‘Talking about sport at work excludes women and leads to laddish behaviour,’ warns management body

[Metaphor]

All emphasis below mine.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...-chartered-management-institute-a9303881.html

Talking about sport in the workplace should be limited because it can leave women feeling excluded, a management body has warned.

According to Ann Francke, head of the Chartered Management Institute, discussing activities such as football or cricket in the office could also lead to “laddish behaviour” or harmful banter between colleagues.

“A lot of women, in particular, feel left out,” Francke told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“They don’t follow those sports and they don’t like either being forced to talk about them or not being included in the conversation.”

Francke clarified that she has “nothing against” sports fans, describing them as “great”.

“But the issue is many people aren’t cricket fans,” she added.

“If you permit that kind of banter, you are excluding people and your job as a leader is to include them.”

You know what I do when people in my team are talking about something I'm not interested in? My work.

Francke said discussions surrounding the merits of video assistant refereeing (VAR) could be particularly exclusionary if people don’t know what that is.

“It’s a gateway to more laddish behaviour and – if it just goes unchecked – it’s a signal of a more laddish culture,” she continued.
“It’s very easy for it to escalate from VAR talk and chat to slapping each other on the back and talking about their conquests at the weekend.”

The other day I started talking about refereeing to a friend and it was such a gateway drug to unalloyed self-disclosure, I spent the next four hours describing my sexual history to everyone in the lunch room.

Sports broadcaster Jacqui Oatley argued the opposite and said that curtailing sports chatter at work would be a “terrible idea”.

“If you ban football chat or banter of any description, then all you’re going to do is alienate the people who actually want to communicate with each other,” she said.

“It would be so, so negative to tell people not to talk about sport because girls don’t like it or women don’t like it, that’s far more divisive.”

I don't think it goes far enough. We need to ban all people from talking about all possible subjects women are less likely to be interested in.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

That's actually pretty funny. I guess I can relate. People in my office like to talk about the latest tv shows and movies. I watch none of them so I am left out and should complain I am being excluded? I need to bring this up and watch the eyes roll. Haha

 

[Tigers!]

I do nothing on the weekends so we should ban talk about what people did on the weekends.

 

[Metaphor]

That's actually pretty funny. I guess I can relate. People in my office like to talk about the latest tv shows and movies. I watch none of them so I am left out and should complain I am being excluded? I need to bring this up and watch the eyes roll. Haha

No. You are a man so it doesn't matter if you are excluded. Men have systemic power in the labour market and your exclusion is meaningless.

 

[krypton iodine sulfur]

Interpersonal dynamics are important in many workplaces. Inclusion can have returns for business in terms of collaboration, insight and innovation. It makes sense to look at the dynamics in your workplace to see if there are weak points leading to the exclusion and isolation of some, or people cliques. I know many think that's high school shit, but it seems to happen at all ages in my experience.

The extent to which sports talk, specifically, is a concern? The extent to which it concerns gender? I don't know. Probably depends on the place and the people. I think it's contrived to focus on that one topic even if it is commonly an issue. It's not the root of the problem. Still, I do acknowledge the issue regarding inclusion and workplace conversation. Franke said she doesn't believe sports talk should be banned, but rather moderated. I'd be interested to know how she thinks it should be moderated. A few articles mention cracking down on it, but it's not a direct quote so I don't know if she actually said that or what it would mean in practice. I haven't heard the interview.

I don't really agree with the point on escalation. Perhaps there is some concern with people getting too into conversation and mistaking the office for the pub, but if that's the case then there are bigger issues to address with such employees than sports talk.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well, this always happens.
The guys and girls that care about sports have conversations that others cannot really contribute to.

The parents have conversations the unhindered cannot really contribute to.

Those of us who remember Nixon have conversations where younger people's contribution is '19xx? I was in 3rd grade!' which is why my manager's official age is 'Shut the fuck up!' years old.

