I Am Confused Edition: Sexist for calling someone "stunning"?

[Katherine Kerensky]

You don't find it creepy when someone old enough to be your father hits on you? This is sounding more and more like a "you" issue.

Actually, I've had such compliments from both sexes. And no, I don't particularly find it creepy. I'd appreciate if you didn't try to turn your lack of understanding into some sort of "issue", as you said, on my part.
I tend to find pushy neckbeards and white knights more creepy. At least I know that when someone much older compliments me, they're not trying to get a leg over.

 

[Phasmal]

If a girl (or anyone else for that matter) tries to look attractive, then they want to hear compliments. She or he wants approval from other people. What she might not want is approval from someone outside her "class", someone beneath her, someone not worthy to make a judgement. If you don't see a problem with that attitude then, well, there's nothing I add, really.

Noooooooope. It seems to have completely escaped you, but some people just don't want compliments. They don't want to talk to strangers or have strangers talk to them. Assuming that because someone looks nice they `want` compliments is false. It's not so black and white as that. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Some people just can't seem to mentally process it. I don't think people who compliment me are `beneath me` (and I think MOST people don't think like that)- I'm just not interested in it. Of course, for the third time, I'm always polite, I just wish they would perhaps consider that not everyone wants that kind of interaction.

Maybe, one more thing. Accusations of sexism have been used so often as an excuse for bitchy behavior these days, that I would respect a girl more if she would outright say that this elder guy's attention was beneath her. That way she would still be a *****, but at least not a hypocritical *****.

Ah I see she's a ***** whatever she does if she's not happy about getting hit on by an older guy, hm.
Personally, it's not about people being `beneath us` (wtf)- it's just about unwanted attention being just that, unwanted.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I have always thought of sexism, racism and other such -isms as "negatively discriminating against or treating differently, someone based on their xyz" be it their gender, skin colour or whatever other characteristic one may be categorised by. As such, commenting that a woman and/or her photo are "stunning" is not sexist and is the opposite of misogynistic. A compliment intended, no different from millions of others given by men to women daily, may have been misplaced, unprofessional, unwanted or received poorly but it is not sexist.

He's an idiot for making it publicly on a site intended for professional networking. She's a bigger idiot for her unwarranted and public overreaction to something trivial, and that could have been dealt with in numerous other ways. There are undoubtedly times where sexism is an actual issue, and playing the card here, misplaced as it is is akin to the boy crying "Wolf."

 

[Something Amyss]

Admittedly, the 'simple, casual' bit was pretty poorly worded on my part, and you're right that it would be pretty daft to defend overt dickholery because it's 'simple and casual', but I don't think there's a lot of overt dickholery on display here, at least not that I saw when I looked over the article.

I'd say just making the approach on a professional forum is in itself a fairly solid example of dickholery. The problem, as you seemingly stumbled upon, is that it's casual dickholery.

 

[Areloch]

However, it is completely creepy and unwelcome. Don't compliment the appearance of strangers, its fucking creepy.

This is the kind of general thread of commentary in here that sorta blows me away.

I mean, is there a sort of line on WHAT you're complimenting that it's apparently not acceptable? For example, I've gotten quite a bit of compliments for my dresswear - sometimes for it looking nice, but a lot of the times it's because I like funny shirts, and people tend to find them funny and compliment me on my shirt choice.

Is that ostensibly creepy or unacceptable?

Alternatively, my lady friend for a while sported a pretty slick dyed hair style(her new job made her get rid of it, unfortunately) but she'd get compliments on how good her hair looked pretty much any time she was out in public. From both men and women(mostly other women, though). It became a sort of game where we kept a tally on how many compliments she'd receive.

Is that creepy?

I mean, obviously walking up to someone and going "Woah, nice rack sweetcheeks" would be so many flavors of screwed up that you could start a surplus factory, but general compliments on wear or appearance? I really can't see it as being "creepy"

 

[Parasondox]

I just worry that in a few years, it will be "sexist" to look at someone who catches your eye in a pleasant way. "Hey that girl is cute and attractive and would like to get to know her more". SEXIST MISOGYNISTIC PIG!!

