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Stop choosing to be offended by “sexist” stuff!

by 9 Comments

Tony Jackson is a champion of equality, diversity and inclusion in the workplace who is concerned by a growing tendency for people to choose to be offended by things that really aren’t that offensive—particularly when it comes to “sexism”.

I think my track record on diversity and inclusion qualifies me to comment on this. I hope so.

I have strong personal, professional and commercial reasons for believing in and fighting for inclusion in workplaces and in society. That said, I’ve spotted a trend which does a disservice to the cause.

Artificial offence. People choosing to take offence. Opting in, deliberately, to a contagious reaction. “Ooh yes – I’m offended too”. Switching on a programme deliberately to be offended. Watching the Twitter feed and joining in. “Me too. Me too. Outrageous”.

In case you are wondering – no I am not joining the crowd who say “it’s just banter”. In my experience that is usually a cover for downright odious thinking and behaviour. Behaviour which excludes others in the workplace and in social gatherings.

And I am alert to the fact that there can be specific things which might be offensive to only a small number of people and that even the law says it is for the person impacted to decide whether something is unacceptable to them. Quite right too – otherwise, for example, the white majority in an office can over-rule the black minority in deciding whether something is out of order.

Man flu is not funny but….

A personal one: I have always hated the expression “man flu”. It is bandied about by unthinking men and women when a male colleague has been off work. Demeaning, disrespectful and potentially very hurtful (I once heard it used relating to someone who turned out to have a life-threatening disease). But others don’t see it that way so I choose to temper my response whilst making my point about it. Maybe I’m even emotionally intelligent with my response? Gosh.

But with every right comes responsibilities and one of these is a sense of perspective.

So I ask you – are you guilty of choosing to be offended? Of getting something so out of proportion, electing not to see the bigger picture, deliberately stirring up trouble where there is no need.

I cite two recent examples:

A man is part of a team which has succeeded in landing a robot onto a comet. Imagine. Just think of the enormity of that task. My brain hurts thinking about the calculations involved. The patience. The commitment.

He shows poor taste in the shirt he wears for a press conference. Pretty bad. Ill-advised. But the guy was overwhelmed by the situation and clearly needed better advice or just a friend to prod him in the right direction.

Reduced to tears by groupthink

The “groupthink” reaction. Outrageous. Let’s call for his head. Reduce the guy to tears. Make him prostrate himself. Ignore his achievement.

I ask you: where is the same clamour, the same volume of tweets over the real outrages on this planet right now?

Secondly: a marvellous charity which punches above its weight in its sheer drive and passion towards helping people affected by bowel cancer. It is running a fundraising initiative to raise a quantity of cash which is huge for them but would be tiny for, say, a tax-dodging multinational.

The hashtag for their campaign is #realmengrowbeards . I read this as ironic, self-deprecating, a challenge to the one where you “just” grow a moustache. It’s inclusive – I’m having a go but already have beard-envy compared to those fine examples you see around these days. The campaign offers opportunities for women to get involved (wear a false one) or for men to decide what their response is to the challenge. All with very positive intent. This is about helping any man or woman who develops the second-biggest killer on the cancer spectrum. It is not suggesting for a second that you are less of a man if your beard growth is less good than the next person’s.

Do real men get offended by normative constructions of masculinity? 

And what happens? A chap on Twitter, an academic, launches into a social media campaign against the charity for “amplifying the daily compulsion to ‘normativity’”, being ‘essentialist’, sexist and so on. He screamed how offended he was from his pulpit. How this is “a blinkered approach to constructions of masculinity”.

To be fair to the guy, I don’t doubt his intentions either and he has since tempered his initial comments in a more reflective blog. But he would not let go. When I asked him if he might be looking or choosing to be offended, without any sense of irony he told me my question had offended him. It’s a whirlwind of offence. How exhausting. With all the real battles we have to fight, surely we have to choose the ones that matter?

And look what it’s done – it’s made me use up half an hour writing a(nother) blog. So what is the learning point?

It’s a classic element of a coaching relationship: helping people understand that they have a choice in how they react to what is going on around them. They can choose to be offended if they want. But, by definition, they can also choose not to be. They can save their energy for the time when something really offensive happens.

—Photo: Jeepers Media

You can support Tony’s fundraising attempt to grow a beard (like a real man) by making a donating to Beating Bowel Cancer via his fundraising page now.

Tony Jackson is founder of Chelsham, “the home of action-oriented, impactful, values-based executive coaching & consulting”. Chelsham works with leaders, business-owners and rising stars to help them realise their potential. You can follow them @ChelshamConsult and find out more at the Chelsham website. 

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  • Darren Ball

    I have cognitive dissonance about the naked-lady shirt man. One half of my brain says that the magnitude of his scientific achievement was so great that it’s ridiculous for his shirt to be the main story.

    But one half of my brain says, that on an occasion when physical science was prominently in the news, the main scientist chose to wear something that young women might reasonably interpret as a public broadcast telling them: this is a man’s place. Lad culture is alive and thriving here.

    I’m not convinced by the work of Cordelia Fine (Delusions of Gender), however, if a significant number of women are put off entering physical sciences because of lad culture (real or imagined), then that is also a very big issue.

