How to deal with ‘hello beautiful’

[Sunflowersandspiders]

A man in my office has started saying ‘hello beautiful’ to me when I see him. It seems to be a common schtick for him that he deploys on lots of women I work with. It makes me uncomfortable, I want it to stop, but I don’t know what to say. ‘Hi John, do you mind not commenting on my appearance please?’

At the moment I’m avoiding him, trying not to walk past his desk, no eye contact if he walks past mine. Probably can’t be sustained eternally.

Sidebar: why do men do this? Control? I am so tired of having to navigate this shit in the workplace.

If that's how he addressed all women, then of course. If he was singling her out, I may feel differently .

@Growlybear83 So. "Hello Mark, Hello John, Hello James,Hello beautiful, Hello Tim, Hello beautiful....." ?

I'm not entirely sure I understand the point you're trying to make. If someone addresses a group of men individually by their first names, then obviously I would expect them to do the same to any women. But most people don't talk like that. I've never walked into an office and had someone say 'Hello Growly' - they say hello, hello darling, hello love, or whatever.

Yes, exactly this, if there's a problem and you feel uncomfortable do this or answer in kind (Morning Handsome etc) but please don't make such a big issue out of something so, so small and insignificant. Its amazing how long this thread has gone on for. Its a storm in a teacup.

Hello Growly!🤣

I think one of the things that is making this thread a bit hard to call is that some people place “ hello beautiful “ in the “ hello sexy” category and others just hear “ hello love.”

The first is clearly unacceptably sexual. With the latter it depends on the workplace or context. The guy in our local 9 to 9 says hello love to each and every female who goes in - dribbly toddlers, 80 year olds, the woman who has a dog who stinks, jeans that hang like she is wearing her dad’s trousers and looks like she showers once a month. But if a university lecturer said “hello love” to a student, I’d find it off. So context can play a role. We don’t know what op’s workplace is like and we may all be envisaging different environments.

Thing is, @Growlybear83, I think you do know what I mean. But I also think people are being disingenuous for some reason that escapes me-I honestly don't understand why women want to their daughters to have to deal with the patronising sexism my generation fought so hard to overcome. Personally, I want my dd to have a better and easier life than I did. Not to have to deal with, as I did once, a supplier looking for me and saying "where's that pretty girl who sits in the manager's office?"

This is unfair.
Some women it just doesn’t bother - others it does.

Aha, so now we get to the crux of it.

Or actually, we head off on a wild tangent, into censorship at universities and deplatforming, and what country I may live in...

Let's stick to the real issue:
Where should the line be drawn?
What is 'genuinely insulting, abusive, or offensive behaviour'?
Who gets to decide that?

The law is your guide here.
It may interest you to learn that the perception of the woman being called "beautiful" by a colleague day in and day out trumps the man's "right" of self expression when the behaviour or words are related to a protected characteristics (age, sex, race, or the behaviour or words are of a sexual nature). Whether by intent or by effect, if his words or behaviour result in violating the target's dignity or creating an environment that is intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive, he is considered to be harassing the target.

Under the Worker Protection Act 2023, as under its predecessor of 2010, which it amends, employers have an obligation to essentially root out sexual harassment in the workplace. There are several key steps toward this goal that employers are obliged to take.

Many on this thread will be disgusted to learn that these obligatory measures include the encouraging of "snowflakery".

The law, passed by Parliament in 2010 and amended in 2023, submits for your digestion the apparently shocking proposition that women have the right to feel confident that their complaints will be heard and acted upon if they complain about being addressed using terms that are not their names and have nothing to do with their role at work.

This is not a net that is being cast too wide. Women in workplaces across the UK do not have to suck up sexist behaviour or speech in the interest of a greater good.

(It's no surprise that so much of the deplatforming and silencing involves the topic of what exactly a woman is).

It’s not that we want girls to have to deal with overt sexism; it’s that some of us genuinely feel there needs to be balance. You can climb up out of the valley of sexism to the top of a hillside, but then if you keep going past the pinnacle, you begin to head back down the other side into another kind of dark valley. I’ve spent a lot of time in academic contexts and am aware that once we start making too many things “ unsayable” we lose the ability to have proper rigorous debate. This thread is perhaps the wrong place to discuss that idea, as at the end of the day saying “ hello beautiful” will never advance human thought. But the general underlying idea of policing discourse too heavily is genuinely one that frightens me. And it is happening in a lot of topical areas in 2024.

Ok my post regards but touching was tongue in cheek and actually most people wouldn't accept it.

There was however a time when society men would laugh it off as harmless flirting or similar. And that wasn't so long ago. So I posted that out of frustration that in many ways we haven't really moved on much and that we should still accept silly sexiest in the workplace, which wouldn't be directed at men in the same way. Because according to some it's harmless.