Don't ever let that be.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

However, it is completely creepy and unwelcome. Don't compliment the appearance of strangers, its fucking creepy.

This is the kind of general thread of commentary in here that sorta blows me away.

I mean, is there a sort of line on WHAT you're complimenting that it's apparently not acceptable? For example, I've gotten quite a bit of compliments for my dresswear - sometimes for it looking nice, but a lot of the times it's because I like funny shirts, and people tend to find them funny and compliment me on my shirt choice.

Is that ostensibly creepy or unacceptable?

Alternatively, my lady friend for a while sported a pretty slick dyed hair style(her new job made her get rid of it, unfortunately) but she'd get compliments on how good her hair looked pretty much any time she was out in public. From both men and women(mostly other women, though). It became a sort of game where we kept a tally on how many compliments she'd receive.

Is that creepy?

I mean, obviously walking up to someone and going "Woah, nice rack sweetcheeks" would be so many flavors of screwed up that you could start a surplus factory, but general compliments on wear or appearance? I really can't see it as being "creepy"

"Creepy" describes how a person feels about something as much as it describes that thing. It's not a strictly objective assessment, and I think we all know that another individual might have taken no offense, or even been flattered. I have worked with many women who were very happy to hear compliments and return the favour in kind too... No big deal. In fact a positive thing.

The mistake made is not getting a feel for the person first.

My 2 cents: Social faux-pas(as decided to be, or not to be... by the beholder) followed by ridiculous behaviour. Seriously? Straight to public shaming? Are you serious? I get that some might call it 'justice', but to me it's despicable.

Additional: I can't speak for others, but I was taught to be candid but not overly confrontational with people who direct things at me that I don't appreciate. I have a colleague who got into the habit of telling me to "smile" or "be happy". I might have a slightly dour resting-face at times, but I am generally perfectly happy, and definitely was so on the 2nd or 3rd occasion that she decided to make me happy by telling me to be happy. It went something like:

"I know you mean well. But... I am happy right now, and you telling me to 'be happy' only really makes me self-conscious about how I'm coming across... Which makes it hard to enjoy the moment. So, please don't."

The result is that she apologised, I accepted... And we bonded. This approach has the benefits of being both human and adult. A connection was made to another person, not to twitter. Learn to deal with people. Teach with reason, not a fucking stick.

 

[Fdzzaigl]

Today I got complimented for the look of my hair by a woman who must have been 50+ years old, I'm a 25 year old male. I said: "Thank you very much."

Apparently we live in a time where everyone needs to be offended by everything 100% of the time and everyone needs to assume compliments are made with the worst of intentions.

Fuck that, seriously.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

I think there are literally 0 contexts in which it is logically and linguistically appropriate to define his comment sexist. This is honestly madness.

As a heterosexual male, he would never ever approach a man in this way in a professional context of recruiting someone. It is sexist he thought that this was an appropriate way to talk to women on a professional website, it was sexist for the way he treats women differently from men, it is sexist in his emphasis on a woman's appearance in a business environment, over her business acumen. If I made these comments towards a female colleague I'd be goddamn fired, and that would happen whether or not I tried to make a pedantic argument about the application of the word "sexist".

it was sexist for the way he treats women differently from men

I really don't know what to think about this sentence. I like women, hence I treat them differently from men. If this makes me sexist, I think we should rethink our definition of sexism.

it is sexist in his emphasis on a woman's appearance in a business environment

Uhh... no? It may be out of place, but not sexist.

 

[Karadalis]

This has less to do with sexism then it has to do with being highly unprofessional.

Ask yourselfe a simple question: If a woman had told a male on that website that hes handsome.. would have anyone cried "SEXIST!"?

Or would they have described the woman as unprofessional?

Seems to me that the lawyer in this case could be at worst be described as "sleazy" or "oldschool" seeing his choice of words but i dont see the sexism in it. And thats suggesting he even had ulterior motives by that comment at all.

