How to deal with sexual humour culture at work?

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LittleWay84 said:
Thanks all!

Just to add, the U.K. does have very good employment law and HR practice but the nature and field of my work is very much open to be a minefield. It is just the nature of working in the Arts and particularly community arts (where I could he hired to run a youth offending project or project with people who have run into trouble in some way) as a freelancer. It’s an odd way of working.

I should also add, that I think these guys see it as “blokey banter”. Their attitude seemed to be “there’s no harm done” and that it’s all one big joke, but their humour does leave me feeling disrespected.

In thinking about all of this, I do feel that there is one ring leader and perhaps some of the younger men try to follow his lead and impress him. My last relationship was at times emotionally abusive and I have noticed that some of this man’s behaviour is behaviour that I am now on guard against thanks to my ex. For example, I may say “I don’t like being referred to in that way, it makes me feel uncomfortable.” he would say something like, “Now that’s not true, you are fine with it stop pretending. That’s not what she said last night lads!” So a) trying to tell me who I am/what I feel b) absolving himself from the result of his behaviour c) embarrassing me in front of the group. He is quite opinionated and cocky and I’ll admit to feeling intimidated by him much of the time.

I may ask for guidance from the Director of the company about how to deal specifically with this man’s attitude towards me. I only see her rarely but I feel this warrants a meeting!
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Definitely speak to the Director, as soon as you can. Sexual harassment should not be tolerated.

My response to that man would have been “I said uncomfortable and I meant uncomfortable. Continuing when I have requested otherwise shows your blatant disrespect and I will be reporting it to the company director.” Don’t be afraid to be firm or strict. You don’t have to put up with being spoken to that way.

Lou
 
Lou2U said:
Definitely speak to the Director, as soon as you can. Sexual harassment should not be tolerated.

My response to that man would have been “I said uncomfortable and I meant uncomfortable. Continuing when I have requested otherwise shows your blatant disrespect and I will be reporting it to the company director.” Don’t be afraid to be firm or strict. You don’t have to put up with being spoken to that way.

Lou
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You’ve got such a great way of communicating! I’m confident but way too concerned with being polite for my own good - even when the behaviour I’m on the receiving end doesn’t merit it.

Thanks so much for your advice.
 
Oh man. Please take the advice that has been given here. You DO NOT deserve to be treated like this and are not a prude. Gross. I pray this situation gets a lot better for you.
 
These guys are really crude pigs. The teens may not know any better but the ones in their 30’s & 40’s have to be told that you don’t find their comments funny & you are going to report them if it continues.
You deserve common respect. I can’t believe they treat a woman that they work with in such a filthy way. I could never act like that.
If any of them are married, tell them their wives would be interested in hearing about their behavior.
 
I would agree with everyone else that you should absolutely find someone with authority to talk to about this, since this may be sexual harassment.

I would add on my part, though, that not wanting to hear sexual jokes in a workplace is certainly not prudish, even if it didn’t make you uncomfortable. Not only is it immoral, but it’s also grossly unprofessional.

Benedicat Deus,
Latinitas
 
LittleWay84 said:
I’m sorry, I’m not sure if I’ve posted this in the right section but wasn’t sure where else to put it!

I’m currently working with a large group of men (20+) from teenagers to 40+. I’m a 32 year old woman.

I find that there is somewhat of a culture of constantly making sexual comments as jokes and I feel quite uncomfortable with it. A lot of my job with these men is managing/overseeing a project and involves a lot of direct communication. I’m finding comments aren’t just made around me but at me I.e “There she is on her knees again, she spends a lot of her time on her knees I bet” or at lunch, they were making sexual comments about how I was eating a banana. I know, really immature. But it’s constant and, if I’m honest I feel a little bit like I want to cry tonight, Pathetic right?

I’m by no means a prude but I do feel quite disrespected. When I was younger I probably would have laughed it off or pretended it didn’t bother me but I’m sick of pretending now.

A couple of times today I made comments like, “Excuse me, I’m a lady, I’d rather you didn’t speak like that about me.” and (genuinely) “I’m sorry but I didn’t understand that joke/don’t know what you mean.” When a sexual innuendo was made that I didn’t get. However, they just kept saying “Lady, yeah right? You love it really. You’re as dirty as the next person etc.”

At one point during lunch, they started taking out pictures of their genitals that they had taken on their phones and started passing it about and then trying to show them to me.

It may sound silly but I was really offended. I’d just been to mass. I’ve been fighting so hard to commit to purity of mind, heart and body and it’s a constant struggle. I am a virgin, have never seen a naked man in real life and have never seen porn. I know - I might as well be a unicorn right? But honestly…I kind of want to protect whatever ever purity I have and have a kind of innocence I guess.

