Staff outing - only ladies invited

robatwork

Can I just clarify - is (was) this a meal funded by the staff themselves, or by us (the taxpayers) or by the manageress?

Kynthia

Wow I'm shocked! Well done for saying something. I work in the public sector and wouldn't expect something like that.

I think it's wrong to have two events split by gender for more than one reason. However to not even organise an event for the men but dismissively tell them to sort themselves out is insulting.

The way I think it should be done, if they wanted to do something they suspect many wouldn't like to do, would be to advertise two events open to all and let everyone decide which they'd like to attend. Even if they were typically gendered events such as afternoon tea and a football match, at least people would have had a free choice and I bet in a large office they wouldn't be a 100% gender split.

Kynthia

ReadingTim wrote: »

Poorly worded, but given the civil service has a reputation for being somewhat 'pale, male and stale', women-only networking groups/events are no less a minority group than (say) ethnic-minority only networking groups, or LGBT groups; and no less valid to include or exclude those who don't, as well as do, fall within their remit.

I assume that any such LGBT groups that you might be involved with are similarly inclusive in respect of heterosexual participation? Or is "just for the heterosexuals" bad, but "just for the gays" ok?!?

Officially sanctioned groups designed to support minority groups or address under-representation in senior ranks having work-related events which members of those groups can choose to attend is not the same thing. There was no good reason for an office meal to exclude one gender.

TELLIT01

Despite it being mentioned in the first sentence, I had missed the fact that it was Civil Service. Now I am not in the least surprised it happened, and happened in the way it did. From my experience many managers aren't just on a different planet, they inhabit a different universe.
That said, what would the reaction have been had the event been a 'Ladies Night' at a club or a Spa evening. Would the OP still expect to be invited?

Marvel1

Social event after work, agree it should have been sent to women only but OP I think you over reacted.

gettingtheresometime

robatwork wrote: »

Can I just clarify - is (was) this a meal funded by the staff themselves, or by us (the taxpayers) or by the manageress?

& this I think is the crucial bit.

I'm just wondering as well was the email sent on a group email address eg Team 1 as opposed to joe bloggs, jane bloggs,etc ?

If it was the former could it be that this was a girls night & the manager used the group email address so that no one was forgotten?

Les79

Kynthia wrote: »

Wow I'm shocked! Well done for saying something. I work in the public sector and wouldn't expect something like that.

I think it's wrong to have two events split by gender for more than one reason. However to not even organise an event for the men but dismissively tell them to sort themselves out is insulting.

Hmm, well bear in mind that a woman organising a women's only event may well struggle to organise a male only event by mere virtue that they won't be eligible to attend said event. In that case, I'm not convinced that floating the "male only" idea out to colleagues (in the hopes that a male could pick the idea up) is an inherently bad approach. Seems fairly ok to me and certainly NOT insulting.

The way I think it should be done, if they wanted to do something they suspect many wouldn't like to do, would be to advertise two events open to all and let everyone decide which they'd like to attend. Even if they were typically gendered events such as afternoon tea and a football match, at least people would have had a free choice and I bet in a large office they wouldn't be a 100% gender split.

Possibly a good idea. One thing which would worry me is that, for example, two "football match" events may well result in BOTH events being dominated by males. In such a scenario, it would probably be better setting up 1x Male and 1x Female one, unless you can convince mixed gender games?


Personally, I see nothing wrong with segregating genders for certaian ideas (more so if it makes otherwise "male" or "female" events more accessible to the opposite sex) as long as there are also mixed events too.

zagfles

Similar thing happened at the place I used to work at many years ago, except it wasn't a manager organising it, it was an ordinary staff member and she only sent it to the women making it clear it was a "girls night out".

But of course the rest of us heard about it, so I decided to organise a "boys night out" the same night. One of the women got chatting to us about what we were doing and she said that it sounds much more fun than the "girls" night out, so we invited her to join us. She did and had a great time! The woman organising the "girls night" was well p'eed off! But couldn't really explain why :rotfl:

[Deleted User]

I agree, it's wrong. I really admire you for having the courage to stand up and say something.

Brynsam

Massive overreaction to something which really isn't that important. First world 'problem'...