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

[Parasondox]

This is all getting a bit silly.

1. Its one picture of a face.
2. A person, regardless of age, just said the picture is stunning.
3. Where is this "creepy" comment coming from?
4 (Lastly). Debate, I am all for but... this whole public shaming and jumping a bandwagon is sad. Seriously sad. We always seem to look for a villain in something that is small and this is another example. I think I am just fed up of this kind of culture, and I am not talking about this story by the way, that seems to get some sort of thrill of offence and outrage for the smallest of things when bigger things are ignored. Common sense is thrown out of the window, respect is rarely shown and kindness is... fuck sakes that's unknown. So many small things are taken way to fucking seriously these days.

Personally, as the one who wrote this post, I am done. Have the freedom to debate this and the mods can choose whether to lock the thread or not because no one is really breaking the CoC. You have the freedom to debate and I have the freedom to just ignore this.

Have a nice day, all.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

How do you respond to the claim from some that it's a welcome advance

I'd ask for a citation that the woman in question wanted sexual attention from her profile on LinkedIn. Seems completely contradictory to her reaction, no?

and that without those advances the wheels of society would grind to a messy halt?

Non-sequiter.

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.

Why would somebody go out of their way to compliment somebody on their appearance in a way that very easily and reasonably could be construed as sexual in nature and only compliment somebody on their appearance?

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?).

Yes, because somebody can't possibly find another person's face attractive. No, its all neck-down, right?

Also, "creepy" is subjective.

Unwanted, unsolicited and unprofessional comments that could very easily and reasonably be construed as sexual in nature falls very neatly into creeper territory.

Hell, why are we even debating his intentions when the guy acknowledges it himself?

"I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but you look stunning in that picture!"

Spoiler: The image. It was in the very article linked in the OP.

Which part of that quote do you think makes it clear what his intentions were?

He thinks she's attractive. So what? I have no interest in contesting that. That's to say that his compliment was made in earnest, not that he was trying to get sex from her. You can compliment someone without the end goal being sex.

"Creeper?"... Word keeps changing. I at least got a laugh out of looking this up on urban dictionary.

This is all getting a bit silly.

1. Its one picture of a face.
2. A person, regardless of age, just said the picture is stunning.
3. Where is this "creepy" comment coming from?
4 (Lastly). Debate, I am all for but... this whole public shaming and jumping a bandwagon is sad. Seriously sad. We always seem to look for a villain in something that is small and this is another example. I think I am just fed up of this kind of culture, and I am not talking about this story by the way, that seems to get some sort of thrill of offence and outrage for the smallest of things when bigger things are ignored. Common sense is thrown out of the window, respect is rarely shown and kindness is... fuck sakes that's unknown. So many small things are taken way to fucking seriously these days.

Personally, as the one who wrote this post, I am done. Have the freedom to debate this and the mods can choose whether to lock the thread or not because no one is really breaking the CoC. You have the freedom to debate and I have the freedom to just ignore this.

Have a nice day, all.

You seem like a decent kinda guy. Stay that way. Don't let stupid drag you down.

If someone "offends" you, you address it with that person as amicably as possible, you don't run straight to twitter to out them for public shaming. We know this. In our heart-of-hearts we know this. It's not reasonable to throw another to the wolves for such a minor transgression. It's petulant, combative bullshit, it shows zero compassion and it's shameful. Correcting someone politely is really easy to do, and it's actually more or less expected of you in the adult world, especially professionally. For all the talk of how unprofessional this man was... She could easily have put-off a lot of people who might have worked with her with her bullshit.

This trend needs to die. It's childish attention seeking nonsense. Put down the device and be a functioning person.

 

[Wary Wolf]

Spoiler: The image. It was in the very article linked in the OP.

Actually, looking at the language of offending party, I would almost say English is not his first language. Example:

"Always interest to understant people's skills and how we might work together"

So perhaps further consideration needs to be taken in regards to cultural and linguistic differences? This is a pretty intelligent forum for the most part, so I assume most people understand how differing cultures tend to have differing views on what is and isn't appropriate.

Oh dear God, I've opened up a different can of worms now...

Maybe a little off topic, but I thought it might give a little more context to a story with rather limited context and information.

My limited understanding is when a person feels like they have been harassed. They HAVE been harassed. But how they deal with it is just as important. Isn't standard procedure: Ask person to stop (which she did in her email above) and if it does not stop take it up the hierarchy (management/HR)?