I ended up saying, “Excuse me but I really don’t want to see those images. I’m going to have to leave.” I left the room and they actually followed me to carry all of this on.

I really don’t know how to handle this. If I take it to senior management they make out that I am a prude/repressed and need to get over it. I work in a field that is full of very liberal minded people which in some ways is great but in others not so,

Do any of you have any advice please? Is there anyway I can communicate better to prevent this or is it just the way of the world now?
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As far as co-workers talking nasty around you the best advice I can give (and I say this from personal experience as a construction worker) is to learn to let it go in through one ear and out the other. That is all you can do if you think reporting it will do more harm than good.

You must stand up for yourself if they try to show you images you do not want to see. Tell them “Look… the way you probably do not want me talking about my faith all the time to you, I do not want to see your pictures or hear your perverse talk. Unless you do want me to talk about my faith to you all the time knock it off” of course I am a rugged looking construction worker so that approach may work better for me lol. God bless.
 
LittleWay84 said:
I’m sorry, I’m not sure if I’ve posted this in the right section but wasn’t sure where else to put it!

I’m currently working with a large group of men (20+) from teenagers to 40+. I’m a 32 year old woman.

I find that there is somewhat of a culture of constantly making sexual comments as jokes and I feel quite uncomfortable with it. A lot of my job with these men is managing/overseeing a project and involves a lot of direct communication. I’m finding comments aren’t just made around me but at me I.e “There she is on her knees again, she spends a lot of her time on her knees I bet” or at lunch, they were making sexual comments about how I was eating a banana. I know, really immature. But it’s constant and, if I’m honest I feel a little bit like I want to cry tonight, Pathetic right?

I’m by no means a prude but I do feel quite disrespected. When I was younger I probably would have laughed it off or pretended it didn’t bother me but I’m sick of pretending now.

A couple of times today I made comments like, “Excuse me, I’m a lady, I’d rather you didn’t speak like that about me.” and (genuinely) “I’m sorry but I didn’t understand that joke/don’t know what you mean.” When a sexual innuendo was made that I didn’t get. However, they just kept saying “Lady, yeah right? You love it really. You’re as dirty as the next person etc.”

At one point during lunch, they started taking out pictures of their genitals that they had taken on their phones and started passing it about and then trying to show them to me.

It may sound silly but I was really offended. I’d just been to mass. I’ve been fighting so hard to commit to purity of mind, heart and body and it’s a constant struggle. I am a virgin, have never seen a naked man in real life and have never seen porn. I know - I might as well be a unicorn right? But honestly…I kind of want to protect whatever ever purity I have and have a kind of innocence I guess.

I ended up saying, “Excuse me but I really don’t want to see those images. I’m going to have to leave.” I left the room and they actually followed me to carry all of this on.

I really don’t know how to handle this. If I take it to senior management they make out that I am a prude/repressed and need to get over it. I work in a field that is full of very liberal minded people which in some ways is great but in others not so,

Do any of you have any advice please? Is there anyway I can communicate better to prevent this or is it just the way of the world now?
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And no, it is not silly to not want to see pictures of guys private parts because you are a real woman. I do not want to see a picture of a naked woman because I do not want that in my mind.
 
And there no forum or person in the U.K that you thought could answer this?
No employee handbook?
No Labor Agency?
:confused:
 
LittleWay84 said:
I do not have a supervisor. This is my project that I am running largely alone. There is no human resources department. And I’m afraid that yes, it is the nature of the field that I work on and I am not making excuses.

ETA: These men are not employees. They have been chosen as a sector of the community that would benefit from Arts based intervention (from the charity who hired me) and a project to tell their story.
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Well, someone hired you, so report it to them. And someone chose these guys for the project, so report it to them as well.

And also, please you do people a disservice to say that it is the nature of the field that you work on…no, it is just wrong.
 
My heart bleeds for you because I have been in similar situations., I am in Canada and there are laws against it but guess what, my employer could afford the better lawyer. When I made a complaint to human resources, they fired me for low self-esteem.

So, my advice is find out the law of the land and if what they are doing is illegal, call the police.
 
Anglewannabe said:
My heart bleeds for you because I have been in similar situations., I am in Canada and there are laws against it but guess what, my employer could afford the better lawyer. When I made a complaint to human resources, **they fired me for low self-esteem.
**
So, my advice is find out the law of the land and if what they are doing is illegal, call the police.
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They, what?
 
My :twocents:

Back in high school, the health teacher told us that we need to be cautious and mindful of what we are eating in front of men. She told us some woman was suckling on a lollipop in front of confined or men in prison, and they started to masturbate at the sight.

Therefore, do like I do. If you are going to eat a banana, cut it with your hand one bite at a time. Don’t just put in the whole banana in your mouth and take a bite.