This is why i fucking hate this "listen and believe" culture that has sprung up recently. All a woman has to do now is being offended and point a finger and everyone jumps down a guys throat for merely remarking how good a bloody picture of a woman looks. Yes it was out of place and unprofessional... but making the guy out as some sort of monster praying on young girls? Really?

Anyways.. cringeworthy unprofessional attempt at "breaking the ice" =/= sexist.

Kind reminder that sexism is discrimation and what you guys are pointing out as sexism on his part boils down to an out of place attempt of flirting. Wrong place and wrong time but basically if we went by that logic any attempt at flirting would now be considered "sexist"

If he had offered her lower pay or worse working conditions because she was female that would be sexism, if she would be exempt from a promotion due to being female, that would be sexism. Saying her picture is stunning? Leave that talk to online dating sites..

Guess the old rule is still true=

If the one making the comment is attractive its flirty...

If the one making the comment isnt attractive hes a creep...

Anyays, dude should have been told off anyways.. but sexism was the wrong word here cause he didnt discrimated against her.

He tried to flirt.. he fell flat on his nose... and has no one else to blame but himselfe. End of story.

 

[verdant monkai]

She had every right to stand up for herself and it most certainly is arguably sexist if she puts up with it regularly from men on the website

Yeah can't imagine how awful it must be for her being complimented all the time poor poor woman.

Its disgusting to be honest. Some people will go to any lengths to try and make themselves part of the special snowflake 'I'm fighting my oppression' club. Even if it means tarnishing the reputation of a fellow co worker, but hey as long as someone follows you on twitter its worth it. If it made her feel uncomfortable she should have dealt with it like a big girl and asked him to stop.
This form of petty internet 'activism' makes me sick.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Really any sort of unsolicited commentary, such as thoughts on your appearance, personal advice, etc, is generally unwelcome, hence the whole "unsolicited" thing.

If that's the case then, considering that essentially no one is going to specifically ask people to give them compliments because it makes them come across as narcissistic and desperate, don't ever compliment anyone ever.

Likewise with advice. I work out (a lot) and I generally don't give people advice unless they are requesting it, but if I see someone doing a lift that is dangerous, or has terrible form that is going to give them issues long term, I will give them unsolicited advice. And guess what? They can either listen to my advice, or they can ignore it, because we are adults.

Nobody asking to get roasted gets mad because they're openly welcoming it, its the entire purpose of them posting a picture of themselves.

Apples to oranges. Roasts are done either A: By people who are friends of the roastee, or B: by the request of the roastee (in this Reddit case), and the reason it's done this way is because you're making fun of the person in a light-hearted way. In other words, you are NOT complimenting them. I will happily go up to my short friends and crack shorts jokes at their expense, BECAUSE they are my friends, but I would not go up to a random short stranger on the street and start cracking the same short jokes with them. Comparing compliments with cheeky insults done between friends is misleading, at best. If your argument is that they are inviting the roasting but not inviting compliments, hence why a comparison is valid, see above.

...and somebody is visiting her profile and using the platform to compliment her knockers.

He said nothing of the sort.

she's there to work and somebody is going out of their way to demean her as a professional.

No he didn't, or at the very least you can't prove that even if he did. Telling someone "you're attractive" does not "demean" other qualities they might have, any more than telling someone they are athletic means you're 'demeaning' their intelligence, or telling someone they are intelligent is 'demeaning' their level of fitness. Complimenting someone on one thing does not automatically take away credit from something else. Also, what if he had told her that she had impressive legal credentials? I mean, that's an unsolicited compliment, so that's bad, right? LinkedIn also has a section where you can put hobbies and other skills, even if they are unrelated to your current job. If she had written on there that she's a Master SCUBA diver, and he had told her that is impressive, that's an unsolicited compliment on something non-professional, so that's bad too, right?

Now, personally, in his shoes, I wouldn't have said what he said on LinkedIn, at least not right off the bat, but I find her response way over the top and in even poorer taste than his initial comment.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

However, it is completely creepy and unwelcome. Don't compliment the appearance of strangers, its fucking creepy.

This is the kind of general thread of commentary in here that sorta blows me away.

