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Comment by sockgrant | Hacker News Reader

> In a casual work environment people often do light exercise

Could you elaborate on this? In the work environments I've been in, people go to the gym or outside to work out. I've never been in a work environment where it's acceptable to do your exercising in the office space. What are you talking about -- yoga, bicep curls, jogging, jumping jacks? I've worked at extremely liberal companies but that kind of stuff doesn't happen..

> and they need to feel comfortable to do that without being turned into sex objects

I don't think it's a person's right to hula hoop in an office and then be upset when they attract the attention of the rest of the office, regardless of sex on both sides. It's an unusual thing to do, so it will draw eyes.

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> I've never been in a work environment where it's acceptable to do your exercising in the office space. What are you talking about -- yoga, bicep curls, jogging, jumping jacks?

My workplace has people doing yoga and dance classes in meeting rooms over lunch.

And if you started hanging around the meeting rooms to ogle the people doing it you'd be having some conversations about your workplace behaviour.

> And if you started hanging around the meeting rooms to ogle the people doing it

There's no way to prove or disprove the fact that they were 'ogling' rather than merely watching though - Horvath's judgement was likely biased by how upset she was with everybody else's (fuck, mine would be if I'd been as epically shat on by an employer as she felt she had been) and we don't have any other data.

> I've never been in a work environment where it's acceptable to do your exercising in the office space.

I've done some minor (sedentiary) exercises in the office. For something that requires a bit more space, I wouldn't do it next to someone's desk of course. I don't know what Githib's office layout is like, but the way I read the hula hooping, it sounded like it was outside, in a courtyard or roof terrace maybe, or in a recreation area.

> It's an unusual thing to do, so it will draw eyes.

There's still a big difference between attention and gawking.

I've seen plenty of other recreational activities in offices, like playing darts, pool, computer games, etc. I don't see hula hooping as particularly out of the ordinary. And gawking at your co-workers is just rude.

Definitely.

I think Julie should have spoken to both groups, telling the guys it's not cool to gawk at women, and tell the women if they want to hula hoop, do it some place more private.

> and tell the women if they want to hula hoop, do it some place more private.

Indeed. And just in case men still gawked at them, she could have brought some free niqab to work for them to wear.

http://www.jesusandmo.net/strips/2013-09-18.png

Eh, I think you missed my point.

The point of talking to the women isn't to help the men exercise better restraint (which extrapolated to an extreme would require a niqab).

It's that if the women are doing something in the office, out in the open that people stopping to watch would make other people feel uncomfortable, then perhaps it shouldn't be done out in plain view of everyone.

Like, if you are trying to have a private conversation with your Dr on the phone about your recent herpes outbreak, don't talk in the lunchroom and get pissed that I listened in.

We can come up with counter examples, and/or take things to the extreme, however my point is that exercising some restraint and a little professionalism would make situations like this non existent.

No, I got your point quite clearly. If hula hooping women make you uncomfortable, that's unfortunate, but also totally your problem. Ditto breastfeeding and suchlike.

Clearly you did not.

> If hula hooping women make you uncomfortable

It wasn't women hula hooping made someone feel uncomfortable.

It was men "gawking" at the women hula hooping, that made Julie Horvath feel uncomfortable.

I hope you understand the difference.

> If hula hooping women make you uncomfortable, that's unfortunate, but also totally your problem. Ditto breastfeeding and suchlike.

Tangentially related--another key point you're missing, this is an office.

No one should have to feel uncomfortable at the workplace, because the office is for people to work and be productive, not hula hoop.

Things like hula hooping (I'm guessing), yoga, tai chi, Zumba, etc, are there to improve worker productivity. If these programs run counter to that and actually hinder productivity by making some employees feel uncomfortable, then those programs may not be the right fit for the workplace.

> No one should have to feel uncomfortable at the workplace

I think you're wrong about that.

What about religious fundamentalists uncomfortable with gay people?

What about conservatives uncomfortable with breastfeeding?

What about chauvinists uncomfortable with women in leadership positions?

There is no right to 'not feel uncomfortable'. There is no right to 'not to feel offended'.

