We’re conducting S–3–X Talk Week here at the MidnightDBA #Awesomesauce blog. In the tradition of the first S-3-X week blog, we will continue using the clever analog for the “S” word – 53x – and we’ll keep things on the up-and-up.
We spoke before about keeping 53x out of the workplace, and we’ll expand that definition to include the professional sphere (user groups, conferences, etc). From the comments and discussion on SSC over the last several days, it’s become clear that “keeping 53x out of the workplace” is an idea that needs some clarity.
First, a quick legal definition of “sexual harassment”: “unwelcome verbal, visual, or physical conduct of a sexual nature that is severe or pervasive and affects working conditions or creates a hostile work environment”. Note the bolded words (emboldening mine)…unwelcome means that the target doesn’t want it. AAAAND – there’s an AND here, kids! – the conduct has to be SEVERE OR PERVASIVE. More on that in a minute.
Here I present my thoughts on 53x and the professional sphere, from one woman’s point of view. You can’t actually keep 53x entirely out of the workplace, and it’s silly to try. But there’s appropriate behavior, and then there’s not:
Asking a co worker (co-conference attendee, etc) out is fine*. In fact, it’s a good idea: where else are you going to so easily find someone with similar interests?
Asking multiple times after getting turned down is not.
Asking a co-worker or subordinate is way, way out if it’s in any way (even jokingly) tied to a threat or an incentive related to work.
Appropriate behavior is required.
If you don’t know what appropriate behavior is, ask HR for their “53xual harassment and discrimination” videos again. Study them. They were made with you in mind.
Dirty jokes in the workplace / during the conference proper aren’t appropriate. You’re making somebody uncomfortable. (And yes, this is from the girl who shouts “THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID” in every single DBAs at Midnight webshow, ever. That’s not work – it’s a free production that’s admittedly and ecstatically in poor taste. Context, people, context.)
Likewise, commenting on a co-worker in a 53xual context is out of line. I know that guys compare notes on every female they see, but most of them are discreet enough to do it one-to-one, and out of hearing. I don’t care what you think of me, my body, or my romantic proclivities…your thoughts are your own. But don’t be idiot enough to voice your opinions in a roomful of people. AWK-WARD…(ask me how I know. Actually, don’t.)
Dressing for 53x appeal at work isn’t appropriate. It’s as ridiculous for a woman to show up at the office in 6″ heels, short pencil skirts, and a low-cut blouse as it is for a man to show up in a vintage 1930’s Army uniform…it entirely conveys the wrong idea, and it’s very distracting. I’m picking on the ladies here, and not the men, because I have seen women do this many, many times, and I have yet to see a man show up in an open front shirt with chains and too-tight slacks. Or, you know, whatever the equivalent would be.
*Note to those highly sensitive people who think ANY romantic overture is sexual harassment: IT’S NOT. The people in your workgroup should behave appropriate to work, but there is nothing wrong in expressing an interest to date (unless it’s gross/explicit, threatening, or incentivized. Reread the legal definition of sexual harassment , watch your HR videos and calm the hell down.
Now, a note to people who think, by this, that I’m marginalizing 53xual harassment: I’m not. It’s a big, big problem…one that’s addressed by laws, one that sees new lawsuits and injustices every day. But with any big problem, there’s some degree of reactionary hysteria. Let’s spread the word so that both sides of the equation start to mellow out.
Conclusion: The place for 53x in the workplace is, by and large, on the back burner.
Happy days,
Jen McCown
http://www.MidnightDBA.com/Jen
P.S. Many thanks to the MULTIPLE folks who wrote to explain that for men, 53x is a “background process”.
My absolute favorite phenomenon that has been a topic of conversation many times between myself and guy co-workers: The girl who dresses pretty appropriately and normally in the office, who, upon attending a conference, decides to 53x it up. She generally goes waaaay overboard, and stands out like a sore thumb. Doesn’t she know that there are few enough of us that she’s going to get noticed no matter what she’s wearing? Not to mention that she’s giving us all a bad name by treating said conference like a bar.