Social Media policies also apply in organizations, which demand employees keep their work affairs internal. So whilst he could be defined as being unprofessional, to an extent, so could she in putting his comments in the pubic sphere.

 

[Bazaalmon]

The message was clearly unprofessional, and the guy should have known better. I'm not denying that it was a poor decision on his part. That said, Ms. Proudman could have easily responded that she doesn't appreciate such comments and it could have ended at that. I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but this came directly from the article in question:

Ms Proudman said she had received similar messages about her appearance before, although not from anyone as senior as Mr Carter-Silk. Unlike her male peers, the barrister said she has never received a job offer through the professional networking site.
Ms Proudman told the Telegraph: "I was just so infuriated after I read the message. Initially I thought 'Oh God another one, I'll just delete it'.
"Then I thought, 'no I'm not going to take this'. This is from a senior partner who should know better."
She said Mr Carter-Silk had since apologised in an email which said: "I sincerely regret my remarks have offended you and I offer you my apologies".
But the barrister said the apology was not enough.
"He hasn't in my view accepted the fact that his actions were incredibly sexist and on the basis of objectifying my appearance. It's absolutely bare minimum in terms of an apology."

It seems like she was frustrated about her lack of job offers, and this was one idle message too many. While I understand her situation, I believe that the public shaming and saying that an apology is "Not enough," is an extreme overreaction. It's like she chose to punish this one man for not only his own actions, but the actions of others. In addition:

In a statement to the legal news and gossip site RollOnFriday, Carter-Silk said: "Most people post pretty unprofessional pictures on Linked in, my comment was aimed at the professional quality of the presentation on linked in which was unfortunately misinterpreted.
"Ms Proudman is clearly highly respected and I was pleased to receive her request to linkup and very happy to instruct her on matters which [are] relevant to her expertise that remains the position".

The context seems to be that she sent a request to link up and the message that started all this was the response. While it may have been Carter-Silk trying to hit on her, it could also have been his attempt at breaking the ice by starting off with a compliment.

Is there one party that is in the right here? No. Is there one party in the wrong? Also no. They both made mistakes as we humans tend to do, being fallible and everything. The issue came from assigning malicious intent to someone else's words, rather than ignorance or even just a poor choice of words. Deciding to go public with what looks like a misunderstanding and spinning it into a social justice debate just makes both parties look bad.

Then again, that's just my $0.02.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm sure you don't like it when somebody belittles your intelligence and acts like you're a child who needs their hand held through things. Most people feel the same way.

If you feel that anytime anyone gives someone advice they are belittling their intelligence and treating them like a child, then I simply feel sorry for you and I have nothing to add.

She doesn't want sexual attention...

From this guy obviously not, but you can't say that she doesn't want sexual attention from anyone based off the information provided.

she wants to do her job without people getting in her way to say "yo, nice tits you got there".

Again, he said nothing of the sort. If you can't or won't understand the difference between "that is a stunning picture of you" and "you have great tits", then I have nothing further to add.

They don't want that attention.

I don't want the attention of panhandlers, that doesn't mean a sensible response is to insult them, call them names, and post their name and picture on social media.

Now factor in that this is demeaning her abilities as a person by blatantly overlooking her professional qualifications and personal achievemens and fixating solely on her body and its just outright insulting.

Dictionary definition of 'demean': "to lower in dignity, honor, or standing; debase". Nothing he said did that, so if she believes it did that's in her head, which of course one can't argue against. Again, complimenting someone on something does not detract from their other qualities. If he had said "good thing you're hot because your legal qualifications are terrible!" then you'd have a case here. Furthermore, what if he had commended her on graduating top of her class in college, but not graduating top of her class from law school? Is he therefore 'overlooking her professional qualifications and personal achievements' since he didn't mention everything?

I don't presume to speak for them, but I imagine if somebody read the resume of an applicant who is a dwarf and the interviewer started speaking baby babble going "Who's a cute little fella?" I imagine that the feelings would be somewhat similar to what the woman in question experienced.

To start, Dwarfism is a (mostly) genetic disorder, so behaving in such a manner would, in fact, be demeaning someone who has a disorder, so they aren't comparable (unless you consider being a woman to be a disorder). 2nd, I'd like to think that most reasonable adults can agree that treating an adult like a literal baby is very insulting, while giving an adult a fairly mundane compliment about their appearance is not, or at least is highly debatable.