I mean, is there a sort of line on WHAT you're complimenting that it's apparently not acceptable? For example, I've gotten quite a bit of compliments for my dresswear - sometimes for it looking nice, but a lot of the times it's because I like funny shirts, and people tend to find them funny and compliment me on my shirt choice.

Is that ostensibly creepy or unacceptable?

Alternatively, my lady friend for a while sported a pretty slick dyed hair style(her new job made her get rid of it, unfortunately) but she'd get compliments on how good her hair looked pretty much any time she was out in public. From both men and women(mostly other women, though). It became a sort of game where we kept a tally on how many compliments she'd receive.

Is that creepy?

I mean, obviously walking up to someone and going "Woah, nice rack sweetcheeks" would be so many flavors of screwed up that you could start a surplus factory, but general compliments on wear or appearance? I really can't see it as being "creepy"

Really any sort of unsolicited commentary, such as thoughts on your appearance, personal advice, etc, is generally unwelcome, hence the whole "unsolicited" thing.

Let me put it this way. Somewhat recently a new subreddit called "Roast Me" showed up. Somebody posts a picture of themselves and they get roasted. A "roast" is when somebody disparages a person who is welcoming said disparaging comments, and they usually come from a place of affection and playfulness. Nobody asking to get roasted gets mad because they're openly welcoming it, its the entire purpose of them posting a picture of themselves. The example in question in the OP is that of a woman getting a compliment on her appearance on a site that is strictly professional in nature. Her picture exists so that people know who she is if they meet each other in real life, presumably for business reasons. She wants to be treated professionally in this context and somebody is visiting her profile and using the platform to compliment her knockers. Not only is that creepy, its outright insulting. She's not there to fish for compliments, she's there to work and somebody is going out of their way to demean her as a professional. It wouldn't be acceptable in a business meeting to say "hey, you're pretty" for various reasons and they apply similarly to the site in question, being professional in nature.

Actually the image he complimented her on, and "stunning" and "best linkedin picture I've seen". Just so we're all clear about the nature of the picture and the compliment. There was no "hey, nice knockers" talk, you can't even see her body. You can only really conclude that he's complimenting a pretty face, and probably with good intentions (why wouldn't you give a person the benefit of the doubt?).

Also, "creepy" is subjective. You're describing how something made you feel, not objectively describing what something is. I could say that it's "creepy" to go straight to publicly shaming an individual by posting a private email on social media(pretty unbecoming of a human rights lawyer, really) for a fairly minor transgression.

This could easily have been solved with a quick "I don't appreciate that", almost certainly followed by an apology. That would be a pretty grown up way to establish your own boundaries, and without outing yourself as an un-personable individual.

 

[Atmos Duality]

This could easily have been solved with a quick "I don't appreciate that", almost certainly followed by an apology. That would be a pretty grown up way to establish your own boundaries, and without outing yourself as an un-personable individual.

Now now, this is the Outrage Era of the Internet, not the Sensible Era (still MiA).
If someone finds an anthill, and they meet the Proper Criteria of Oppression (as determined by the Progressive Stack), they are entitled to whip it up into a mountain...and then install a goldmine.

OT: A man makes an unprofessional comment, gets rightly rebuked, offers an apology...and from there it degenerates into a witch hunt about him being SEXIST? People, I know they sound similar but "Sexual" does not mean "Sexist".

If base attraction is enough to qualify his comments as sexist, then ANY comment made about a woman's appearance by a man could be considered sexist; opinion or statement-of-fact alike.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

However, it is completely creepy and unwelcome. Don't compliment the appearance of strangers, its fucking creepy.

This is the kind of general thread of commentary in here that sorta blows me away.

I mean, is there a sort of line on WHAT you're complimenting that it's apparently not acceptable? For example, I've gotten quite a bit of compliments for my dresswear - sometimes for it looking nice, but a lot of the times it's because I like funny shirts, and people tend to find them funny and compliment me on my shirt choice.

Is that ostensibly creepy or unacceptable?

Alternatively, my lady friend for a while sported a pretty slick dyed hair style(her new job made her get rid of it, unfortunately) but she'd get compliments on how good her hair looked pretty much any time she was out in public. From both men and women(mostly other women, though). It became a sort of game where we kept a tally on how many compliments she'd receive.