What you have to do is choose who you are going to offend.

if we reverse the genders, do you think no woman would complain (or just gawk) if she saw this happening in the office

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrA5zL9u5NE&feature=player_de...

Gawk? Quite possibly. Complain? One* ex-colleague of mine was gay, and he'd have been rendered temporarily incapacitated by that, I suspect.

But the point is that hula-hooping, or shirtless weight-lifting, shouldn't be prohibited just because some people gawk and others are made uncomfortable.

If you want to sexualise hula-hooping or weight-lifting, fine, just don't use that point of view as the basis of a complaint.

* many were; it's just he was the guy I was thinking of for this example

> But the point is that hula-hooping, or shirtless weight-lifting, shouldn't be prohibited just because some people gawk and others are made uncomfortable.

You believe it's okay for people to be at the office without their shirts on?

Where do you draw the line-- what behaviors should be prohibited at the office, simply because they might make others uncomfortable?

yep, lets throw a shirt on to make it acceptable so nobody would gawk in a office

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzkCA5EyRDQ&feature=player_de...

Surely that is the job of HR?

Yah, and/or Management/Leadership.

I think the point here is that they failed at their job so many times that Horvath gave up on it.

> Could you elaborate on this?

I've seen yoga, weights, and those things you compress, basically stuff to get the blood flowing again. Hoola hooping is probably a bit more admittedly, but not that extreme. Especially since it sounds like it was happening outside.

> I don't think it's a person's right to hula hoop in an office and then be upset when they attract the attention of the rest of the office, regardless of sex on both sides. It's an unusual thing to do, so it will draw eyes.

You are missing the point. Horvath wasn't the one hoola hooping. She was a bystander, and the gawking was making her feel uncomfortable because it implies a work environment where it is ok to sexually objectify your co-workers (or that seems to be how she took it). But this is an(other) HR failure.

> it implies a work environment where it is ok to sexually objectify your co-workers (or that seems to be how she took it)

What? This is a case where two people did something unusual in a work environment and garnered the attention of their coworkers. That's expected. It's unexpected that you think it necessarily implies sexual objectification.

Go stand in the middle of your office tomorrow and hoola hoop. Whatever sex you are, and whatever sex your coworkers are, I promise you'll get looks for long enough to be considered gawking :) If you choose to complain to HR that you were sexually objectified, well, that's up to you.

I'm not saying it Wasn't sexual objectification, just that to gawk at something unusual in the office doesn't necessarily imply sexual objectification.

> This is a case where two people did something unusual in a work environment and garnered the attention of their coworkers. That's expected.

Did this ever say it was in their office? All it said was they were hula-hooping to some music and the response from the bench-full of male employees was embarrassing. If it were outdoors, it wouldn't be unusual.

Either way, in what world do you see something out of the ordinary — but not strange — happening at work and line up to gawk at it?

> It's unexpected that you think it necessarily implies sexual objectification.

It's certainly possible for a bench-full of 20-something programmers to sexually objectify someone. Julie was made to feel uncomfortable, and since she's the best eye witness to the event we've got, there's no reason to doubt her testimony.

Not everything needs to be picked apart. Sometimes, if a bunch of guys are gawking at women, that's what they're doing. You don't need to stick up for them.

> Julie was made to feel uncomfortable, and since she's the best eye witness to the event we've got, there's no reason to doubt her testimony.

Yes, but that testifies only to her personal feelings at that moment, which are not the definitive measure stick for anything.

> Either way, in what world do you see something out of the ordinary — but not strange — happening at work and line up to gawk at it?

Congratulations, you've decided to not look at out of the ordinary things for fear of implications of sexual objectification.

But me -- if weird stuff happens in or outside of my office, I'm gonna watch.

> It's certainly possible for a bench-full of 20-something programmers to sexually objectify someone

My last comment said "I'm not saying it Wasn't sexual objectification,"

> Julie was made to feel uncomfortable, and since she's the best eye witness to the event we've got, there's no reason to doubt her testimony

The number of witnesses has no bearing on the truth, validity or bias of the statement given by one witness.

> You don't need to stick up for them

I'm not. I'm saying it's too early for those of you championing Julie to get your pitchforks out.

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