narcissistzero

A naughty tale of sexual harassment?

My sister, we'll call her Fred, is a human resources manager for a rather large company here in Florida. Fred hired a really attractive woman for a manager position, we'll call her... Steve. Steve wears short skirts and strappy heels to work sometimes and when told to dress more professionaly has stated "I like to feminine, it's not innapropriate to dress like a woman."

Steve was giving a presentation the other day and when questioned about the validity of a certain application she had to pause and catch her thoughts, then proceeded to answer. When she finally did, she made the joke "you almost made me sweat on that one." Her joke was followed by a male coworker saying "I'd love to see you sweat" which then resulted in a lot of laughter and in my sister Fred's opinion "losing the entire presentation, getting completely off track."

So my sister demoted her from her manager position. She said that Steve could not manage her staff because they only thought of her as a sex object and that was her fault, since she dressed innapropriately (strappy sandals, no stockings) and made comments that my sister Fred considered "slutty."

Who is wrong in this twisted tale of modern office politics? Should the men be expected to ignore the woman's attractiveness? Should any comment to her be considered harassment and innapropriate, even if she enjoys them? Was she "asking for it" by showing off her legs and feet? Was my sister being a bitch? Was she being professional?

The debate rages on...