to be appalled by some women’s behaviour?

[GrumpyOldWoman2]

DH has just come back from a work do at his new job (2 months in) and told me that his female colleague was drunkenly trying to get him alone, trying to hug him and offering to buy him drinks all night. We had a baby 5 weeks ago and she knows this!! He’s extremely loyal and kind (struggles to stand up for himself which bugs me sometimes but…) and kept trying to reject her advances to no avail, he ended up leaving early as she made him so uncomfortable. He came home sober.

Just disappointed for him as it was meant to be a nice break from the newborn trenches! Why are people like this? Trying to get on a married man is bad enough but doing it when you know they’ve JUST had a baby is abhorrent! He’s also dreading going back to work on Tuesday and seeing her. Grim behaviour.

OP, I know exactly what you mean. DH is a singer, and he is constantly amazed by the behaviour of some women. They seem to think he’s fair game because of his job, when all he wants to do after a gig is have a cup of tea and half a pack of biscuits!

His nieces are also singers, both extremely beautiful, but they don’t have anything like the harassment he gets!

WTAF!!!

Have you seriously just suggested (on a thread where women have to deal with regular unwanted sexual advances from colleagues) that if you don’t want someone coming onto you and trying to get you alone - to not go to the Christmas parties!!

Why should I stay home and not enjoy the party with everyone else just because my colleague is a slime bag who thinks if he gets me drunk enough then I’ll shag him - fuck that!

If I go to a nightclub full of drunk people, they still have no right to touch me or try to get me alone.

Wow you are very very clever to know exactly what happened - well done! As a mere mortal I prefer to keep an open mind and not trust everything that a man tells me.

Never? What about women?

Although I agree with what you’re saying, I disagree in this context.

I have started a thread before (under a different name) because of a similar situation.

I have no worries about my colleague trying to rape me or being strong enough to have to try and fight him off.

I simply just do not want to be hit on by one of my colleagues.

I want to be able to go to work and do my job and have conversations with my colleagues, without the worry that he is going to expect more.

I want to be able to go to a Christmas party without my colleague hoping that he’s going to shag me and I do not expect him to try and get me alone or buy me drinks for the sole purpose of lowering my inhibitions so I’ll have sex with him.

This has nothing to do with me being in a relationship or having a new baby - I just don’t want to be hit on by one of my colleagues!

So I am 100% team DH. He should be able to enjoy his Christmas party without being hit on.

He could speak to a colleague this woman is close to, if there is one and explain that he felt uncomfortable and leave it at that. On this occasion. I wouldn’t be involving HR. If she does it again, maybe. I would worry that speaking to her directly might backfire as presumably she will become defensive and might start making things up to excuse herself. Then it becomes blown out of proportion.

I think there is a difference in how men and woman should be treated in these situations. Woman are more physically vulnerable usually and often men are more senior. My ex-colleague was groped at a Christmas party many year ago by a senior partner. She knew there was no point in reporting it. She would just be let go at the end of her trainee period (solicitor). In the real world, it’s sometimes best to not report things.

Yes, I understand. However not all women who recieve unwanted attention from men will share your position and be confident it won't escalate and that they won't end up unable to push a man away if he gropes them, or that a man won't rape or otherwise physically harm them.
Men on the other hand will almost all share your position of discomfort rather than fear.
That doesn't make the woman's behaviour OK, or mean it was fine for the OPs H to be uncomfortable and embarrassed. He is clearly in the right here. But it does mean that simply flipping the sexes and saying its 'the same' isn't really true.

You said never, not me. And this thread isn't about a woman saying something to op it is about a man saying something to op about a woman and inviting op and the whole of this thread to pour scorn on this woman. Since I have no idea what this woman did or didn't do i decline to pour scorn on her and prefer to stay focused on the only info i do have which is what this man said about this woman, and i don't trust it. He might be telling 100% truth and for op's sake I hope he is. However there isn't enough info yet to know if it is the truth so my advice to op is to keep an open mind.

You’d be able to tell whether someone had been drinking though, surely?

Why would he have to have been drinking? If this man is trying to get a woman drunk and cross boundaries surely being sober keeps him more in control of the situation.

I have no trouble believing OP’s DH. The idea that he’s making it up is ridiculous.

This kind of behaviour from women is not unusual. I have seen it at several work Christmas parties over the years. Alcohol is always blamed and the woman in question always gets away with it, when a male colleague would be disciplined. If you can’t behave when you drink you either need to
stop or not attend. Man or woman, this kind of behaviour is unacceptable.