That said, I like being a girl. I like wearing makeup, dresses, and heels. But I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve had to change clothes in the morning upon doing the “is this too much?” check. It’s a fine line… balancing the desire not to compromise my femininity with my desire not to compromise my professionalism. Fair or unfair, it’s how it is. I’ll even admit to going intentionally frumpy when I want to be taken seriously around new people.
btw… guys with too tight pants and one too many buttons undone. You’re just as bad as conference girl.
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Well, 53x at conferences is another blog entirely…conferences are thinly veiled summer camps for adults, and there’s a whole lotta pheremones floating around. So I understand the temptation, but yeah, it’s not a good idea to throw fashion sense to the wind, oh-no-no-no…
I think you’ve got a good thing going: sticking to “looking good” without stepping over into “I AM TEH 53X GODDESS OF THE 12TH FLOOR!”
Another top knotch post, Jen. Keeping to the point, without sermonizing, and tossed with some humor, certainly makes the topic clear and relevant.
I’m fortunate to work in an environment where I don’t recall ever hearing or witnessing anything close to 53xual harassment.
As for female “dress code”– we used to have a co-worker who sometimes wore outfits that were unprofessional. The biggest shocker happened when she got sent home for wearing a red-silk bra under a fishnet top, with a black leather min-skirt and heels. Honest — far from 53xy; completely bizarre.
Although my own style is clearly “nerdy professional” rather than “53xy”, I’m speaking up in favor of other people who sometimes wear low cut blouses and/or short pencil skirts to the office.
I’ve also seen the male equivalent of 53xy workplace dressing plenty– just not on men who work in technology. I’ve seen it mostly in marketing and in the advertising industry. It involves fitted shirts and jeans (not skin tight, just perfectly fitted). It’s not really any more subtle than a low cut shirt.
Maybe we have more of the male version on the west coast because we have so much ‘casual’ in our business casual. Although thinking back, I can recall some men who could do similar things with expensive suits.
My personal goal is to always not judge people how they dress. I try to treat everyone as a person and get to know them that way. I make an effort at this because it isn’t an easy thing to do. There’s just so much you can miss by reading too much into how someone is dressed.
As for workplace rules, I just think we make too many of them in the United States. I wish it wasn’t such a big deal, and we weren’t so over hyped about it.
So I guess my thought is that if people think someone else is dressing provocatively, ideally it’s best if they can just step back and realize that doesn’t mean they have to react to it in a provocative way. Or react to it at all. It may be a cultural difference, or an accident, or who knows why it happened. But the important thing is to remember that we’re all there to work together.
And overall, I think a workplace where people feel more free to express themselves is a more creative workplace. And frequently one where people communicate better, can work out processes more dynamically, and can even maybe sometimes have a little more fun.
So my advice is, remember to look everyone in the eyes, people!
Thanks for the post, Jen, I love the commentary.
The whole policy can be boiled down to the main understanding of what is or is not ‘allowable’ comments or conversations. But the issue there is that it is different for each person as an individual.
What you view as acceptable depends on how you were raised and how 53x was treated as a subject at home.
My wife’s family never really talked about it at all. It was a “bad thing that happens”… and “only bad girls do it.”
My upbringing was totally the opposite. My parents weren’t hippies or anything, but I could (and often did) speak with my parents about many taboo subjects. I was open and honest with them concerning my feelings, thoughts and questions. I was in turn treated with the upmost respect and admiration from my parents for having the bravery to speak with them about things.
The result is that I personally have no issues talking, joking or whatever concerning 53x!
Others however turn red just at the thought of 53x!.
Point?
You can almost never say anything to offend ME sexually.
The person sitting next to me will scream “inappropriate” when you look at a picture of their spouse on their desk and comment that their spouse is very attractive… (My response would be “yeah, she is… and she’s even better looking naked!”)
As someone who sometimes wears low cut blouses and long pencil skirts I do wonder if I traveled to the East Coast and acted the same, would I be treated differently than on the West Coast? How we dress can be an artistic statement and I love the different ways people express themselves. Again, it may just be the culture here and the fact that as Kendra said, I don’t see it as provactive because I’m choosing to not look at it that way.
