He's actually kinda cute in a really intense way... kinda like Perry Farrell

[venta]

In a moment of unguided bargain-buying, I purchased a 50p drink from the Post Office bargain bin today. It is called Kitsch and comes in a leopard-print bottle.

It's perry and it's actually reasonably drinkable.

Pintwatch is not speaking to me.

Today, I received an email from one of our admin staff at work inviting me to join "the girls" for their Christmas meal this year."The girls" (not my label) constitutes the female "upstairs" staff - in our building there is a fairly strict divide between upstairs (management, legal, admin, accounting, people of uncertain function) and downstairs (programmers). I've occasionally heard remarks like "oh, all the girls went out last Friday" but never before been invited to join them.

I am, for people who don't know me, a girl but a downstairs one. When I joined I was the only female programmer, we briefly rose to three, then back to one, and are now two. I replied that I'd like to join them for lunch - many of the upstairs people I barely know to speak to, and feel I ought to make more effort - and would play along with the Secret Santa which appears to be involved. I fear smarter clothes and chardonnay may be the order of the day.

Rather belatedly, it occurred to me that if, for example, the engineers organised a Blokes' Night Out to which I wasn't invited I'd feel somewhat put out. Is it, therefore, hypocritical of me to join in with a Girls' Christmas Lunch to which I've been invited for my chromosomes rather than my charming and witty banter ? Why, in the workplace, are girly lunches considered acceptable while an outing from which women are excluded thought to be all kinds of bad ?

I suspect that, in a lot of cases, outings like this are organised and none of the excluded people are actually bothered. Few people will protest inequality if they don't actually want the thing they didn't get. The test would come if one of my company's male employees asked (for some reason) to be included. I remember a male friend of mine objecting bitterly that he wasn't invited to a hen night, even though he was close to most of the people involved and expressed interest. I, by contrast, thoroughly enjoyed undyingking's stag night.

I must admit, I'm looking forward with curiosity to a girly lunch. I've no idea what goes on at such things.

Comments

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I think either a female only or a male only outing in my work would be weird. Having said that, there are only three of them (well, there's a male cleaner too, but he's very quiet and we don't really see the cleaners). The parish priest usually comes on outings, too, so that's four.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Why, in the workplace, are girly lunches considered acceptable while an outing from which women are excluded thought to be all kinds of bad ?

That's the new sexism, that, only no-one (other than you and me) has noticed.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Tricky one. I don't have a problem with the existence of 'girly lunches,' but then I'm not that fussed by the occasional lads night out as long as it's not said group's primary mode of socialising, at which point it becomes exclusionary.

I've already deleted two drafts of this comment, which just goes to show how unclear my thinking is on this area.

I do have a concern that too many people of the 'wrong' gender can change the nature of an event, but how many is too many depends greatly on the individuals concerned.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

blatantly OT comment:

I did a double take when I saw you posting here, as bunny_m (another Perthie) goes by the name of Ghoti Dalziel these days, so for a moment I thought you were another of venta's attempts to prove that the population of Australia is only around 200 by virtue of getting to know everyone I do and then expressing surprise that they only have about two degrees of separation between them.

another thought

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Although my wider social circle in Perth is fairly gender balanced, the people I'm spending the most time with at the moment are predominantly female, so it's not that uncommon for me to be the only male present. I'm pleased to not be excluded (unlikely as that would be given the generally progressive outlook of the circles I move in).

[maviscruet.livejournal.com]

Tis an odd one.

Why do we think it's ok to have an asian police officers organisation, or a woman police officers organisation but having the white male poilice officer organisation (please no free mason jokes) would not be acceptible?

I'm not sure I have an answer. I suspect it's something to do with the fact that we still consider "the norm" to be a white male and we accept that people not "the norm" need to gather together.

Take for example something like a nursery group- that's almost all women. So a women only thing there would be odd - and for the few men involved very excluding. However a men only thing - well suddenly that seems more reasonable in that context......

[rosenkavalier.livejournal.com]

The department in which I work has only two other men, both of whom work part time - this has lead to situations which, although they don't bother me particularly, would almost certainly be taken as sexism of some sort if the situation was reversed: When there's something awkward or heavy to move, I'm inevitably asked to deal with it, despite the fact that I'm shorter and of slighter build than a lot of the women here - however, I suspect I would get short shrift if I expected one of the female members of staff to make the tea... Similarly, in the upstairs office, there's a calendar and various other pictures of half-naked firemen, whilst I can't imagine that similar pictures of women would be tolerated.

As I've said, it doesn't bother me, but I can't help but feel that the University or the Union would come down very heavily if it was the other way around...