I imagine the woman just wants to be taken seriously, like most people in their profession, and they're upset because somebody can't look at her as a person but as a body.

If you choose to believe that a person can't take an attractive person seriously (we have no evidence regarding that when it comes to this man) then that is on you. He gave no indication he takes her less seriously because of her looks.

and he couldn't look past her physical appearance for the accomplished, qualified and professional person that she is. He's taking the time out of her day to tell her, essentially, that he only values her for her appearance.

Again, you have no evidence of what he does and does not value in her, though it's worth noting that he ended his e-mail with ?Always interest [sic] to understant [sic] people?s skills and how we might work together?. Terrible spelling and grammar aside, he clearly showed he does have interest in knowing her in a professional manner.

Yeah, he did. The proof is the message. He took the time out of his day to send a message that is clearly demeaning.

Look above for definition of 'demeaning'.

He's valuing a person based on their appearance in a setting where they're supposed to show their value as a skilled worker.

Again:
-valuing someone's appearance does not mean you cannot value other aspects of them as people
-complimenting someone's appearance does not insult their other qualifications, anymore so than saying someone is smart means you're saying they aren't athletic
-he ended the e-mail clearly showing he was interested in working together as professionals
-You assume he only values her appearance, and you have no evidence of this
-You call him 'creepy', but that term is subjective (as someone noted earlier, I find it much more 'creepy' to post something like this on social media rather than handling it like adults).

Again as well, I don't think he should have said what he did on LinkedIn because it is somewhat unprofessional, but I think her handling of the situation (to nameblast people on social media and throw baseless insults) is 10x as unprofessional. If I had to pick a lawyer tomorrow for a case and this was all I had to go on, I'd pick him any day of the week.

 

[Creator002]

I am on linked-in for business purposes not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men.

The eroticisation of women?s physical appearance is a way of exercising power over women. It silences women?s professional attributes as their physical appearance becomes the subject

Unacceptable and misogynistic behaviour. Think twice before sending another woman (half your age) such a sexist message.

She used the words eroticism (of a woman's appearance), objectified and misogynistic over being called stunning. I feel it's appropriate to use the "That escalated quickly" meme here.
I understand it's a professional setting and the man shouldn't have used it to compliment someone over their appearance, but that's the first thing people notice about you and comments on your physical appearance (including clothing) are most common. I think she took it worse than she could've.
On the other hand, maybe she gets a million of these a week and he just happened to pick the unlucky straw.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

Which part of that quote do you think makes it clear what his intentions were?

This part;

"I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but..."

He knows how his message will be interpreted by its recipient, he knows it unwelcome and he makes it clear that its sexual in nature by acknowledging that it will be received that way without distancing himself from that perception. There's no room for doubt. He acknowledges the context of the message itself within said message. He knew what he was doing, he acknowledged it, he acknowledged why he did it and he did it regardless, all within the same message.

He thinks she's attractive. So what? I have no interest in contesting that. That's to say that his compliment was made in earnest, not that he was trying to get sex from her. You can compliment someone without the end goal being sex.

Did I say he was trying to get into her pants? No. All I said is that that there was no reason to think his advances were ever welcome. He himself knew that his advances wouldn't be met positively, yet he did it anyways.

The man acknowledged it himself in the very same message, why are we even debating it? Its clear as day. The guy who did the thing acknowledges why he did the thing - its not open to interpretation. This is like when Fox News interprets "I want to kill black people", a verbatim quote, as "I'm going to kill a bunch of people because they're christians." Its right there in print and the person makes it clear that they know what they're doing and why they're doing it.

"Creeper?"... Word keeps changing. I at least got a laugh out of looking this up on urban dictionary.

Person makes sexual comments towards somebody that they knows are both unwelcome and inappropriate. If that doesn't meet your criteria for creepy behavior I don't know what would.

You're somehow extracting more information than is available. In other words, you're making shit up.

He doesn't know how his comment will be received(it's bad-form to assume this on his behalf with 100% certainty). You don't gamble on something with a 100% chance of failure, amirite? He's acknowledging that he has an inkling that someone(based on the subjectivity of offense and flattery, and considering the current political climate) might take it the wrong way. It could make a person smile, it could piss them off... The latter happened, assuming the offense was genuine and not attention seeking nonsense.