The nerds can go on and on and on about details in a fantasy movie, or scifi series, or why Miss Peregrine's figure comes with a crossbow and a peregrine (No, she doesn't shoot the bird, she IS the bird) that many of the sportball people won't participate in...

I can see wanting people to be aware of the tendency to exclude others, and keep it in mind when recounting how their fantasy league team performed over the weekend. But then again, having conversations about things that interest us and expand our lives beyond the office are probably crucial to limiting the number of workplace freakouts.

 

[Metaphor]

I don't really agree with the point on escalation. Perhaps there is some concern with people getting too into conversation and mistaking the office for the pub, but if that's the case then there are bigger issues to address with such employees than sports talk.

A standard tactic for feminists is to posit a causal relationship between behaviour they don't like (and want banned) to another behaviour that has more widespread agreement is harmful.

For example, feminists want to curtail all sexist jokes told by men, even when the jokes are amongst men only. Feminists have the social wherewithall to recognise that banning private conversations doesn't generally get widespread support, and they have the mental ability to realise that somebody hearing a sexist joke won't turn a non-rapist into a rapist. So instead, they imagine that men on the edge of being rapists get validated when they hear sexist jokes and this is just enough to turn them into rapists. So, telling sexist jokes enables rape, because rapists hear them and get validated, so all men need to stop telling sexist jokes because rapists exist. Women don't need to stop telling sexist jokes, of course, because women have no systemic power and in any case women are incapable of raping men.

Sport talk shits me to tears. It's boring and I don't care. But I've got no moral right or justification to stop people talking about what they like to each other, and neither does management.

(Unless, of course, banning a subject is for the perceived benefit of women. Then it's a moral obligation to do so).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You know what I do when people in my team are talking about something I'm not interested in?

Change the subject to complain about overreaching feminism?

 

[laughing dog]

It is not clear from the cited article if the comment about "permit" is about the consequences of sports "banter" in the office or if it is a suggestion to ban it. In either case, this institute makes a valid specific point especially in a work place which is dominated numerically by men.

More importantly, it makes a valid general point that is applicable to any type of "banter" that excludes co-workers - that it might inhibit workplace cohesion. So, it may make sense from that POV for a "leader" to consider measures to promote workplace cohesion and to work to diminish feelings of exclusion.

In any event, the institute is not a government agency nor is it claiming such banter ought to be banned everywhere. At worst, it is making a suggestion for banning that any "leader" in a business can choose to make. Nowhere does the OP article suggest anything about moral rights.

If I were a "leader", and I thought that my workplace had too much exlusionary"banter" (of any type), I think I would have a quiet word with some of the participants and ask them to consider that they might be other co-workers who feel excluded from such banter.

I find the claim that management has no justification to stop people talking about what they like to each other to be incredibly ignorant of the realities of the business. Do employees have the right to talk about sexually harassing a co-worker or how they are going to shortchange or abuse customers just because they like to?

What I find incredibly ironic is that there are reactions that mimic the very feelings of exclusion that the OP article cites.

 

[ruby sparks]

I don't think it goes far enough. We need to ban all people from talking about all possible subjects women are less likely to be interested in.

I do think her comments were awry, but she herself wasn't talking about a ban:

“My point is this shouldn't be banned, that's not what I’m saying. I’m saying that if you’re a leader of an organisation, or of a team, part of your job as a good leader is to be inclusive and make sure everybody feels comfortable".


To balance it up, she could have said that in workplace/teamwork situations where there are more women compared to men, that the women should be careful not to exclude the men by talking about...stuff women are more interested in. Off the top of my head...nursing?

Anns Francke is probably talking about the much more common scenario where men predominate.

 

[repoman]

What about having lots of different cultures from high levels of new immigration (second generation can be very bilingual). Like having them talk in their language among themselves a lot. That doesn't seem cohesive.

A guy I know who works in a kitchen is either around all chinese or all hispanic cliques. He does not have many conversations.