Yet again the once a year drinkers. How embarrassing for her having to face everyone back in the office. It’s cringe

I haven’t read all the posts on this thread in fairness but if the point you’re trying to make is that women have jumped on the thread and are enjoying bringing other women down by bringing up anecdotes and that you disagree with that behaviour then I would agree with you, that’s not on.

That doesn’t take away from the fact that men and women shouldn’t be touching other men and women inappropriately and while when men do it it to women it can be more dangerous and frightening, it still doesn’t mean that it’s acceptable for women to touch or be inappropriate towards men. A lot of posters on that other thread seemed to think that was okay.

Like I said, there are nearly always shenanigans at alcohol fuelled work parties. One's choice to attend.

I should be able to leave my house and car unlocked, but I accept I don't live in an ideal world so I take precautions to protect myself.

Yes that's exactly my point.
I fully agree the woman's behaviour was inappropriate. However its disappointing to once again see the enthusiasm of some posters to grab the opportunity to malign women in general, chiming in with their own tales of women behaving badly to create the false impression this is a widespread problem of similar scale to when the sexes are reversed.
Also the tedious inevitability by which people complain of double standards, as though a pro woman bias on one site is a major problem that they need to protect men from.
I'd honestly have thought that women would have more pressing concerns when it comes to inequality between the sexes than to take up arms on behalf of the sex that already enjoys the greatest advantage.

This is sexual harassment and your husband is well within his rights to report this to HR. It’s doubly compounded by his position as a newbie in the role; he was in a vulnerable position where he may not have sussed everyone’s dynamics out and is trying to find his place in the work environment. Please do encourage him to report this.

On a personal level, this is very shady, untrustworthy behaviour from the woman. She is not a girl’s girl. Why on earth would you want a married man, let alone a new father?

On the plus side, your husband sounds like a lovely chap and I’m sorry his evening out was spoiled. Congratulations on your new little one. Use this as an opportunity (in this sensitive, delicate postnatal period which is new territory for you and your husband) to strengthen the bond between you. ❤️

Don't be so bloody stupid.

I agree with you on a fair amount but I don’t know why you picked out my post particularly I haven’t brought up any anecdotes or taken delight in putting women down. The reason for mentioning the other thread was mainly just to point out that I didn’t think the OP was being unreasonable but a lot of posters might disagree as they seemed to think the behaviour of the woman described in the other thread was not that big a deal.

Just because male sexual harassment is way more prominent and happens way more frequently doesn’t mean you can’t call out sexual harassment from women. The woman the OP is talking about, she doesn’t need to be dragged over the coals but needs to understand that to behave that way isn’t acceptable and to not do it again. Don’t think that is unreasonable to be honest

It shouldn’t matter but is she significantly younger? If she’s early 20s, she maybe just has a crush on him and doesn’t care about his marital status so much. She may also have done this sort of thing before when drunk at a work party, it does happen in many workplaces.

A colleague of mine tried to come onto me once at a Christmas party, he knows I’m married and he’s in a LTR, he’s also like 20 years older than me. I told him to stop being a fucking idiot and put him in a taxi. He apologised profusely the next day and we’ve never spoken about it since. He was wasted, I was tipsy.

These things happen, especially at Christmas. I’m not making excuses for her, she was obviously wrong and unprofessional but as I say, maybe she has a crush and thought he would cave if he was drunk.

You are a rape apologist.

You are blaming the victim, not the perpetrator.

Even if you left your door wide open, that doesn’t give someone the right to walk in and take something that isn’t there’s.

Yes I cover my drinks, I don’t walk home alone at night or get into unmarked taxis but even if I didn’t do all of the those things it doesn’t mean I should be raped.

Just because I’m at a party where there is alcohol, doesn’t mean I should be groped and hit on after I’ve said no.

I am not staying at home and missing out on fun with my colleagues just because people like you blame the victim for daring to leave their homes.

It’s grim. I don’t think a woman could get much lower.

If her behaviour is inappropriate for work then it would still be inappropriate if he was single and childfree. Him being married with a baby is irrelevant.

I didn't mean to pick on your post. Sorry if it seemed that way. I was just responding to your reference to double standards. Which to me are difficult to avoid when the experiences and behaviour patterns of men and women are so very different. I don't think you and I are actually in disagreement. I'm just commenting that every 'double standard' in favour of women is more than balanced on here by a cohort who delight in maligning women (not you personally).

Persistently pushing someone's boundaries on personal space and trying to buy them drinks when they've said NO is harassment and sexual assault

If the roles were reversed then you wouldn't be so dismissive

Why are you making this about ‘women’. Men do this too, and far more frequently. It’s called sexual harassment.

Your baby has nothing to do with this. YABU to make out that this is a problem with women.