Older people are generally more comfortable handing out compliments like this precisely because they know they're less sexually threatening at that stage of their lives, and they're usually more comfortably received for the same reason. That's my understanding.

This is blunt, but that analogy is trash. You're starting with absolutes where there are none. Perhaps you're engaging in a little confirmation bias in how you're willing to interpret this information? Maybe you're using it to further your own political agendas?(maybe she did too) Perhaps you're unwilling to sympathise with the man and are content with assuming the worst of him because he's outside of your own demographic? All sounds pretty "Fox News" to me. See how this comes off? Trash...

Just accept some grey area here, will ya?

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

A 5 page discussion about how stupid US-lawyers are? amazing....

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

A 5 page discussion about how stupid US-lawyers are? amazing....

English.

And it's really about how a young woman took a compliment as a chance to spew some feminist rhetoric at a man and then publicise that she did so on the internet for people to applaud/facepalm over. She was kind enough to include the man's full real name for proper shaming purposes, and a picture of the email correspondence so we can all see how strong and brave/ridiculous and tetchy she is.

We're all stupid here. She's a grade-A moron for making this public and outing herself as someone you don't want to work with on a site where you're... Supposed to make connections and demonstrate that you're personable. He's a fool for not understanding the barmy world he lives in. I can't help but feel the media is going to be encouraging more of this shit by giving it a platform. We're stupid for having a go nowhere conversation about it for 5 pages...

 

[Wary Wolf]

We're all stupid here... We're stupid for having a go nowhere conversation about it for 5 pages...

And then we find out that the whole debacle was actually just a marketing ploy to try and sell us the latest style of designer jacket.

Catch line being:
"You too can be 'stunning' whilst maintaining your professional standards in this lovely little black number! As seen on LinkedIn and all of your local news stations!"

No I'm not making light of Sexual Harassment. That panda has twin pistols. I don't want to mess with that bear.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

You're somehow extracting more information than is available. In other words, you're making shit up.

No, its just called reading comprehension. A bullshit detector doesn't hurt either, as even a bad bullshit detector would pick up on the horseshit the guy is going on about.

He doesn't know how his comment will be received(it's bad-form to assume this on his behalf with 100% certainty).

Yes, he does, and he says so himself. He knows he is out of line, period. He says it himself.

You don't gamble on something with a 100% chance of failure, amirite?

People do stupid stuff all the time. I've seen married people hit on somebody while their spouse is fifteen feet away. The guy even says that he's out of line in doing so and he did it anyways because the power of boners is superior to human reasoning.

This is blunt, but that analogy is trash. You're starting with absolutes where there are none. Perhaps you're engaging in a little confirmation bias in how you're willing to interpret this information? Maybe you're using it to further your own political agendas?(maybe she did too) Perhaps you're unwilling to sympathise with the man and are content with assuming the worst of him because he's outside of your own demographic? All sounds pretty "Fox News" to me. See how this comes off? Trash...

Just accept some grey area here, will ya?

There is no gray area. The guy knows he's out of line and doesn't care. There's no gray area. Does nobody use their bullshit detector anymore?

Getting lectured on reading comprehension by someone who can't decipher the difference between knowing something could happen (which is to say that it's in the realm of possibility) and knowing something will happen (which is to say that it definitely will)... You can keep saying that he somehow knew the reaction definitely would be volatile, but it's plainly wrong, and I think you know that to be the case. Offense is subjective, compliments can be given for different reasons... That's grey area. Why doesn't your bullshit detector work when you're talking? I sure hope that thing is still under warranty.

You're unreasonably, arrogantly certain of everything. The guy might be an a-hole(totally within the realm of possibility), he might be a nice man with good intentions who made a little error of judgement(also completely possible). What's clear is that she is 100% a dick.

We're all stupid here... We're stupid for having a go nowhere conversation about it for 5 pages...

And then we find out that the whole debacle was actually just a marketing ploy to try and sell us the latest style of designer jacket.

Catch line being:
"You too can be 'stunning' whilst maintaining your professional standards in this lovely little black number! As seen on LinkedIn and all of your local news stations!"

No I'm not making light of Sexual Harassment. That panda has twin pistols. I don't want to mess with that bear.

Make it April 1st and this is some kind of scary genius. Commercials for the permanently morally outraged generation.

 

[maninahat]

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.

If I made these comments towards a female colleague I'd be goddamn fired...

