To have not been effusive when colleague was waving her engagement ring around

[Thelaughingtonepoliceman]

Just been taken to task by a colleague for failing to be sufficiently excited when another colleague told us she had just got engaged and was waving a medium-sized rock around the office.

The colleague who has just got engaged has been with her partner for about seven years and on two separate occasions has been in tears at work parties because of his behaviour (on one of these he accused her of going out because she was trying to sleep with other men). She has previously said they usually sleep in separate bedrooms, she has thought of leaving him and he refuses on principle to do anything social with her at all and has no interest in doing anything other than watching rugby. In short, he sounds like a world-class arse and she could certainly do better.

She was showing people the ring and everyone was gushing over it and saying how happy she must be etc. A couple of the other girls made comments along the lines of "wait until I go home and show Bob/John the pictures".

Full disclosure I find the whole business of engagement and engagement rings pointless and utterly embarrassing at the best of times. If you want to get married, get married but this ridiculous charade of having to be asked by the man and having to have an expensive ring to wave around as a badge of honour is just cringe. In the best of situations I find the business naff but I'm very happy to overlook it if the people getting married are happy.

But I know for a fact that this is not a happy relationship and simpering over this was more than I could bear. So I gave a peremptory nod, said "congratulations, very exciting" and wandered off, leaving the rest of them talking about the ring for a further 20 minutes. Much later on someone took me aside and said it had been noted that I was lacking in enthusiasm around the engagement and why had I felt it necessary to be this unpleasant?

I honestly don't understand why it should be mandatory to be interested in the engagements of people you don't know all that well in the first place but particularly when everyone knows they aren't well matched. I won't be rude and I wasn't rude, but why should I pretend to be overjoyed?

potniatheron, how do you entertain the idea that you were somehow responsible for this colleague being a victim of domestic violence. Are women now also to blame for the things we don't say as well the things we do say? I find the whole notion of telling women how to behave, who to see, who to marry as anti-feminist as when the patriarchy do it!

Normally I’d say YABU, but since the guy is such an arse and this is clearly going to be an unhappy marriage, YANBU. If everyone was leas enthusiastic when women get engaged to idiots maybe there would be fewer unhappy marriages.

Sounds to me like there are two separate issues here.

1. If your colleague's partner really is abusive/nasty then you're not wrong to be concerned. But if you genuinely think he's bad enough to intervene then intervene, don't just passively look a bit uninterested.

2. To me, some of your posts read as a little misogynistic. Using words like simpering/charade/gushing etc just comes across like you're lumping everything to do with weddings and engagements into one and using it as an issue to berate women with. You've not really been as critical with men, or been as emotive with your discussions about the patriarchal roots of marriage which may be why some posters feel you've come across as a bit judgemental.

I am not sure if it was your intention to refute my post but you have absolutely supported my point. In all of the situations you describe the common denominator is that you were indeed entirely uninterested or unenthusiastic! It also sounds like the expectation of enthusiasm in each case was unreasonable but that is, I would suggest, a separate issue.

I do not entertain the idea that I am responsible, as you would know if you'd bothered to read my post before galumphing in to tell me off with all the grace and insight of a sledgehammer.

You weren’t rude. I agree with your views on engagements and the fuss around rings. I love jewellery but i find the hysteria around engagement rings childish, especially when you are being forced to oooo and aaa at a boring ring with a piddling diamond in it. You can see from this thread the anger many women have towards other women for having a view different from theirs, it’s the extension of the #bekind banality which really is just another way of getting women to shut up and as you can see is rigorously enforced by other women. Getting engaged is wonderful for happy couples. I too have had to feign congratulations where the match was ill made and indeed on one occasion where I knew the groom to be was abusive. In that particular case I do wish I had said to the bride to be are you sure you know what you are doing, but it took another two years of torture and him leaving her humiliated just before their wedding for her to realise this was not the man for her. The thread also shows so many women still see engagement and marriage as a prize, a reward that shows you are a marriageable woman and therefore worthy as a man has chosen you. Not as a decision taken by equals to move forward together through life. The insults thrown at the OP for expressing completely reasonable feminist views are shocking. You weren’t rude and the woman who said you should have stood for longer congratulating your colleague was massively crossing a line. Would a man be pulled up by anyone ever for simply saying congratulations and good luck? Never in a million years.

Did all males colleagues in the officer gather around and gush at the sight of the engagement ring too? Or is that just the expectation that any woman must do exactly that?

OP said 'Congratulations' and 'how exciting!'. What more is there to say, really?

I've never in my life known a man to come into a workplace or similar flashing an engagement ring and excitedly babbling about it to all of his colleagues. Have you?

I know your post wasn't to me but it resonated.

I wouldn't say a word about 1) because she's an adult and it's nobody's business but hers. Once she makes the decision to marry, all but nearest and dearest are best keeping quiet.

2. I just used the word 'gushing' in my post. It fits, it describes the behaviour of some women and the huge expectation they have for other women to behave in a comparable way. It's neither fair nor relevant for people to police others' responses (talking about OP's insufferable colleague here), by 'taking this up with OP'. That colleague would have got (and deserved) short shrift.

Why are women not allowed to feel the way they do? Engaged lady feels how she does, OP has the right to feel and behave in the way that suits her best as she wasn't rude or dismissive that I can see?

I doubt that men second-guess themselves to this extent - or would have so many people so definitely asserting that OP was x, y, z <not good enough> in tone.

