Discussion on question by Roosevelt Mendieta: Alleged sexist comments charges presented toward me

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11:24

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Q: Alleged sexist comments charges presented toward me

Today I got a letter from my office's conduct and conflict resolution department stating I allegedly made "sexist comments on two occasions to an anonymous female student". At my current working environment, were all students age's ranging from 20-24 and banter going back and forth in the offic...

Upper_Case

It's unclear from your question, but are you conceding that you made comments which might naturally be interpreted as sexist? That's how the third paragraph reads.

Roosevelt Mendieta

@Upper_Case I can't remember the exact things I said word for word but my remarks could have easily been taken out of context and be interpreted as sexist comments, is what I was trying to elaborate on

Malisbad

It's difficult, but important, to be above board at work. I'm sure we've all made mistakes, and many won't get a call out like this since it's generally considered important to attempt to resolve these kinds of issues directly first. That being said, you should clear, to the point, and to avoid colour commentary. Context is important, but don't give too much. There is a reason why I watch the sports highlights every morning, and it's not because I love pro sports. It's because I can always safely talk about the games at work, while being seen as personable.

Roosevelt Mendieta

@JoeStrazzere An example I said was that a majority of women that end up in car accidents is part due to the lack of high response time activity participation during adolescence and childhood, compared to male drivers that regularly engage during their early years in video games & sports, these activities require fast hand-eye coordination and develop our cognition to have quicker response times which translate to our driving during adulthood and cause us to have less frequent collisions compared to female contemporaries.

mkennedy

1. If the female is over 18, "woman" not "girl", 2. gender bias for car accidents correlated to sports/video game practice - citation please?

aaaaaa

11:24

please don't use comment to discuss OP, but rather the question. I would suggest editing question to add the example thing OP said.

paragraph starting with "As far as I can remember" seems to have nothing to do with OP's problem

IMil

@RooseveltMendieta ah, so you said women can't drive. Classic.

user000001

This question desperately needs a country tag. In what country can you be taken to court for saying women can't drive?!?

Giacomo Alzetta

"I work in I.T and she works in customer service and my work consists of dealing with 0% of peoples bullshit"... I believe you are lying and you are just a troll. IT people do have to deal with plenty of people bullshit and also machine bullshit. If you aren't dealing with people/machine bullshit you are probably not really working at all since that's what most of IT is for.... if all the systems always worked perfectly and no people had troubles there would be no need for IT departments, just call a consultant once a year to build/upgrade systems.

Headcrab

"Your honor, don't listen to her, she's a chick. I rest my case."

DrakaSAN

In the future, and especially when talking about "hot topics", use a skeptics point of view for all arguments (your argument on women driving for example): unless you have a numbered, peer reviewed study that prove your point, do not bring up the argument. If you really want to bring up those arguments anyway, search for a study first.

Anonymous

11:24

@GiacomoAlzetta Either that or OP barely works at all and their coworker is totally justified in thinking that they should be paid more than OP.

Lio Elbammalf

...HR decides your budget? Either there is some funny company structure or I sense there may be a penchant for making 'factual' statements with no actual knowledge of what is going on.

Radu Murzea

You say it's an office, but also mention that many of your coworkers are "students". Do you work at a university? I ask because it could be relevant: universities almost always have a way to solve such issues internally first and the question might arise as to why they didn't do so. In contrast, in many companies there is no such mechanism in place, formal or informal.

BittermanAndy

You made "subtle" remarks. Sure they were subtle? You weren't "open-endedly offending" women. Apparently you may have been...? Maybe start by asking yourself if you're really being honest with yourself about what's happened. (Your example of wild and unsourced claims about driving suggest not). And ask yourself whether your opinion on matters that don't concern you and on which you are ill-informed is so important the whole office has to suffer hearing it, "civilised tone" or not.

Keith Loughnane

"while keeping a civilized tone and neutral argument" what even is a neutral argument. If you said something sexists in a "civilized tone" does it make it not sexist. I think you're fudging the facts. Regardless of your beliefs having a discussion like this at work with a college in front of colleges is not very smart.

Joe Strazzere

Do you get to bring a lawyer to this court? In what country is this?

Raphael Schmitz

11:24

Just to maybe make you realize that you have indeed been sexist: Women are better drivers.

Sascha

11:35

@RooseveltMendieta ok, that is probably why exactly in the age range which you refer to the insurance rates for female drivers are lower. I am always fascinated by these people who know it better than the insurances, yet are able to group together to form their own insurance

@RaphaelSchmitz this is not only sexist, it's outright wrong and stupid.

Rachey

It's nice to post an article that claims "a study" has been done, with the study not being available anywhere. Means about as much as OP's claim.
Also, what is "better driver" - causing accidents, escaping accidents, average kilometers before getting involved in one, amount of potentially dangerous situations caused per 1000km, lap times on a circuit or maybe something else?

Mister Positive

13:33

Please keep the discussion here on the topic of improving the Question.

jpmc26

15:10

@RooseveltMendieta "I have stated that the wages should be the other way around..." Don't say things like this. Firstly because it's wrong. Pay is based on the supply of workers capable of doing the work and the value the worker delivers to the company, not on how annoying the work is. Customer service typically requires much less knowledge and skill, meaning the market of employees is much larger. Secondly because discussing your pay is far more likely to create animus than anything else.

@RaphaelSchmitz Being wrong about a statistic related to sex differences is not the same thing as being sexist.

Also some studies paint at less a less clear picture. The OP's comment also apparently specifically referred to crashes, and your article was discussing violations. While I agree that overall the data isn't particularly clear enough to settle on a definitive conclusion, obviously, people have different perspectives on the issue even if they are informed.

Concluding that women might be statistically worse drivers overall doesn't mean the person thinks women are inferior.

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Discussion on question by Roosevelt M…