I have to agree with another point that Kendra made about too many laws. It seems we have jumped from one extreme to another extreme. As Jen said, a balance on both sides is sorely needed.
Fantastic post as always.
Crys,
I can’t say for sure whether I’d be snarky about how you dress…”low cut” means different things (I’m anti-cleavage at work), and there’s nothing offhand wrong with a long pencil skirt. I’m in Texas, so I can’t say how you’d be treated on either coast
“How we dress can be an artistic statement” is true, but there’s a limit to the art that should show up in the workplace. I don’t think everyone should be in full suits and nun’s habits – in one office, torn jeans and sandals were the norm, and I loved it. But a cleavage shirt belongs at work no more than a “F*** Hitler” shirt does.
As for too many laws…the federal sexual harassment laws are actually VERY levelheaded…read through the link again. Individual states and organizations make their own rules in addition to it, and I’m sure many companies go overboard to cover their own assets, but I haven’t seen anything untoward on the actual legal side of things. How an person conducts him- or herself at work is between them and the company, and it’s perfectly within the company’s right to foster or suppress whatever culture it wants.
Jen, I definitely agree there has to be some limit. A red silk bra and fish-net shirt would be highly inappropriate at my work. Though of course I could see certain places where it wouldn’t be inappropriate. As you said, it is up to the company to suppress or foster whatever culture it wants. 🙂 I would agree that Federal Sexual Harrassment laws are level headed as much as I’ve read through the link on them. My thinking is more about the sue happy law happy society we’ve created. Perhaps that is just my own perception.
Russel, your description of your upbringing highly mirrors my own. I definitely think it contributed heavily to my attitude about 53x.
I’ve been thinking about this since yesterday. Thank you, Jen, for thought-provoking commentary. I went back and thought about the origins of my attitude towards dress in the workplace. When I was 19, I joined the Air Force. For the first few weeks of basic training, it was BDU’s (camo/fatigues), unwashed hair, and boots. On the final week, our TI (drill instructor) Senior Airman Resnik (who still terrifies me, all 5’2” and 98 pounds of her) said that we had to wear our blues. She went on to say that we’d get up early every morning, put on makeup, do our hair, and wear contacts instead of glasses. She even sent us all out to the beauty salon for much-needed grooming. We didn’t understand. We weren’t women, we were Airmen. This had been pounded into our brains for weeks. Here’s what she told us: “When you get out there into your real jobs, I want every person you work with to know that you’re a woman, a beautiful woman. And I want you to be the absolute best at your job. And, when they know that you’re a woman and that you’re the best, they’ll realize that you aren’t great in spite of being a woman, you’re great in part because you’re a woman. You have a responsibility to the women who came before you and the women who will come after you to do this.” Of every wonderful thing I learned during my time in the Air Force, this has been one of the most powerful. It completely shaped my attitude towards the rest of my working life. The thought of her ever being disappointed in the way I look when I show up to work keeps me on my toes to this day.
Audrey,
First, let me say that I’m jealous as hell that you were in the air force. I considered it in high school, but didn’t have the proverbial balls.
Second, WELL SAID. It’s an excellent point, and it’s likely to feed my next blog post….I say “feed” because it’s not kosher just to post what you just wrote and say, “This goes double for me.”
Audrey — great comments. Your drill instructor’s lifelong message speaks to a fundamental sense of self-respect and pride. One’s visual appearance is an expression of these values. The culture in a given office can certainly indicate how loose or uptight the dresscode may be, though. A female colleague/friend of mine always makes an effort to look professional, but her cleavage starts fairly high on her, so unless she’s weaing a turtleneck, there’s not much she can do to appear completely “modest”….. You know what? It just occurred to me that the comments about dress code speak to a very subtle part of the legal definition of 53xual harassment – i.e, being “visually” harassed –> Is it possible that someone who flaunts his/her body in provocative outfits, pervasively , can be considered as meeting the terms of harassment if it causes an uncomfortable work environment?
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