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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

'Boys' work night out

234 replies

thistimenextmonth · 07/10/2020 10:05

I am part of a 3 person senior management team where I work. I am in the middle of the other 2 in terms of seniority.

We have a team of 60 employees with 4 junior managers beneath us.

2 colleagues (male) have left the workplace recently and one of the junior managers has organised a few drinks to say farewell, my boss (male) and the other manager (also male) have been invited along with the junior managers and a couple of others on site.

I have not been invited and no other women have either. The reason given was it is a boys night.

This has only just happened so I am still reeling a bit. There are no other female managers which is why I am asking here if I should be feeling this uncomfortable about it? My boss hasn't said anything but when I mentioned to the other manager he seemed to 'get it' which is why I know the answer of it was a 'boys night' I feel disrespected and dissapointed. AIBU?

OP posts:
WaspRelatedEmergency · 07/10/2020 12:24

There's a bit in Invisible Women about work place night outs and how women are often excluded. I recommend a copy for your workplace.

honeylulu · 07/10/2020 12:26

Posters saying "it's a non issue" or "you probably didn't want to go anyway" are spectacularly missing the point. It's one event but it's an example of insidious workplace sexism that exists all over the world and needs challenging.

I work in law but our client base is largely insurers, adjusters and brokers which tends to be quite "laddy" anyway, lots of networking/bonding over beers. It needs to be normalised that female staff get to go and join in or the male lawyers will maintain their monopoly on winning the lions share of new work.

Internal workplace culture needs to reflect what we hope will happen in the marketplace. The more it happens that women are excluded, the harder it gets to challenge the status quo.

I see it all the time (or rather I did until we all had to wfh). The young lawyers organise a lot of drinks for birthdays, colleagues leaving, watching football matches. When the females organise they invite everyone. When the males organise it often seems to be lads only. And so it begins ...

Later the women tend to work part time or rush off to collect children so that just cements the view that female colleagues in general don't need to be invited. The women who are still around and able to come just get left out more and more without female peers doing the organising. And the males bump into the insurers, and brokers and adjusters in the bars ... and bond ... and so the cycle continues.

Original poster
thistimenextmonth · 07/10/2020 12:27

@Brefugee

Maybe their wives would give them a hard time if they were hanging out with a female colleague? You are too sensitive. Get over it.

Hey, ladies: don' worry so much about the sexism displayed by men because it's much much worse from their fucking handmaidens, like this one.

Birthday drinks: invite who you like, if you are excluding some and inviting a lot of colleagues, be discreet about it.

Leaving do: is actually a work function regardless of who pays. Invite either only the people you work with, or invite everyone and hope that the people who don't like you decline like a sensible person.

Don't be a sexist twat. FWIW, OP, I'm also ex-military and while there wsa a lot of shitty institutional sexism, in our troop/squadron/regiment when it came to things like this, we were all one big team. Even if some people hated that (which was their problem not ours). In fact we often had the totally irritating convo of "but i always think of you as one of the guys"

Absolutely.

I'm ex navy so we all spent a lot of time together - this was when females were only a few years into going to sea and only 2 years since gays in the military was legalised! So I took a lot of shit and some of the blokes were arseholes! But if the women were ever harassed they were there and it was a team.

OP posts:
fromdownwest · 07/10/2020 12:29

@rwalker - Clearly not allowed to base your social circle OUTSIDE of work, by whom you want to spend time with. It should be who you are obliged to spend time with.

Mad world, getting madder by the day.

AriettyHomily · 07/10/2020 12:36

Well it sounds a bit shit but a) do you actually want to go? B) rule of six?

Busybrain2020 · 07/10/2020 12:40

I don't think your company should be condoning a works-related evening that breaks the law (rule of 6) anyway as they could potentially get hit with a pretty hefty fine. Not to mention the spread of a potentially deadly disease!

WeeMadArthur · 07/10/2020 12:42

I’m guessing they want to go to a strip club and don’t want any women from work making them feel like sleazy pricks for going.

aprilanne · 07/10/2020 12:43

Really how is this a problem. Men want to go out with only other men so what .not all things are sexist sometimes men just like mens company. The talk and language will probably be different let's be honest .you are looking to be offended for no reason

SimonJT · 07/10/2020 12:49

I’m the only man on our team, there are regularly ladies nights out organised by our team, including leaving do, maternity party etc. I never get invited, thats fine, it would be weird and a bit immature of me to expect to be invited on a ladies night out.

crankysaurus · 07/10/2020 12:49

YANBU, OP. There's a time and a place for a lads night out but someone's leaving do at what should be an inclusive workplace is not it.

rwalker · 07/10/2020 12:50

@Asterionrwalker

@rwalker - I assume that there is an equal diversifcation of gender, religion, race and sexual orientation at this event.