Is that creepy?

I mean, obviously walking up to someone and going "Woah, nice rack sweetcheeks" would be so many flavors of screwed up that you could start a surplus factory, but general compliments on wear or appearance? I really can't see it as being "creepy"

Really any sort of unsolicited commentary, such as thoughts on your appearance, personal advice, etc, is generally unwelcome, hence the whole "unsolicited" thing.

Let me put it this way. Somewhat recently a new subreddit called "Roast Me" showed up. Somebody posts a picture of themselves and they get roasted. A "roast" is when somebody disparages a person who is welcoming said disparaging comments, and they usually come from a place of affection and playfulness. Nobody asking to get roasted gets mad because they're openly welcoming it, its the entire purpose of them posting a picture of themselves. The example in question in the OP is that of a woman getting a compliment on her appearance on a site that is strictly professional in nature. Her picture exists so that people know who she is if they meet each other in real life, presumably for business reasons. She wants to be treated professionally in this context and somebody is visiting her profile and using the platform to compliment her knockers. Not only is that creepy, its outright insulting. She's not there to fish for compliments, she's there to work and somebody is going out of their way to demean her as a professional. It wouldn't be acceptable in a business meeting to say "hey, you're pretty" for various reasons and they apply similarly to the site in question, being professional in nature.

Actually the image he complimented her on, and "stunning" and "best linkedin picture I've seen". Just so we're all clear about the nature of the picture and the compliment. There was no "hey, nice knockers" talk, you can't even see her body. You can only really conclude that he's complimenting a pretty face, and probably with good intentions (why wouldn't you give a person the benefit of the doubt?).

Also, "creepy" is subjective. You're describing how something made you feel, not objectively describing what something is. I could say that it's "creepy" to go straight to publicly shaming an individual by posting a private email on social media(pretty unbecoming of a human rights lawyer, really) for a fairly minor transgression.

This could easily have been solved with a quick "I don't appreciate that", almost certainly followed by an apology. That would be a pretty grown up way to establish your own boundaries, and without outing yourself as an un-personable individual.

It's creepy when grandpa on the left hits on the lady on the right. It would be more creepy if he told her that she had a "rockin' pair of knockers", but that's not required to be a creep.

And "creep" would be another case of a word with fairly nebulous associations.

Do people not give compliments in passing in your world? They do in mine. I'll happily grant that in context it's "unprofessional", but precisely how bad being "unprofessional" for a moment is would be highly subjective too. Offense was taken where another individual might not have seen any to take. That's easy.

When you say "hitting on" you're really suggesting that his end goal was to have sex with her... To which you can only really say "Yeh... Maybe?" I don't know that and neither do you. For all we know his intentions were good.

I don't really know what to make of the story as a whole, to be honest. It's not really newsworthy. A man complimented a woman, the woman responded by publishing a private email with his real name for sake of publicly shaming him. Ok, am I supposed to feel sympathy for the woman? I don't. Am I supposed to be impressed? I'm not...

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

This could easily have been solved with a quick "I don't appreciate that", almost certainly followed by an apology. That would be a pretty grown up way to establish your own boundaries, and without outing yourself as an un-personable individual.

Now now, this is the Outrage Era of the Internet, not the Sensible Era (still MiA).
If someone finds an anthill, and they meet the Proper Criteria of Oppression (as determined by the Progressive Stack), they are entitled to whip it up into a mountain...and then install a goldmine.

OT: A man makes an unprofessional comment, gets rightly rebuked, offers an apology...and from there it degenerates into a witch hunt about him being SEXIST? People, I know they sound similar but "Sexual" does not mean "Sexist".

If base attraction is enough to qualify his comments as sexist, then ANY comment made about a woman's appearance by a man could be considered sexist; opinion or statement-of-fact alike.

It's really the "gotta make this shit public" thing that throws me for a loop. Who thinks like that? It's genuinely odd. You might even say... "Creepy".

You see what I did there? Really though this is stupid. There's no story if she just acts like a responsible and reasonable adult.