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

I pretty much agree with all that. Groups are allowed for some reason where a group is deemed to 'need' to be able to because they are a minority (women in work still being considered a minority).

But the dreaded women only lunch still occurs in environments where women are very clearly not a minority, publishing and the like.

Maybe there is this genuine perception that unless the women can go and discuss the state of the dishwasher and the ladies loos somewhere the men can't eavesdrop but I don't think i've ever suffered for the lack of attending them.

P.S. Chardonnay isn't in fashion at the moment - you might be able to get way with some other white wine, shocking though that is :-)

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I think that it's brilliant that a) they like you enough to invite you b) they bothered to invite you at all as [waits for summons to stocks] rather often the laydeez can be rather thoughtlessly exclusive and cliquey. I can recall someone in my former place of work [the Hellmouth] having a girly leaving-lunch to which she invited about half of the office after having talked about it lengthily and openly (rather rude and thoughtless IMHO if not everybody's coming). I had no pretensions to going, but an older female member of staff spent most of lunchtime fulminating and virtually in tears as she had thought that the two of them were friends. That was a really fun 2 hours spent trying not to say anything bitchy about girl #1 while calming down a woman in her 40's who maybe ought to be over girlie thoughtlessness by now (I did work too). The same group of people made certain that there was no space for the blokes on the department Xmas table, which led to a small but critical quiet exodus to the table of purdah among those of us who had worked out what was going on. [pauses to wipe away foam]

Yes, girlies get away with lots more. I still think it's good they've invited you. No, I refuse to choose my friends according to chromosome too.

[metame.livejournal.com]

My work places have generally been quite unbalanced (har har), either being publishing companies dominated by women, or computer companies stocked with menfolk. It's made me very sensitive to the issue and probably overly so. All strikes me as very thin-end-of-the-wedge but (as others have said) there's obviously a place for positive discrimination type efforts. Colour me conflicted, with a side tint of aggravated.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

rather often the laydeez can be rather thoughtlessly exclusive and cliquey

That's not really a risk here since they're a very diverse bunch. Sufficiently so, in fact, that I'm struggling to imagine what the event in question will be like. Hopefully venta will write some of it up in due course !

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Is it, therefore, hypocritical of me to join in with a Girls' Christmas Lunch

Not really, if you're accepting the invitation mostly to be polite and friendly. If you were all "Look at me, I get to go to the wonderful girly thing unlike you poor blokes!" it would be different.

I find the idea of girly lunches a bit unappealing, but I guess I feel that women have little enough going for them in the workplace that if they get some benefit from it, more power to them.

(And I'm glad you enjoyed the stag night. I couldn't see why, having good friends of both genders, I would want to celebrate with one group of them but exclude the others.)

[(Anonymous)]

just like my office! it seems that' the girls' have been doing lunch for ages, unbeknownst to me [a girl]. i've been included in 'the girls' lunches for some time now, they're usually for birthdays' when it came to my birthday though, i invited everyone, cos i work with mostly boys & it would have been rude otherwise! everyone commented on how nice it was to have everyone out for lunch together, and a few boys thanked me privately for not haveing a girly lunch [as if i would have!]. so it is noticed here by the boys, i feel bad for them every time i go. i think it's an excuse for the ladies in my office to talk about sex & our fat horrid director without any boys listening in. errrr. yeah. boys are ace.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I think that the upstairs/downstairs segragation of your office is more of a problem than the girls/boys segregation, actually :)

It's amazing how much I learn from wandering around an open-plan company...

[paste.livejournal.com]

oops, that was me not logged in!

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

And me. I loathe these double standards. I loathe the fact that it's ok to ridicule a bloke in an advert but not a woman (except mothers in law). I deeply resent not being invited to the stag nights of close friends simply because of my gender, in spite of the fact that most of my close friends happen to be men. I also resent the idea that I should naturally get on with a random group of people simply because they have breasts too.

[cpnbirdseye.livejournal.com]

I think you're giving it too much thought. Enjoy your lunch!

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Contentious topic! I recommend developing a 'work laugh'. And you just quoted my fave song. have a cookie for making me having a great NEMOPHOME... 'I told my bitchy sister about it and she just laughed, but the funny thing is I have a really great feeling about this guy!'

[marjory.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it's not a risk in this case! And a diverse bunch of cow-orkers is to be envied.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

there's obviously a place for positive discrimination

I'm not sure I agree. Discrimination is always divisive. I'm sure there are plenty of situations where discrimination is desirable on the part of one party or another, but that's not rarely reason enough to tolerate it.

