Women Only Groupchat

[ramires]

I've just started a project with a new team at work. There are 17 of us, 11 of us are women. We will all be working together for 18 months.

One of the women has taken it upon herself to make a 'Girlies Groupchat' where she has asked if we would like to meet up to socialise/get to know each other. It's quite clear that she doesn't want to get to know the men on the team. I've replied to the chat saying that she should ask the full group if we'd like to meet up to get to know each other rather than just the women.

Do you think this is potentially HR'able? It's so immature.

oh don’t make this an issue OP

seriously

As long as it’s not suggesting doing this socialising during work time - then it’s no issue whatsoever

WTH dos HR'able mean?

Just don't join/ leave the chat? I agree it's immature.

Why don't you set up a separate chat and invite everyone? Then hopefully that chat will become the main chat.

Already have a separate chat before the woman created the 'girls' one.

Why on earth, seriously why on earth, do you think HR would be interested in this?

You sound a little ridiculous

It is immature. But given it's taking place outside work, I'd simply ignore it.

And anyone using the word 'girlies' word already be getting a wide berth from me.

Why are people so rude in MN? The OP had a genuine question that deserves a polite response.

My opinion on this is that if it's something in work time, using with resources etc, it's problematic. If it's outside work, should be ok.

The op calls the woman “so immature”. I think that’s quite rude

Is the work collaboration something that social networking will have an impact on? Or is this purely a way to socialise out with the work?

A lot of work places have womens societies/networks, and I think if it has no bearing on the work that gets delivered it’s seen to be positively encouraged.

are you worried that someone is going to make a complaint about sex based discrimination because there are specific advantages to being in this group chat that will have a material impact to getting the work done/more favourably?

Unless there is a reason to exclude based on sex yes it is an HR issue

Reverse the sexes and how would you feel if you found out all the men had a team chat and you were excluded

Suggesting socialising out of the office and work hours? Happens all the time and I wouldn’t give a hoot

But it still smacks of exclusion
Having been the sole woman in a male environment I can tell you it is very exclusionary

This is 11 woman and 7 men. Pretty decent make cohort

Male

This. Girls would be bad enough but 'Girlies' is truly nauseating.

I’m in 5 or 6 different work group chats, who is in each group varies with some overlap. Sometimes meet-ups are arranged in the big groups and other times in the smaller groups, sometimes two or three people arrange to meet outside of any group. If one person is being left out that’s an issue, but I don’t see anything wrong with work group chats that involve some of the team but not everyone. It’s normal, in my workplace at least, for people to socialise based on who they get on with most rather than to always invite every colleague. I’ve been on nights out and weekends away with a group of friends from work, we are not inviting everyone else every time. I can see why you’re not interested in a girls only group, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it in itself for any women who feel more comfortable in a female only space. I wouldn’t see an issue if the men had a group either, it’s fairly normal for smaller groups to break out in large work teams.