You'd be "Goddamn fired" for telling a woman she looked great in a picture? Not even a sexually explicit comment, literally just "you look stunning in that photo"?

I was going to argue against your logic, but now I just feel too damn sorry for you. Crikey, who do you work for, 'Jezebel'?

I work in HR for the NHS, recruiting new staff. It is basic office courtesy that you don't approach a complete stranger and potential future colleague and start a conversation with them by telling them how great they look; all it would take is a grievance to be raised against you, and then for you to be fired following a disciplinary (assuming they can prove you did say what you said). In the context it clearly falls under the sexual harassment policies of most work places. Besides being illegal, workplace sexual harassment is a fairly blatant type of sexism.

The logic is that whether or not I find that person attractive, it shouldn't effect how I treat them at all. It makes no difference that I am a heterosexual man talking to a sexy woman, because I am not there to chat people up, and she is not there for compliments about her looks. Note this is also the same in other situations, like if we were in the street and I was cat calling her, and yes, on a social networking website for professionals looking for work.

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

I work in HR for the NHS, recruiting new staff. It is basic office courtesy that you don't approach a complete stranger and potential future colleague and start a conversation with them by telling them how great they look; all it would take is a grievance to be raised against you, and then for you to be fired following a disciplinary (assuming they can prove you did say what you said). In the context it clearly falls under the sexual harassment policies of most work places. Besides being illegal, workplace sexual harassment is a fairly blatant type of sexism.

The logic is that whether or not I find that person attractive, it shouldn't effect how I treat them at all. It makes no difference that I am a heterosexual man talking to a sexy woman, because I am not there to chat people up, and she is not there for compliments about her looks. Note this is also the same in other situations, like if we were in the street and I was cat calling her, and yes, on a social networking website for professionals looking for work.

Again, the fact that a comment may or not be out of place in a professional context is not the same thing as it being sexist. Even sexual harassment (which obviously is not what happened here) has nothing to do with sexism.

Are you seriously suggesting that a comment like this could have you fired? Thank God I don't work for the NHS then, I don't think I could stand such an extreme degree of political correctness.

How low has British society sunk. We have become the most whiney, sensitive, thin-skinned, easily offended society in the history of the world. I'm sorry but it's not mine, or Mr Carter-Silk's fault, if people get offended all the time.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

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.

If I made these comments towards a female colleague I'd be goddamn fired...

You'd be "Goddamn fired" for telling a woman she looked great in a picture? Not even a sexually explicit comment, literally just "you look stunning in that photo"?

I was going to argue against your logic, but now I just feel too damn sorry for you. Crikey, who do you work for, 'Jezebel'?

I work in HR for the NHS, recruiting new staff. It is basic office courtesy that you don't approach a complete stranger and potential future colleague and start a conversation with them by telling them how great they look; all it would take is a grievance to be raised against you, and then for you to be fired following a disciplinary (assuming they can prove you did say what you said). In the context it clearly falls under the sexual harassment policies of most work places. Besides being illegal, workplace sexual harassment is a fairly blatant type of sexism.

The logic is that whether or not I find that person attractive, it shouldn't effect how I treat them at all. It makes no difference that I am a heterosexual man talking to a sexy woman, because I am not there to chat people up, and she is not there for compliments about her looks. Note this is also the same in other situations, like if we were in the street and I was cat calling her, and yes, on a social networking website for professionals looking for work.

That's all well and good, but they actually don't work together, hence linkedin. Given how many people meet their significant-others at the work place, you'd have to say that it is a bit of a minefield for all involved. You can't take the human out of people with PC & HR, try as the rules might.

I'm curious to know whether you'd think it was sexism if the genders were reversed? Or if it was a homosexual (wo)man and another of the same sex? Seems to me that it'd be hard to universally apply this line of thinking. I'd be tempted to stick to calling it "sexual harassment" instead.

One thing I can say for certain is that I'm glad I don't work in an environment full of Charlotte Proudman's. I get compliments more than I give them at work, and it's all just fine. Knowing what I do about the company, a worker openly shaming a colleague on social media would be treated very severely. Frankly, given Charlotte's course of action, it's very good for her that they don't work together.

 

[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.

Screw his intentions, lets just judge his actions like non-psychics living in the real world. The same real world that laughs at people who ask for rigorous definitions of "creep".

Interestingly, I'm not the one claiming psychic powers. Read my posts, I'm far less certain of intentions than others seem to be.