It may be but i think it's the thin end of the wedge.

@Calliopespa I think there is a big difference between not making things "unsayable" and not wanting women to be subjected to casual workplace sexism.

No, I really don't. My daughter is in her early 30s and she wouldn't consider someone saying 'hello beautiful' to be patronising sexism any more than I would. I'm in my 60s, so maybe part of the generation that, as you say, fought to overcome sexism. I've come across many instances of sexism in my life, which have never bothered me, but I see this as being very different from sex discrimination, which I've never experienced, but which I would be very opposed to. If the example you've given of being referred to as the pretty girl in the office is something that you see as an issue that you had to deal with and which made life difficult for you, then I really don't know what to say.!

Well there isn’t really: saying that people can’t say certain things IS making them unsayable. And some things OUGHT to be unsayable. But it’s a question of how many things and which things.

For me, having a man call me “ sexy” at work would cross a line. “ Beautiful “ when I know it’s a stock phrase and not an opinion would not. That’s my line - or am I not allowed to say that?

I work in a male dominated industry of course I have had men say things to me but I will give as good back. No man is going to respect me if I sat here and broke down about some silly comment they made. The ones who can't take getting the same back don't say anything to me again. That's the difference. I'm not sitting here drowning in self pity like some helpless little woman that needs to go running to HR to solve my problems. I can handle myself.

I also have no issue with wolf whistling. I'm mean seriously? It's a whistle not a hand up the skirt. Get a grip.

You are probably right, Suzie in accounts may make less than Mr handsome, but Mr Handsome is not going to disappear for a year off on maternity is he? Which many women do and never return leaving companies in the lurch. So why should Suzie make more money for being less reliable.

The man probably wouldn't say 'good morning beautiful' to another man no because that is not usually a way men are descibed. Probably more along the lines of 'morning mate / buddy / pal' whats the difference? It's just a friendly way of greeting.

I really do think you give yourself far to much credit of how much men think about you.

So why should Suzie make more money for being less reliable.

///

Having a baby = being less reliable

What?

@Calliopespa Just to clarify- he referred to me as the "pretty girl who sits in the managers office" because it didn't cross his mind that I was the actual manager. What with being pretty and female and all.

@Bunnygirl1902 please stop the hyperbole. It makes it very difficult to engage with you. Which I suspect is intentional.

Oh dear, some people on this thread take themselves very seriously 😂😂😂

Yes I’m sorry I was still responding to the op’s example.

I don’t deny sexism can exist. I’m not sure where you got the impression I did. I’m also an attractive female who has achieved in an area that isn’t traditionally a woman’s field so I have encountered plenty. Tbh I have also encountered it from women in the field who enjoyed their trailblazing role and liked to guard it ( eg: when publicly congratulated for my considerable efforts by a highly regarded male in the field, she commented “well he’s always been known to be partial to a pretty woman.” So it does exist - and it shouldn’t. But I guess the point is how serious is the “ hello beautiful” comment when you juxtapose it with those sorts of remarks? Where does the thin end of the wedge peter out to nothing worth reacting to?

@Calliopespa I was amused by something Bunny said

So you do want a line to be drawn. You just want to be the one that draws it - or at least you want to agree with the person who draws that line.

Well so do the rest of us. Except our line is just call someone by their name. It's not hard and I manage to do it all the time. Don't try to make out that someone being deprived of the chance to call someone love or sweetheart or beautiful in the office is some kind of human rights issue for them. It isn't.

What Sid at the corner shop calls you is not relevant. You can choose to go to a different shop if you don't like it. In the workplace is different. And as expected those people who are defending this kind of stuff had the status or the ovaries to stand up to it. Not everyone has that kind of power or confidence to do this. They should have rights too.

It's not some slippery slope to thought police or totalitarianism. It's just simple respect and equal treatment at work. And the person here who talks about maternity leave as being something unprofessional and undeserving of respect shows themselves for who they are.

@butterbeansauce "Well so do the rest of us. Except our line is just call someone by their name. It's not hard and I manage to do it all the time"

This.^

Libertarians do choose odd hills to die on.

I am sorry you feel that way but facts do not care about your feelings. If having a conversation with someone with an antithetical opinion to yours is trying for you, then simply stop engaging or get over yourself. I personally find it very difficult to engage with small minded people like yourself but unfortunately you are in the growing majority in this day and age. We are clearly going to have to agree to disagree on this matter. You have yourself a wonderful day

@Bunnygirl1902 "
I am sorry you feel that way but facts do not care about your feelings"

I agree, they don't. I am happy to have a discussion with you. Provided you're prepared to have it without hyperbole, insults and mockery.