide to my democratic life.

It's totally fine (if bonkers) to not want to shake hands with the opposite sex. The correct approach would be to politely decline a handshake from anyone - acknowledge with a nod or whatever, rather than display your brand of religious discrimination in the workplace.

It would actually be perfectly rational to not shake hands at all, given it's a major means of passing winter bugs

I wouldn’t do business with someone who was that rude.

I'm literally shaking my head in amazement at this thread.

My job involves addressing and trying to alter people's beliefs because it harms and distressed others. I am legally required to encourage the man who assaults his wife because he believes in male privilege to instead begin to believe in an equal partnership.

I must work on victim empathy with burglars becaise they believe their right to stealing for personal gain trumps the rights of their victims.

I must work with the woman who beats her children in why her belief of the value of physical punishment is wholly inappropriate and damaging.

I must stop a sex offender from going to public swimming pools because he believes children are sexually obtainable and has already abused a victim in such a setting.

I continually see in this thread that the OP's client MUST have his belief respected and understood because beliefs are important don't you know. But given it condones sexism and in turn negativity and upset against a gender who have been persecuted, abused and treated as lesser individuals how is this any different to the beliefs I have listed above which I an legally required to address? Just because a damaging and negative belief is cited to be religious why is it then permissible? And before anyone says women haven't been persecuted, abused and so on just consider how 100s of years ago they were constantly tried as witches and burned at the stake, raped as the spoils of warfare, sold off to marry others to build relationships across families and countries and in the present day continue to be raped and abused in many settings.

Any religion that deemed my sex as lesser I think ought to be called out, in the name of all that is feminist. Never is though, cos it is just not left-wing enough...

zzzzz

“I wouldn’t do business with someone who was that rude.
grin I’d probably struggle to do business with someone who wanted to force anyone to touch anyone else.“

You mean force anyone to treat everyone equally surely?

Note3 Best of British with that!

zzzz I agree, forcing anything is a bit too Corbyn for my tastes. How about just outlawing folk who are not gelling? Who don't actually want to touch females? I mean, that sounds modern? Less pre-historic.

I met a Muslim woman once. I offered to shake hands. This was in a corporate setting. She said "my hand is dirty". I asked my Muslim friend and she was perplexed. I'm female.

I wouldn’t personally be bothered. I havent come across this in a work context but it’s common in some of my social circles for orthodox Jewish men not to shake hands with women outside their immediate family. I am happy with that - I don’t think there’s any need for me to force myself upon them!

I agree though that in a work context if he doesn’t want to shake women’s hands, he should shake no ones hands. I do sometimes feel people are a bit touchy feely these days, I don’t generally want to be hugged or kissed at work.

I have been in this situation a few time working in recruitment, the worst is you hold out your hand and are left hanging and feeling stupid or your hold back and feel racist as your judging the situation on skin colour. Whilst your male colleagues, even less qualified are exchanging pleasantries over a strong handshake whilst the room is reminded you are just a woman.

And I cannot imagine what sort of job you have note 3. Sounds fascinating

He is a client not an employee. I couldn't give a toss about shaking a clients hand, my desire to get their money far outweighs any care I have for trivial customs. He can shake hands or not shake hands with whoever he wants as long as his money is still flowing in.

I’m a female doctor and had this from an elderly male patient. He wouldn’t shake my hand but was happy for me to examine him in a fairly intimate way - I did offer to find a male colleague but he said it was fine.

I've never had a GP extend their hand to shake mine, male or female.

Fucking love it! The injustice is so overlooked because its 'cultural'. Fuck that. Racisim and Sexism is alive and well in Jewish and Muslim Cultures. No one wants to address it. Fact.

Zzzz - from my understanding it's because whilst in this particular OP a refusal to handshake is the topic, this is only a small piece of a big picture of condones sexism and offence. Only a few years ago it was permissible to refuse to sit next to a black person on the bus, permissible to refuse to allow a black person to drink from the same fountain and to rip up their CV and not even consider them for a job because they were black. It was fine to use slaves so long as they were black. These were all beliefs and these were all incredibly wrong. Rightly so this has been and continues to be addressed. If a religion continued in the present day to say 'black people must be recognised as dirty and not touched or acknowledged in conversation' would the religious belief trump the black persons right to equality? No it wouldn't. So why does that rule not apply to gender?

I haven't worded some of my post as accurately as intended but hopefully the gist is there

To be honest, it is probably a good policy that men and women do not touch in the workplace given the current climate we're living in. It would relieve a lot of the tension if no touch were expected or customary.