 

[ronburgundy]

So the OP is against Capitalism or managements consultants? This is nothing other than a for profit management consulting firm who are paid to advise other for profit companies on "team building" crap to increase their profits.

I agree that most "team building" and much of business consulting is snake oil pseudo-psychology nonsense and that corporate managers are often idiots who buy into it.

 

[thebeave]

What about having lots of different cultures from high levels of new immigration (second generation can be very bilingual). Like having them talk in their language among themselves a lot. That doesn't seem cohesive.

A guy I know who works in a kitchen is either around all chinese or all hispanic cliques. He does not have many conversations.

Yep. That is the ultimate form of exclusion. But to complain about that makes you racist in today's world, so nobody goes there.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

There was some dude at my office who was talking about his kids the other day. I don't know his kids, so I felt excluded from the conversation so I had him fired and deported.

Serves the asshole right.

 

[Toni]

I'm not sure what is meant by 'laddish behavior' or 'making people uncomfortable.'

Talking about sports or television or books or childrearing or cooking or whatever when there are people who are not interested in these things can make someone feel left out. That sounds like a personal problem to me.

OTOH, if leadership gathers together to enjoy a typically male only or typically female only (outliers of course!) activity where work is discussed and bonds are formed and an unspoken path to leadership and promotions is formed---that is a problem. And it's a problem whether the activity is predominately male oriented or predominately female oriented.

A good leader helps all to feel part of the group, and valued whether they are on the cricket team or follow rugby or fashion or dog breeding or whatever or not.

If the 'laddish behavior' mentioned is meant to indicate that some significant subset of men who talk rugby or football or whatever start acting like teenage boys in a post game locker room under heavy influence of a cascade of hormones that drives them to snap towels at each other, rough house at work, and to talk about women's boobs or whatever: clearly that behavior is objectionable and needs to be stopped.

It might be tempting to insist that at work, one only discuss work related topics but honestly, people work harder when they are working for people and with people that they care about in some way and it's rare that it is the actual work that forges those relationships. OTOH, it also shouldn't be shared misogyny or racism that forges those relationships.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I think its somewhat sexist to dress this up as a male vs female issue. There are plenty of women who are into sports and there are plenty of men who are not. Just because you are male doesn't mean you're included in this conversation and just because you're female doesn't mean you are not.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If the 'laddish behavior' mentioned is meant to indicate that some significant subset of men who talk rugby or football or whatever start acting like teenage boys in a post game locker room under heavy influence of a cascade of hormones that drives them to snap towels at each other, rough house at work, and to talk about women's boobs or whatever: clearly that behavior is objectionable and needs to be stopped.

It might be tempting to insist that at work, one only discuss work related topics but honestly, people work harder when they are working for people and with people that they care about in some way and it's rare that it is the actual work that forges those relationships. OTOH, it also shouldn't be shared misogyny or racism that forges those relationships.

I think the paper was more like "This is something we should considered when developing a cohesive working group" and was presented as "Talking about whether Klopp can help lead Liverpool to an undefeated season will lead to belching and fart jokes and must be stopped!" So, like in so many cases of some people here, nothing to see here.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think its somewhat sexist to dress this up as a male vs female issue. There are plenty of women who are into sports and there are plenty of men who are not. Just because you are male doesn't mean you're included in this conversation and just because you're female doesn't mean you are not.

Thank you Captain Contrary.

 

[laughing dog]

I think its somewhat sexist to dress this up as a male vs female issue. There are plenty of women who are into sports and there are plenty of men who are not. Just because you are male doesn't mean you're included in this conversation and just because you're female doesn't mean you are not.

Thank you Captain Contrary.

I think it is more "Captain Miss the Point".

 

[Derec]

I guess this Ann Francke doesn't find anything objectionable about female employees talking about things more women than men are interested in.

Typical feminist double standard ...