    There’s another half of my brain (fractions was never my thing) that has enormous sympathy for him: what should have been one of the best days of his career was turned to shit – probably for an offence he never intended to make.

  • Karen Woodall

    A man puts a space thingy on a comet thingy and all we hear about is his shirt? What would Freud say? Actually Freud would have a lot to say both about the chaps choice of shirt on the day AND how it has provoked outrage – he would say that the chap was unconsciously showing the world his version of masculinity and his relationship to women (which in Freudian terms is fragile because he is trying to make himself more manly by wearing a shirt with saucy women on it – ‘geeky’ type men often attempt this and get it wrong, the irony being that this man’s masculinity is very likely to be fragile and based upon his achievements in science and so on the day he finally hits the headlines, his fragility is not only demonstrated in its entirety via his shirt but it is mashed to smithereens by young narcissistic women who are probably envious/angry and outraged and who have little ability to see anything but what is presented on the surface and who attack instinctively because of their internalised jealousy of male achievement (penis envy). Freud would ask this man – why that shirt on that day in a world in which narcissistic young women were bound to be offended and would attempt to help the man understand his fragile ego and his masculinity within the narcisstic world that we live in today. Another thought Freud might have is that this man was unconsciously showing the world (both men AND women) his view of himself on the day that he put a space thingy on a comet – not as big as mine chaps, not as big as mine…and the outraged offendedness was a reaction to that. Freud would be in his element in today’s society, it is a spectacle, a pantomime, a play in which we are all moved by the gods to behave in strange ways, all exhibiting our selves and our souls to the world on a daily basis. Lives played out in the limelight, outraged and offended and oh so desperate to make sure that we matter and we matter when we are seen and heard. I should know. I am one of them. I loved his shirt though.

  • J Fox

    Personally, I wish he’d worn a shirt with Tom of Finland images (well, the ones that are SFW anyway). Now, that would have been edgy.

  • Nigel

    On the plus side it is perhaps a reflection of the sheer comfort that so many enjoy. That they feel it important to be outraged about, well, inconsequential stuff. It is so juvenile half the time too, with pretentious explanations with reference to fanciful theories abounding. Simply say “I don’t like your shirt “, ” its a bit sleazy” or “its not professional attire “. Interesting that we are so concerned about ,some ,people being offended. rather than focussing on actual reality.

  • http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/the-team/ Jim Doyle

    “I’m not convinced by the work of Cordelia Fine (Delusions of Gender), however, if a significant number of women are put off entering physical sciences because of lad culture (real or imagined), then that is also a very big issue.”

    It’s as much of an issue as a young boy is put off school because of hen culture and its dominance in schools, isn’t it?

    It’s odd that the woman who made the shirt wasn’t to put off. Or maybe she just doesn’t suffer from Princess and the Pea syndrome.

    “Lad culture” – it amazes how no one seems to ask whether or not this culture is adaptive for this kind of work, rather than just some kind of arbitrary churlish invention of hyperagentive men. What should be amazing is the assumption that men must always accommodate the feelings of women.

    • Darren Ball

      Jim,
      I share your concerns about underachievement of boys in school. It appears that this was engineered. We know what causes it and we know how to stop it but it has persisted for a whole generation without correction.

      For your last paragraph. The burden of proof is with you to show that lad culture helps land a dustbin on a comet and, obviously in a place of work we all need to be sensitive to the feelings of those around us, and that includes men being sensitive to the feelings of women.

      • http://honeybadgerbrigade.com/the-team/ Jim Doyle

        “The burden of proof is with you to show that lad culture helps land a dustbin on a comet and,”

        Only if that was something I claimed. Read again, please. I was challenging the lazy assumption that lad culture is an arbitrary construct, and that it was useless or maladaptive. In fact the burden is on you to show how it is maladaptive, since it has arisen naturally and persisted.

        “and that includes men being sensitive to the feelings of women.”

        But obviously not women being sensitive to the feelings of men, for you at least. For you, women are quite entitled to dictate to men who they should act, what they can wear or not, because they are women and their feelings matter more than just about anything else.

        • Darren Ball

          Jim
          It really doesn’t matter what begets what. Whether or not laddish culture is a symptom or a cause is irrelevant. Nobody has the luxury of just dressing and behaving as they wish in their place of work because colleagues don’t have the freedom to go elsewhere, or choose to work with other colleagues, they have to be with whom they need to be with to get their job done, and for that reason we need to be sensitive to causing offence. In our private lives we can do what we want, because nobody is forced to hang around us if they find us offensive.

          Your last paragraph makes no sense whatsoever because I never said it was a one-way street. Of course women should be sensitive to their male colleagues.

  • http://zpatriarchy.blogspot.com zodak

    there was nothing wrong with his shirt. he is not an office worker or a cop. there is no uniform. a man who helps land a robot on a comet can wear whatever he wants.

    you are right, people are choosing to be offended. everyone wants to have their opinion heard. but don’t be mistaken that shirtstorm article was written by a white knight who is constantly trying to make other men look bad for advertising clicks on his website. girls are glued to their phones & expressing outrage online is what girls do these days, & they generate advertising dollars.