The exception I can think of would be something like a women's refuge, where the lack of males present could contribute to the peace of mind of those there seeking refuge.

[lathany.livejournal.com]

Mostly in agreement with what people (particularly undyingking) have already said.

Another thing that strikes me is sheer size of it. That by having a "girls" event, it keeps the numbers down to a group that can probably all sit at the same table (unless I've misestimated the female workforce there?).

[venta.livejournal.com]

I can certainly see the size argument - it's nice to take out a manageable sized group of people. I guess there might be 15 females all told ?

[venta.livejournal.com]

One of Upstairs has been threatening us with open-plan. Pleeease don't say it improves communication (his argument) as I absolutely despise the idea.

[venta.livejournal.com]

If you were all "Look at me, I get to go to the wonderful girly thing unlike you poor blokes!" it would be different.

Well, now you've suggested it I might try that ;) Only I'm not sure (a) I could do it with a straight face or (b) whether anyone would believe me if I did.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, the nursery-group example is a good one. I must file it in my head for trotting out in such arguments as this.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Really? Why?

I didn't used to like the idea, but it works really well at Exony.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, what I find more annoying in such situtations is that, if you were to object to the naked firemen, you wouldn't be seen as someone making a valid point. You'd probably just be seen as petty :(

[venta.livejournal.com]

Why do I dislike it ?

In general, I dislike open plan rooms as I find them cold (they appear that way even when they're not), unfriendly, barnlike and slightly scary.

In this case, I think that each room at work has its own ethos, and without the boundaries it'd just be bland. Not to mention noisy and distracting. The discussions at present which start between two people and draw in the remaining 3 or so in the room would either never get beyond 2 (losing valuable input) or draw in far more (potentially wasting time).

I think humans (or a lot of them) like to hide in corners, like to have a wall behind them, like to mark out territory and like to have a community around them. Open-plan breaks pretty much all these rules.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oooh... cookies. Shall be boogie to AM Radio next ?

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

What appears to happen in practice is that what was once 'rooms' becomes 'tables'. There's still boundaries.

Things also aren't that much noisier, though I'm not sure why not! The discussions occasionally pull in people from other tables (like me, if I hear certain key words!), but that's to the good rather than the bad (an awful lot of problems get solved by someone random catching a key word and going, 'oh yes, I had that bug yesterday, you do this to fix it'), and they certainly don't pull in the entire office.

As for a sense of community... R&D are still one community, and Support are another, and Professional Services a third still, but there's much more interaction between them.

Because we also hot-desk (a practice whose theory I hate, but whose practice I love), you can end up sitting with new and interesting people, who can tell you new and interesting things about parts of the system. Because people are, after all, reactionary creatures, there is a tendency for certain people to sit in certain places; for example, I normally sit at a table with two other people, but the fourth spot on that table is whoever comes in too late to sit with the cool kids. Thus we get the benefit of both worlds; the novelty of new perspectives and information, but with a sense of continuous community from the three of us who are always there.

Try it. You might like it :)

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Open-plan is very noisy... Plus there are more people with a stake to disagree re level of heatimg/air-con (from she whose body thermostat runs on sollipsistic lines).

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Although I feel it is just as valid a point as the corresponding one being made by a woman, I can see why people might see it as petty -- because firemen calendars don't very often actually contribute to an atmosphere of sexual harassment and degradation towards men, whereas the converse has frequently been the case. But people have to be prepared to be seen as petty sometimes if they really care about supporting the principle.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Wait till they see what lovely present you get given by the Secret Satan!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm female and have always worked in male dominated environments, often complete with posters of naked women (which I mostly don't mind although if they are eight feet high it's a bit disconcerting!). I've learnt to turn off flirtatious signals and dress in a non-provocative way. I now get propositioned much less, but it still happens. And the co-worker being married doesn't necessarily help. So I now try to avoid socialising with male colleagues. And if someone asks me out again once I've said no, I discuss the issue with my manager who is very supportive. When I have female colleagues I enjoy girl's lunches because I don't have to worry about all of this. So they do have their place for some of us...

[(Anonymous)]

Can't imagine you at a girly ANYTHING. Open plan is the pits, aircon and central heating are never even uniform across the whole floor (I am wearing a fleece in an arctic draft while someone ten feet away is removing a layer or two). It doesn't promote co-operation - the daily paper journos still look at us poor weekly sods as if we'd just come out from under a stone. Unless they need our help.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

Anyhoo... enough of Beth's potential (and unlikely) social problems in the company of wimmin.

I'm actually rather concerned that her local PO offers leopard-print bottles of perry at pocket money prices and that she bought one...