@gouf78 Curious as to why you chose to originally post this using vivacious only instead of posting the
“young and vivacious” comment and even a link to the article? Discussing all this in its true context would seem more useful and genuine rather than waiting until pages 6 & 7 where @HarvestMoon1 mentions the fuller phrase and @Sue22 links the article, both of which provide a much fuller context for discussion.
Al2simon, sorry. We don’t have benefit of being in the same room to see expressions or exchange quick banter But that joke may be seen differently by a male than a female. Hardeehar. I get you were trying to be funny.
Well I got a chuckle out of it - are we now losing our sense of humor?
Nah. But it’s tired.
It’s hard to “mutter under your breath” in writing. I didn’t see the place. All I said was that it’s loaded. And it IS.
What seems to be lost in all the word games is a simple base set of manners. Somewhere along the line it seems we’ve lost ability to speak to each other without it becoming a major political drama.
What’s wrong with simply saying 'hey, I’d rather you didn’t say or do that around me. IIt makes me uncomfortable". The receiver of this request could simply say ‘oh, I didn’t realize it had this effect on YOU PERSONALLY so I’ll keep that in mind if we have any future interactions’.
Something this simple could mitigate all the hand wringing, angst, need for lawyers, social media crucifixions, safe spaces, speech codes etc.
Sometimes the old fashion way is not useless, out dated and archaic. Sometimes it worked.
Maybe what we all need is a good old (updated) ‘finishing school’ in simple manners and discourse.
Maybe it would trickle up to …well…that would be political.
People will stop acting offended over minor things when there’s no longer a payoff for doing so. But they will keep on doing it as long as it helps them get what they want. Nowadays in many settings, being able to take the right sort of offense is one of the most powerful tactics that someone can employ.
Anyway, here’s some info from Laura Rosenbury’s bio (assuming she’s the dean in question) that might explain why this issue is important to her -
Doschicos–
I thought I HAD to be missing something for someone else to have such a strong reaction to the word. And for harassing phone calls and sexism remarks? Was it age difference, cultural, what? Did the dean have a very valid point that I hadn’t considered? Was I just culturally clueless?
So I decided to post here for differing opinions. The CC community reaches a far wider range of opinions than I’m going to find in my small circle.
The use of the word “vivacious” (and I totally forgot about “young” to be very honest) was the start of the whole mess.
So that was my first question. What am I missing? How would you react? What is the appropriate response if you did find it offensive in some way?
The consensus then was that while “vivacious” may be considered sexist in this professional context it is but a minor issue overall not worthy of an overly strong reaction and easily a “learning moment” for the parties involved.
I believe that is a fair assessment. I’m happy for the feedback from all of you. Many can learn.
So the second scenario really is a separate question. Which is why I needed answers first.
And to be honest it doesn’t matter what the article was about. It could have been about green cheese on the moon.
The fact was she publicly denounced easily identifiable people in the student body and faculty that had already apologized to her. A year ago.
The dean has created this scenario which has caused a lot of unfortunate “chaos” . With people’s jobs and personal lives.
Still open to discussion.
Well, the harassing phone calls are totally inappropriate in my eyes and just speak to the crazy place we are in right now with lack of manners and boundaries. Not helped by the national political stage these days and examples being shown. Unless the dean herself is making those phone calls, which I bet she is not, I’m not sure its fair to blame her for that part of the fallout.
I do think the use of “young” in connection with “vivacious” is important to the interpretation. To me it makes it worse. Part way through the discussion you asked posters not to focus on physical attributes related to this discussion. I do believe the reference to someone being or looking young, to being “young and vivacious”, can be construed as mentioning a physical attribute BTW.
I really can’t imagine the young man describing a male dean as “young and vivacious”. Perhaps he would, but I don’t see that happening.
The proper response was for the dean to speak to the young man IMO. I have no problem with that. If anything, if done in the right way, she would be doing him a favor by pointing out something he could have avoided and should be more cognizant of in business settings and preventing further gaffes in his career.
Was it kind of the older male prof to come to the aid of the young man? Perhaps. Or perhaps it can be considered as the “old guard” male groups circling the wagons around one of their own. It’s hard to know exactly without being privy to EXACTLY what was said between the dean and the student and between the dean and the male professor.
I didn’t read the law review article (and it seems like a weird thing to discuss in a law review article since it is not a scholarly topic) but I don’t have a problem with people writing personal essays about their feelings about how language may reflect implicit bias, and using relatively trivial examples to prove their points. Think about all the trivial topics that have formed the basis for worthwhile personal essays, from Montaigne on forward.
Well now you are really opening a can of worms. Because it was reported that when the dean asked the professor “would you have described Dean ****** in that manner (another male dean exactly her age)?” He replied “but you look so much younger.”