Full inclusivity or you are a racist, mysgoniosistic, homophonic hateful male pig

Fuck me what have we come to when I organise a nightout I pick friends I want to socialise with and like .I don't have a tick list to make sure all gender,orentaion and race covered .
I have friends of all genders, race and orientation and do different thing all of with them .
This is 6 friends going for a drink if it was a full works do the other 50 odd people would of been invited as well.
They have not gone round the entire workforce and invited everyone but women.
It's more than six people - sorry, men - being invited by a man to a man's leaving do. In a company where women colleagues do actually exist.

Now, let's try it with colour - black colleagues are excluded from a white man's work leaving do.

Theres still the best part of 50 people not going are you say these are all women.
If poster could clarify out of the entire workforce is it only women who haven't been invited or is it a mix of men and women not invited.
Going are managers,colleauges and lefts all bases covered there

KatherineJaneway · 07/10/2020 12:50

Personally I don't see it as a leaving do, the people have already left. If, as a company you didn't organise something, or the individual themsleves didn't organise something, then this is just former teammates meeting up.

SkiingIsHeaven · 07/10/2020 12:50

Yes but would you have gone out with them?

crankysaurus · 07/10/2020 12:52

Similarly for you, SimonJT, ladies nights out are one thing but being actively excluded from works social events (and that is what I consider leaving drinks to be) is not on.

BlackAmericanoNoSugar · 07/10/2020 12:52

I'm a bit of a confrontational cow so I know that if I were in your position I would complain loudly. However, it's probably a better approach to start dropping phrases about the organiser like "not a team player", "not able to get along with a wide variety of people" and "not encouraging of diversity in the workplace" and therefore possibly not management material.

slashlover · 07/10/2020 12:58

I'd hate it if I met up with ex-colleagues who I was close with and others decided they should be able to attend. Is it a leaving do or is it some ex-colleagues who want to meet up?

NiceGerbil · 07/10/2020 13:03

For those who say this is normal and fine (leaving do team and managers invited except for the 5 women), or who are saying it's because they're going to a strip club, etc

Can I ask what industries you work in?

I've never come across team stuff/ leaving drinks where it was men only. I have had talk of strip clubs but not in those circs. And these days even loads of the men get po-faced about the ones who do the strip thing. Which is not that common TBF.

NiceGerbil · 07/10/2020 13:03

It's a leaving do, slash.

With a general invite except for the 5 women.

fromdownwest · 07/10/2020 13:06

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar - Based on your posting, maybe it is not your gender that would cause a non invite....

BabyItsAWildWorld · 07/10/2020 13:18

YANBU.
If this is work event, e.g. leaving drinks, then you invite everyone and it is not acceptable to exclude people because of their race, sex. religion , etc or whether you like them or not.

People in the work place should not be excluded from work social events.

If people in work are friends and organise outside work socialising that's fine and they can choose then to socialise with whoever they wish. But they would need to keep it quite separate e.g not organised at work in front of others.

Original poster
thistimenextmonth · 07/10/2020 13:20

@slashlover

I'd hate it if I met up with ex-colleagues who I was close with and others decided they should be able to attend. Is it a leaving do or is it some ex-colleagues who want to meet up?
It's a bit more complicated than that but as we are here - 3 senior managers on site, 4 junior managers, 3 supervisors across 4 departments.

1 supervisor is leaving - all senior management team known and worked with similar time.
Other person leaving is part of client team but we all get on with and sad to see leaving.

All male managers and supervisors invited + a couple of long serving colleagues of 1st guy invited. No women invited.

They don't socialise with senior managers except on company funded outings usually and we are normally quite a tight team (so I thought)

OP posts:
Original poster
thistimenextmonth · 07/10/2020 13:23

@BabyItsAWildWorld

YANBU. If this is work event, e.g. leaving drinks, then you invite everyone and it is not acceptable to exclude people because of their race, sex. religion , etc or whether you like them or not.

People in the work place should not be excluded from work social events.

If people in work are friends and organise outside work socialising that's fine and they can choose then to socialise with whoever they wish. But they would need to keep it quite separate e.g not organised at work in front of others.

Thanks, I know about this event because one of the other junior managers called and asked if I wanted a lift as we live quite close, he didn't know I hadn't been invited.
OP posts:
S111n20 · 07/10/2020 13:23

I honestly don’t see anything wrong with this it’s lads night you haven’t been invited...

1forAll74 · 07/10/2020 13:28

Just take the leaving man out for drinks yourself on another night,then you will feel special like your special self again.

Original poster
thistimenextmonth · 07/10/2020 13:35

@1forAll74

Just take the leaving man out for drinks yourself on another night,then you will feel special like your special self again.
Pathetic
OP posts:
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