Gender Stereotypes And Racist Arguments

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You are a student employee who overhears conversations among your coworkers. While on break, two of your male coworkers usually go off by themselves and smoke a cigarette. These recently hired coworkers are in their first semester and have just graduated from high school. Sometimes you overhear bits and pieces of their conversations. You are concerned that they regularly have conversations that are inappropriate for the workplace. You have overheard these coworkers making crude sexual references about other employees, telling sexist jokes, and sharing images and graphics of a sexist nature on their cell phones. You seek advice on how to handle the situation from others at your workplace. Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens a lot, day…show more content…
Why do you think she distinguishes between sexist remarks and racist remarks? Explain your answer. While I understand Fredia’s advice, I personally disagree with it. Using the adage “boys will be boys” is excusing and validating their bad behavior. A person that so easily dismisses their behavior as innocent probably has a hard time distinguishing between any inappropriate remarks, racist or otherwise. I’ll take this a step further and assume that Fredia probably is going to think any type of discriminatory or inappropriate behavior is okay as long as it wasn’t happening to her. What if the men made inappropriate remarks around or towards Fredia? Her mother? Her sister? Her daughter? I’m sure she would change her song immediately, and if she didn’t- then Frieda and I probably wouldn’t be friends much longer. I can’t relate to someone that would think this type of behavior or joke telling is any less harmful that telling a racist joke etc. This is a common attitude in a lot of areas- “better them than me”. She acknowledges the bad behavior and dismisses it, until it directly affects her. Sadly, this reaction is ignorant, and Fredia fails to see the big picture and her role in it. The issue in this specific case is the fact that these men didn’t keep their behavior private. Sure all people might occasionally behave badly in the privacy of their own homes etc.… However, these men are University employees and while they were on break, they could be overheard by countless others and it reflects upon the student workers and possibly the university as a whole. From a business stand point, these men are representing the University and doing so in a very negative light, imagine a prospective student or parent witnessing this behavior -it is a very

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