Reply to Are you okay with your husband going out drinking and dining alone with other women?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My husband works mainly with women (he's a writer) and goes out to lunch with his colleagues one on one and in groups in which he's the only man all the time.  I work mainly with men (I'm an attorney) and go out to lunch with male colleagues all the time.

If I decided that I couldn't eat alone with men I would have torpedoed my career as a law student.  Such an attitude is unbelievably privileged to me.  To have the ability to declare that you will never eat alone with a member of the opposite sex?  Wow.  I wish I had the luxury of telling my bosses that.  I believe the entire Price Waterhouse sex discrimination case (back in the 80's) was about the fact that career contacts are not just made in the office, they are made in social contexts as well.[/quote]

This is pretty much our situation, albeit with different jobs.  I work for a large defense firm.  I'm alone with male collegues all the time--and often on business trips.  I would be VERY angry if one of them told me he couldn't eat dinner with me because his wife wouldn't allow it.[b]  In fact, I think that might be an HR discussion.[/b]

Anyway, I generally only socialize in the work sense without my husband and vice versa, but it's definitely a gray area since it sometimes includes dinners, happy hours, charity functions, etc.  [/quote]

Huh?  I agree that it's kind of extreme for someone to not participate in work-related events for that reason.  But I don't see how HR could compel someone to have dinner with you.  There's no obligation for an employee to have a one-on-one meal with another employee.  [/quote]

Refusing to be in your presence alone based on your gender while on work assignmnets?  Perhaps it depends on where you work, but at my company you can't just say that, especially if you are the boss--you either eat dinner with everyone or noone.  You can't pick and choose.

"Gee, I'm sorry, my xxxxx doesn't want me to have dinner with African-Americans/Men/etc".  That doesn't really work.[/quote]

I said I can see if it's a work-related dinner.  But if you are just traveling for work and the dinner itself isn't part of the work event, then, no, HR can't make you have dinner with someone.  Example:  Susy and Johnny are both sent to a convention.  They have some business lunches planned, but they are free to do whatever they want for dinner.  If Johnny doesn't want to eat dinner with Susy and have drinks, then that's his own business.

That's what the PP was talking about, being on a business trip and suggesting she'd be irritated if her coworker didn't want to have dinner with her.  [/quote]

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