To ask if this happened at your work....

[Ifimight]

If someone made a sexist/rape joke in a meeting mainly involving junior staff but also with senior managers in it, what do you think would happen at your work place? Would anyone complain? Would anyone call them out as it being inappropriate in the meeting itself?

Just curious. This comes on the back of years of inappropriate behaviour and harassment, I'm wondering how other work places would/should deal with it.

@Moondust001

As a senior manager, you wouldn't be posting here because you would know the answer already. I wouldn't care the seniority of anyone in the room. If it was one of my staff they would have been asked to leave immediately, go home and await a call from me. If someone else's, I'd have said that it was inappropriate and they could expect a formal complaint/grievance.

And by the way, for those who love insulting and offending others, I am very "woke" - in other words I respect the choices of others, and yes I would F*ing well come down on the comments and on your use of offensive labels as well. What the hell is wrong with the world that people think they must defend their own position by offensively attacking others first?

Moondust001 genuine question, I dont understand your 2nd paragraph. Who are you talking to there? I've missed something, who has been offensive?

Zero tolerance in my industry too. We’ve had two people walked in the past two months due to inappropriate behavior.

It would depend on the joke at my workplace, if it was an actual joke about rape, I think it would be dealt with quite seriously. If it was a joke like the blind man / woman in Bath joke I think it would be OK as it a play on words joke and not actually about taking advantage of someone. As much as I could assume some would see it that way.

I don't know whether to go ahead with a grievance or leave it as an informal chat with manager type thing.

@Ifimight

I don't know whether to go ahead with a grievance or leave it as an informal chat with manager type thing.

Up to you. I would have an informal chat with the manager for a first offense then if nothing changed I'd escalate. But that's just me, you'd be well within your rights to raise a grievance.

Sorry, missed your comment where there was a "joke" aimed directly at you, in which case I would speak to manager and tell them you were considering a grievance and see how seriously the manager took it.

Wow I can’t believe so many people work for companies where this would be a disciplinary offence.
I’ve worked for 42 years both public and private sector and seen many examples of this. Generally what happens is there is some nervous laughter and then people pretend nothing was said.

@Ifimight

I don't know whether to go ahead with a grievance or leave it as an informal chat with manager type thing.

As you're leaving, hopefully, I'd leave as an informal chat for now. You need a reference so while it isn't right, i wouldn't raise a grievance until you've got a new job in the bag.

I think if i am successful getting another job id just run out of there without a backwards glance. You're right about a reference though.

In my last job there was a disturbing amount of tolerance of sexism but an actual joke about rape would be very quickly dealt with pretty strongly, likely to be a decision between gross misconduct and written warning.

I work in a male dominated field and I can't imagine anyone I work with tolerating a rape joke. If a client said it, it would be met, i'm pretty sure, with no laughs and blank stares. If an employee said it, it would be called out on.

A job previously though, again male dominated, this was pretty rife and a huge amount of inappropriate 'banter' happened along with some inappropriate physical stuff towards the younger women there, me included.
My complaints got me nowhere because the big boss was the worst of them all. I walked out one day after a particularly disgusting meeting. I took them to court. And won.

The trouble is, there is banter, which is lighthearted and sometimes yes a little close to the bone, and there is banter which is very offensive and almost all of it in my experience aimed at women by men. That is the sort that needs totally stamping out and until employers take a stand, or brave employees stand up and say enough is enough, it never will be unfortunately.

Nothing happened at all. A few people laughed along and then they just moved along with the meeting.

This is exactly what would happen in my workplace sadly.

Actually, I hope rape joke would be dealt with, but anything "less", unlikely.

It is on the back of years of inappropriate behaviour, and is not something that anyone could claim they did not know was such. I think it should be a formal grievance.

I think it would be worth keeping a log of all these comments, who said what and when in case it does get worse and you are pushed out.

I don’t know how my organisation would react, I doubt they would take it seriously unfortunately.

It really depends who was there. I work for a reasonably sized organisation where each department is its own fiefdom, some departments are amazing and some vile.

not much would happen if this occurred in my workplace, unfortunately

In my workplace it would depend who was in earshot. For the most part, possibly the whole part, none of us would be stupid enough to make a rape joke or the PornHub comment unless we knew for certain nobody who heard it would be offended.

(Rape jokes can be funny by the way - it's possible to make a joke about just about anything. It doesn't follow that the subject being joked about is funny in itself. People who say "rape jokes are never funny" can only say that if they have thought through every possible rape joke that could ever be conceived of - which makes me more concerned about how that person thinks than someone's ill-judged joke.)

If said when I worked in FS - it would have been taken seriously and dealt with.

If said when I worked in the railway - bugger all would happen. Very rare to be fired in the railway, at best they would have been moved to a new role.

I once had an interview where the interviewer made a rape joke at my expense.

I turned down the job, and explained to the organisation why. Judging by their reaction, I should think he was very severely disciplined.

Someone would’ve complained. The culprit would have been disciplined and either final written warning or possibly dismissed.

Gross misconduct. Do your very best to get them out of that job.

I called out a manager other day for saying.
The king of an area I work in. - job advert going out. I simply said it might be a queen ? He said str8 away I wasn't meaning to be sexist lol.

In practice, I know I would probably be sat there, thinking, "did I actually hear that?" - but I would mention it, and others might also, but it would depend on the meeting and who was in it. Sometimes it would be taken seriously (it's clearly against the code of conduct,) but other times, "oh, you're being over-sensitive." Still, the culture has changed over the years, and it wouldn't be laughed off these days.

It would be picked up as ‘that is not relevant or appropriate!’ I once worked beside an i exile who used to think it was funny to say sexual things and then laugh whilst saying ‘sorry..sorry’ I did pull him apart when he debarked ‘jeez I was going to the bus stop last night and saw some girls on a night out. They looked like total skippers and dressing like that it’s no wonder they get raped!’ I will say that rape references are a trigger for me. I turned round, looked at him like the turf he was and said ‘explain please? Exactly what is it about whatever clothes a person wears that says ‘please have sex with me against my will!’ It is nothing to do with what anyone wears, it is about a rapist!’ He has a teenage daughter ffs! I will always call out shit like that though!