I am judging his actions based on the information given. I just don't think they're nearly as egregious as other people seem to... This is perfectly fair. If you don't think so, I don't know what else to tell ya. Have a nice life.

I don't want you or anyone else to define the word for me, I'm only saying that it's a wishy-washy, subjectively applicable bullshitty kind of a term that doesn't need to be respected.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

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.

If I made these comments towards a female colleague I'd be goddamn fired...

You'd be "Goddamn fired" for telling a woman she looked great in a picture? Not even a sexually explicit comment, literally just "you look stunning in that photo"?

I was going to argue against your logic, but now I just feel too damn sorry for you. Crikey, who do you work for, 'Jezebel'?

I work in HR for the NHS, recruiting new staff. It is basic office courtesy that you don't approach a complete stranger and potential future colleague and start a conversation with them by telling them how great they look; all it would take is a grievance to be raised against you, and then for you to be fired following a disciplinary (assuming they can prove you did say what you said). In the context it clearly falls under the sexual harassment policies of most work places. Besides being illegal, workplace sexual harassment is a fairly blatant type of sexism.

The logic is that whether or not I find that person attractive, it shouldn't effect how I treat them at all. It makes no difference that I am a heterosexual man talking to a sexy woman, because I am not there to chat people up, and she is not there for compliments about her looks. Note this is also the same in other situations, like if we were in the street and I was cat calling her, and yes, on a social networking website for professionals looking for work.

That's all well and good, but they actually don't work together, hence linkedin. Given how many people meet their significant-others at the work place, you'd have to say that it is a bit of a minefield for all involved. You can't take the human out of people with PC & HR, try as the rules might.

I'm curious to know whether you'd think it was sexism if the genders were reversed? Or if it was a homosexual (wo)man and another of the same sex? Seems to me that it'd be hard to universally apply this line of thinking. I'd be tempted to stick to calling it "sexual harassment" instead.

One thing I can say for certain is that I'm glad I don't work in an environment full of Charlotte Proudman's. I get compliments more than I give them at work, and it's all just fine. Knowing what I do about the company, a worker openly shaming a colleague on social media would be treated very severely. Frankly, given Charlotte's course of action, it's very good for her that they don't work together.

I think her basic complaint, that she's putting herself out there on a social network for the sole purpose of work is good. There are a thousand sites for chatting and dating, from Facebook on. What's wrong with having one place not be a dating service for lonely guys twice your age?

You're getting shit twisted. There's zero wrong with being unhappy about the response given. There's zero right about her course of actions. The article says that she got an apology, but decided he didn't suffer enough for his misdeeds, so to twitter she goes to publicly shame him using screens of a private email.

Proportionate? I don't think so. My feeling is that she's 100% a dick, and I'm free to feel that way.

 

[maninahat]

I work in HR for the NHS, recruiting new staff. It is basic office courtesy that you don't approach a complete stranger and potential future colleague and start a conversation with them by telling them how great they look; all it would take is a grievance to be raised against you, and then for you to be fired following a disciplinary (assuming they can prove you did say what you said). In the context it clearly falls under the sexual harassment policies of most work places. Besides being illegal, workplace sexual harassment is a fairly blatant type of sexism.

The logic is that whether or not I find that person attractive, it shouldn't effect how I treat them at all. It makes no difference that I am a heterosexual man talking to a sexy woman, because I am not there to chat people up, and she is not there for compliments about her looks. Note this is also the same in other situations, like if we were in the street and I was cat calling her, and yes, on a social networking website for professionals looking for work.

Again, the fact that a comment may or not be out of place in a professional context is not the same thing as it being sexist. Even sexual harassment (which obviously is not what happened here) has nothing to do with sexism.

Are you seriously suggesting that a comment like this could have you fired? Thank God I don't work for the NHS then, I don't think I could stand such an extreme degree of political correctness.

How low has British society sunk. We have become the most whiney, sensitive, thin-skinned, easily offended society in the history of the world. I'm sorry but it's not mine, or Mr Carter-Silk's fault, if people get offended all the time.

I think you'll find that any sufficiently large business in a developed country will have policies for penalizing sexual harassment, and that their definition of sexual harassment will usually include unwelcome comments about people's appearance. Pick any big organisation and google it. Considering how prevalent sexual harassment was, and still is, its probably a good idea to have them.