Women, in these days and age, we have to be mindful and cautious in front of men. Don’t do anything that would make them disrespect you. You don’t know what’s in their heads. Hold your dignity and fight all battle that comes on your way where the devil dances in.

Also avoid unnecessary time and situation with these people.
 
In my experience, there gets to be a point where you put on the Mom Look. As in, “Cut it out. Look at me; I’m not a 16 year old you can embarrass. This is work, not a locker room. Just cut it out.” Go ahead and put on the “really? I suppose you’re *proud *of that?” face, as if you you were dealing with adolescent boys who ought to know better.

You want to lean a bit more on the “I am disappointed in you” or “you are being boring, predictable and socially inept” or “you are embarrassing yourself” than “I am offended.” The disappointment ought to be over their poor choice of when to indulge in unprofessional humor. Avoid the plain fact that there really isn’t an appropriate time for this. Stick with the “if you want to indulge in puerile humor on your own time, that’s your business, but during business hours try to act as if you’re in a professional setting.”

Do not try to teach a pig to sing. You just frustrate yourself and annoy the pig. Swine will act like swine. The best you can do is to teach the creatures to stay off your lap. If you have to use a hog prod, so be it, but do not let on that they are getting to you. They talk like this to gain attention. You are better off if you act as if they have lost the capacity to shock you, that by now you just find them tiresome, professionally pitiful and, as “humorists,” entirely predictable and boring.

I would not be above: “Don’t you people have friends or, you know, dates you go on for this kind of thing? Or does your habit of chasing young women with pictures of your naked bum make it a little hard for you to get a date? I can’t imagine there is anyone who finds any of this charming, let’s just say that. At any rate, I don’t, and we’re at work. Cut it out. Save it for somebody who finds it amusing.”

If you complain to higher-ups, you should also complain about it as unprofessional, a big distraction to your ability to get work done, and not a good reflection on the company. If they are harassing you–and literally chasing you with pictures you don’t want to see is harassing–say that you have tried to get them to cut it out and you are at your wit’s end how to get through their thick heads that you don’t want a bit of it. You don’t want to whine or appear as if you cannot handle your own problems, but since you weren’t issued a cattle prod you’d like some assistance in communicating that this isn’t acceptable.

And yes, I’d say, “No, I’m* not *repressed. I’m merely a professional and, if I may be so blunt, a grown-up. This is ridiculous. We live in 2016. Normal people do not expect to do this at work. They expect to have some little shred of self-control more than a troupe of unsupervised middle-schoolers when the teacher has left the room. I want them to grow up and cut it out and that is not too much to ask or more than they can manage with their little bitty boy brains.”

If not, well, you need to find a job where there are some professionals at work. Women had to put up with this in 1960 in predominately male workplaces, but most places expect something more than that now.
 
I agree with the responses. I would definitely report it! You are not over-reacting, you are being sexually harassed in your workplace.
 
E_7 said:
My :twocents:

Back in high school, the health teacher told us that we need to be cautious and mindful of what we are eating in front of men. She told us some woman was suckling on a lollipop in front of confined or men in prison, and they started to masturbate at the sight.

Therefore, do like I do. If you are going to eat a banana, cut it with your hand one bite at a time. Don’t just put in the whole banana in your mouth and take a bite.

Women, in these days and age, we have to be mindful and cautious in front of men.
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That’s a little bit over the top. Most men aren’t going to masturbate or entertain (name removed by moderator)uts thoughts at the sihhght of a woman eating a banana. Some men might act like animals. Doesn’t mean we’re all raging sex fiends.
 
The OP has said these aren’t employees, they are people taking part in a community arts project. That makes it a little more complicated in terms of accountability. However, the person who’s hired her as a freelancer has a responsibility to her.
 
As others have noted, in the U.S. or Canada what you’ve described is plain and simple sexual harassment- the cops would run to your aid faster than your can blink… Especially the extremely bizarre incident of them shoving images of their genitals in your face. I find it very hard to believe that the UK is so backwards and barbaric that anyone would be ok with this… You said your employers are liberal. Here in North America it would be liberal minded individuals who would CRUCIFY these men with the fury of hell in a heartbeat. The UK never heard of feminism…a woman’s right to be protected in the workplace? This sounds like something out of tribal Africa frankly. Find it hard to even believe.
 
AdamPeter said:
That’s a little bit over the top. Most men aren’t going to masturbate or entertain (name removed by moderator)uts thoughts at the sihhght of a woman eating a banana. Some men might act like animals. Doesn’t mean we’re all raging sex fiends.
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👍 What normal man would entertain prolonged sexual thoughts over a banana? Jeezz, give men a bit more credit
 
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