“What’s wrong with simply saying 'hey, I’d rather you didn’t say or do that around me. IIt makes me uncomfortable”. The receiver of this request could simply say ‘oh, I didn’t realize it had this effect on YOU PERSONALLY so I’ll keep that in mind if we have any future interactions’."
It’s apparently better to pout and be offended than to take some responsibility for pleasantly but firmly saying “please don’t do that anymore.”
@dietz199 :
I would totally agree with you, but good manners have one problem with them, it often comes along with the caveat “towards those whom we consider good enough to bestow them upon” and often in the past it was perfectly good manners, for example, to refer to someone’s wife as “the little woman”, or for someone to call a woman colleage “Dear, sweetie, etc”. The N word wasn’t exactly unknown in so called polite society, and those same manners could often be used to demean someone or some group, too, like it would be considered ‘bad manners’ for someone of a lower class to address someone of a ‘higher’ class by their first name, but perfectly okay the other way around (good manners would be to address the other person regardless of class by some term like sir, ma’am, miss, or by their last name as in “Mr X, Ms Y”,until you know different).
My hope would be that manners would be if someone says something that bothers you, you talk to them about it and manners from the other side would be to apologize and say you meant no ill will, didn’t know it bothered them…which isn’t what manners always were back in the good old days. Unfortunately, it gets turned into a tsimmis on both sides, the Rush Limbaughs of the world see attempts to get rid of bullying, using inappropriate language, as the “pc police”, while those on the other end take something minor often and turn it into a major cause celebre, and both sides end up solving nothing.
Well, I am a male and I can’t ever recall being described as “vivacious”.
But I have been described as “young” for my role all the time … though perhaps less so now that I’m in my 50’s. But I was constantly referred to as “young” in my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s.
Honestly, it was mostly just a statement of fact. Probably mostly meant as a compliment.
I suppose sometimes it was meant as some sort of strange attempt to assert dominance. But it’s easy enough to ignore or to turn into a joke or to turn back against the speaker (“I decided I’d rather not have to wait until I was 60 before I ran things” - said as a 30 year-old to a 55-year old who was still in a subordinate role in their company). My choice as to whether or not to respond aggressively.
At least with respect to the word “young”, this is much ado about nothing.
“I didn’t realize it had this effect on YOU PERSONALLY”
“apologize and say you meant no ill will, didn’t know it bothered them”
I agree with much of the posters comments on the previous pages but think the quotes I’ve highlighted above are ripe for further confrontation and contention. If someone is confronting you about making a sexist comment or the N word as the poster above referenced or any other inappropriate references, PLEASE don’t couch your response or apology with a qualification like these. Just don’t.
This is nowhere near in the league of the N word. We do ourselves a disservice by going to the highest level defcon over both vivacious and the N word.
So it’s okay to comment on women’s attractiveness in an office setting because:
…men claim they don’t mean anything by it and…
…women who complain are just hypersensitive snowflakes who can’t take a compliment and need to get a life because they have a chip on their shoulder and are offended at every little thing anyway, and are deserving of an eyeroll because they’re so horribly insecure, and so what if people comment on our looks because we should be flattered men find us beautiful without any regard to whether or not we’re actually intelligent and if we don’t object to things like that we can be glad that at least we don’t have a victimhood complex.
If we want to stop sexism we need to take women’s complaints seriously. When men comment on our looks, it’s clear that you see us as women first and as professionals a (distant) second. When we receive a compliment about our looks we’re taught to say “thank you,” but when it happens in a business setting the balance of power shifts. If we accept your compliment, we’re allowing ourselves to be viewed as objects for your visual approval; if we complain we’re all of the things listed above.
So all of you who think it’s okay to comment on a woman’s looks in a business setting would be completely comfortable telling the spouse of one of your co-workers how great you think his wife looked in the office that day? Would you be doing that in front of your wife?
Well I thought the consensus on this thread was that it is generally wise to steer clear of commenting on women’s looks.
I’m an athlete. I was touring one of my company’s plants a number of years ago and I asked the very buff manager who was showing us around if he lifted. My paralegal about had a heart attack, but it led to a very appropriate discussion about exercise and what we both do. I just can’t get that worked up about some of this stuff. I deal with SO much worse in my job- a manager flat out asking a subordinate her chest size, for example.
My boss is very prominent in his field and is very, very young to have reached such a position. However, a couple of years ago (he is still under 35), his black hair turned very gray, which is quite distinguished on him, but makes him look much older. People comment on his age every day, because people who know what he looks like are surprised to find out how young he is, and people who just know his biography are surprised by the gray hair. I don’t think there has been a day that has gone by without comment on it in a few years. He is totally fine with it, but I think I would be bothered by the implication that I looked older than I am.
"When men comment on our looks, it’s clear that you see us as women first and as professionals a (distant) second. "
My former gay male coworker would always compliment me when I looked fabulous. We were friends. It was fine.