This chat leaves me speechless
Talking about sport at work excludes women, says head of bosses’ group Fill your boots, but not near my desk
CHATTING about football at work should be sidelined as it can exclude women, says the head of a bosses’ group.
The Chartered Management Institute’s Ann Francke also believes sports banter is a “gateway” to more boorish, laddish culture.
Ms Francke told BBC radio: “It’s very easy for it to escalate from VAR [video assistant refereeing] talk and chat to slapping each other on the back and talking about their conquests at the weekend.” But her claim that match analysis and office punditry left women out in the cold provoked a fierce backlash from both sexes.
TV sports host Jacqui
Oatley called it a terrible and divisive idea that would discourage workers from talking to each other.
One woman tweeted:
“This is like saying chatting about shopping can lead to girly behaviour like crying or cuddling kittens.”
A man posted that women in his office regularly chat about sport and “this sexist remark from Ann Francke is nonsense”.
Ms Francke defended her position by saying that all team members should feel included and comfortable in workplace chats.
CMI boss Ann Francke
Footie talk in the office
WOMAN TWEETER ON ANN FRANCKE’S COMMENT ABOUT SPORT
Tell us what you think:
MAN’S VIEW BILL BORROWS
SO, one minute Barry and Steve are discussing another VAR-assisted decision in favour of Liverpool and the next they are smashing empty beer cans on their foreheads and bragging about threesomes. You see it everywhere.
According to Ms Francke, this dangerous “banter” excludes women.
Let’s ask Karen and Sandra over by the water-cooler. “Oh yes,” say the equally improbable stereotypes. “Barry and Steve are notorious for talking about football. Sometimes we have to stop baking cakes and faking orgasms to tell them to stop.”
WOMAN’S VIEW JULIE McCAFFREY
MEN (and it usually is) can fill their boots with as much sport chat as they like – preferably a long way away from my desk. Because it’s eye-rollingly boring. Not to mention all the blokey backslapping and mick-taking that goes with it, which only serves to remind us that men’s brains are so much simpler than our own.
Because even the most committed female sports fans can move on at the final whistle – while two hours later men are still reeling off all the other dodgy decisions since the 1963 League Cup.
And from that you can count me out.
This is like saying chatting about shopping can lead to girly behaviour like crying