He thought nothing more about it until about a week later, when the head of Human Resources (whom he happened to be senior to in the company in question) called him in for a one-on-one meeting. “You can’t say that,” she said to him, “it’s inappropriate and sexist.” He argued that he was just paying a compliment and that he should not be upbraided for commenting on someone’s personal appearance in a positive manner. The CEO, who outranked them both, was called in to adjudicate, and left him in no uncertainty. It was wrong for him to make the comment, particularly to a member of staff who was junior to him.
He was outraged at this turn of events, and was sounding off to me at the unfairness of the thing. “I mean,” he said, “if I had complimented a man on his tie, or on his shoes or the cut of his suit, I think that no one would have said a thing. In fact, next time, I might compliment all the gentlemen on something, and leave out the woman, and see if she likes that. Or compliment them, but ask her if she’s put on weight.”
Obviously, this is not the right thing to do.
Giving someone a compliment is a kind, positive thing to do, and it could help the atmosphere in the office, or meetings, or it might diffuse previous tensions. However, usually in any work relationship, one or the other is in a more senior position, so it might be difficult to avoid any accusation of either using your position to curry favour with a senior colleague or to exert some sort of power over a more junior one.
A good recent example was on LinkedIn, when a junior female lawyer requested a link with a very senior lawyer from another company. He accepted, but in his reply, he complimented her on her ‘stunning’ profile picture. She took umbrage at this un-requested comment, and went public with her annoyance, accusing him of sexism. Unfortunately, it did not work out well for anyone involved. The senior male lawyer was forced to make a grovelling apology, with his reputation in tatters. She was accused of committing ‘career suicide,’ with other companies telling her that she would not be in line to receive legal work from them.1 As I always like to remind myself, as Confucius said, ‘When setting out on a road of revenge, first dig two graves.’
Another example of a compliment going awry, was when President Barack Obama called California Attorney General Kamala Harris “the best-looking attorney general.” The people in the room at the time seemed to recognise this immediately as an inappropriate thing to say, and the POTUS was forced onto the back foot, forced to defend his remarks. Which begs the question, when can you make a comment?2
One of the most active discussion threads that we have had on the Global Cement LinkedIn site was that on the problems of encouraging more women into the industry. None of them mentioned casual sexism from co-workers as a complaint - perhaps seeing any such ribaldry as part of the rough and tumble of any dynamic workplace. It’s recognising when joshing steps over into bullying that is the tough part. Opening a door for someone? That’s courtesy. Hanging around in order to open the door for someone? That’s more like being creepy.
This kind of thing does happen - and according to some reports - such as the Everyday Sexism Project3 - it happens a lot. People just don’t think about the impact of their words or actions on others (an old Sioux saying suggests that ‘Of the axe and the tree, it is the tree that does not forget’). As galling as it might sound, perhaps it is time for us all to consider some kind of training to be able to identify when behaviours are acceptable to new norms of political correctness - and when they are not. Obviously what passes for PC varies from country to country - for example from the USA to Saudi Arabia, from Germany to Italy.
Perhaps the best thing to do is just to say nothing at all to anyone at any time about their physical appearance or clothing. Then nothing can be misconstrued. It’s a shame though, since the world will be a duller, greyer less amenable place without the sincere courtesies of old-fashioned mannerliness.
1 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/10/law-firm-partner-says-no-more-briefs-for-linkedin-sexism-row-barrister
2 https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/wp/2013/04/04/after-president-obama-calls-kamala-harris-the-best-looking-attorney-general-when-can-you-compliment-a-womans-looks/
3 http://everydaysexism.com/