No I haven't (as I suspect you know). But I'm aware that the expected (and actual) reaction of women to engagements and babies is largely because of society's rather sexist expectations, so I don't add to that by mocking or laughing, or acting superior to women 🤷

You are quite clearly stating that if you had let your colleague know your concerns and not been so polite it may have made them pause for thought, not marry this person, ensuring the abuse was never committed. You've also thrown in a patronising, insult with the 'be kind' comments presumably because like her colleagues, you think that anyone who opposes that view, can't quite follow the profound points the OP is making.

OP can feel and react however she wants. I wouldn't have policed her reaction and I don't necessarily think she should have been told off by a colleague.
Still find the tone and language of some of OPs posts a bit dismissive and "I'm not like other girls".

I was responding to you saying to the OP:

You've not really been as critical with men,

But why would she, when men don't perform the behaviours that she's criticising?

How would you prefer to challenge the sexist expectations around reactions to engagements etc.? What OP did was to do the bare minimum polite thing, and then come here to express her feelings more truthfully. The reality is that this behaviour IS damaging to women, not least because they see getting engaged to an abusive wanker as something to jump around getting excited about. How would you tackle it?

@YippieKayakOtherBuckets I wasn't trying to contradict you at all.

I was agreeing that it's like there is a common denominator - I thought you'd made it was a very pertinent point - one that was relevant to my own life's experiences. .

I just suggested a different solution you think more fake being enthusiastic

• OP says she was socially polite (either she was or isnt able to be ) - I'm suggesting being more a forceful in future so people don't put you in these situations where they think they can tell you off.

I just think being more enthusiastic may just make the problem worse - in my babysitting example it would have made that more likely not less to happen again but I should have been more forceful to prevent it at all. I didn't project confidence and self assurance so some did try and take advantage.

I'm suggesting the OP should think about being considered more forceful/confident/self assured so that nobody feels able to take a grown adult to task is another behavioral modification she should consider.

@eirlaw Understood! Apologies. It is quite a combative thread and I misread your post

Sorry, I've obviously not been clear. I'm talking about the sexist expectations of society as a whole and how it's perhaps better to challenge them rather than mocking those who end up being victims of those expectations (ie women)

Society places certain expectations on women about engagement/marriage/babies. Perhaps it would be better to criticise those expectations in the first place rather than be a bit condescending about the reactions women have to engagement/marriage/babies etc.

Tbh I don't really have an answer to the bigger question of challenging society's expectations. I mean in my own engagement / marriage it was a mutual discussion, we both bought rings and I haven't changed my surname. Ive been really open with my own daughters about all of that and how you don't have to follow traditions. Hardly changing the world, but then again neither is blaming women's behaviour.

Maybe it’s an age thing? When I was younger (late teens, early to mid twenties) I would have feigned a more enthusiastic response than I might have felt but as I’ve got older the feigning over stuff I’m not that invested in has significantly reduced. I’m not rude but, like the OP, I’ll give a polite acknowledgement (that’s a lovely ring, what a cute baby etc ) but I won’t be huddled in a group excitedly going over all the details.

I would say the anger is very much being exuded by the OP and other PP on here, angry that some of us won't be the acceptable universal woman, how dare a woman not comply with the forced relatability- does every single woman not want the same thing! Marriage is an institution with deep rooted inequality, it seems to me that a 'feminist marriage' is an oxymoron!

What is this society you speak of? To quote Maggie Thatcher (if I dare 😁), “there’s no such thing as society”. Personally I’ve never felt any outside pressures to get engaged or married or have children. The only person putting that on me was me.

I've done the same as you

(this bit . I mean in my own engagement / marriage it was a mutual discussion, we both bought rings and I haven't changed my surname. Ive been really open with my own daughters about all of that and how you don't have to follow traditions. except that neither of us wear rings.)

I don't think there's anything wrong with a bit of mockery or refusing to participate in this sexist bullshit. And I think that mild mockery/refusal to participate IS a way of criticising those expectations. As is doing things differently yourself.

I'm not going to join in with the valorisation and fake excitement about something which I think is actively damaging to women.

@Goldenbear

Marriage is an institution with deep rooted inequality, it seems to me that a 'feminist marriage' is an oxymoron!

Why is it? I'm married and a feminist, in a marriage of equals (which benefits me more, on balance, given that I had to stop working for periods of time to have children). What's oxymoronic about that?

Toxic femininity in action!

YANBU OP and your colleague/boss are toxic twats.

As pp have said, did anyone take the men aside and bollock them for not being more enthusiastic?

Pure sexism

Why do women need to be told what to do though and how to act? I don't understand how this is being a feminist. I think the description is embellished as it is just not plausible that every other woman was stood around, fawning over this woman who was vulgarly (of course) brandishing her engagement ring.

Some Men have also been known to collectively cheer and swear when watching sports for instance. I'm sure some men even feign it as most of us do not have the courage of our convictions all of the time!

Bamboux because the very roots of the institution of marriage are not something that can be forgotten about, why do you have to marry in the first instance to reap the benefits that you reference. Shouldn't a feminist be asserting the right to that protection without entering marriage?

In fact if you want it to be more about equality, really marriage should wholly be about romance, the commitment to each other should just be about love, the financial security should already be available to women with children to use your example.

Er, you can't just go around 'asserting your right' to not pay inheritance tax, for example, or to be entitled to half of the assets of a relationship, or to benefit from all of the other legal, financial and economic protections of marriage.

I mean, you could try 'asserting it', but it's not going to get you very far.

It's very much in men's interests to say that marriage is meaningless, as it's mostly women who get the shitty end of the stick if an unmarried relationship breaks down.

I asked you why a 'feminist marriage' is an oxymoron and you haven't answered.

Marriage is a legal contract, and the roots of marriage are economic and familial security. There is nothing unfeminist about my marriage.