Now, if a girl made me uncomfortable in some way because of some advance or because she was staring uncomfortable at me in some way, I would let her know.
Is it worth my friend losing her job over this? Or should she just suck it up and deal with it as a cost of admission to the table?
The culture that doesn't fight the little things ultimately builds a foundation for the outrageous things. But how do you stamp out the little things without sounding crazy?
You're absolutely right, it's hard. It's tough. And I don't have any answers. :(
men have negative consequences from confrontation too... its just unfortunate that they are often raised in a way that makes them more comfortable to make that trade off and deal with the consequences than women ('being a man about it')
few things are more universally supported in today's world than a woman asking for a man to not sexually harass her. if she loses her job over this there will be a queue of lawyers waiting to take the case to tribunal for an easy paycheque...
telling men not to stare at boobs does make them feel bad, and it should, its how they learn their lesson. if nobody tells them, nothing changes.
should men have to champion this cause? isn't that just even more belittling to women, as if they are somehow ill equipped to assert their rights?
if its some important customer its different. in those cases /everyone/ has to put up with all kinds of crap to do their job. this is professionalism in its original sense (not to be confused with wearing smart clothes to work), again, we shouldn't lower the bar for women... that's demeaning too imo.
one last thing. why is it the male perspective to stand up for yourself and hold your own? i.e. to tell them to stop? isn't this sexism? even more so, isn't this one of those little things that allows the outrageous to happen?
1. The men who struggle with this the most are also tend to be men who are dismissive to women or have other communication issues with women. Extreme example: if a man thinks it's okay to smack a female coworker on the ass, do you actually think that man is going to listen to a woman's opinion? He'll think she's being a "bitch" or "uptight" or whatever. Of course 99.99% of incidents aren't that extreme but there is a big need for men to guide other men in the right direction.
2. Women still face a "damned if they do, damned if they don't" dilemma when it comes to asserting themselves. If they don't, they're seen as meek or unable to compete. If they do they're often branded as "bossy" or "bitchy."
3. Not generally an issue in white collar work but there are situations where a woman may not feel physically safe confronting a male coworker. This can obviously be an issue for anybody, male or female, but men do tend to be physically larger and stronger.
4. Power imbalance. Men still hold a majority of management positions and make more money on average. Take any random male worker and any random female worker and more often than not the man will be above the woman in the corporate structure. I am sure you can agree that confronting somebody above you in the power structure is a lot harder.
When we have real gender equality, most of these issues will fade away. In the meantime there is work for men to do.
you highlight issues that society needs to resolve very astutely.
Maybe try "apples to bananas"?