There's no sound quite like it.
Shrill in pitch, produced high in the throat and infused with disbelief and disgust, the nervous laughter that fires out of my mouth when I'm on the receiving end of an inappropriate comment has a distinct undertone of discomfort.
A woman who's been in the workplace for more than a day will have found her own unique way of conveying "Ugh, you've got to be kidding me!" in a professional manner.
A girls' night conversation last weekend revealed that one friend favors a dismissive eye roll, another gives a death glare. Other tactics include gritting teeth, sternly crossing the arms and a refusal to acknowledge the comment.
But what should really make us feel uncomfortable is that we had so many stories of raunchy jokes, crude remarks, suggestive glances and questionable e-mails to go around the table multiple times. These experiences seem to be workplace standards, too common in occurrence to warrant a firm "That's sexual harassment and I don't have to take it."
If we ran to the human resources department every time a comment creeped us out, we'd never get any work done. It's easier to brush it and be done with it. A stack of paperwork or a declarative statement shouldn't be necessary to notify someone competent enough to function in a professional role that his behavior is unacceptable.
A friendly office environment can be stimulating for a worker's productivity and happiness, but it shouldn't stimulate overly friendly behavior. And women shouldn't be forced to craft ways to deal with it.
The general reaction when ESPN reporter Erin Andrews was filmed in the nude through a peephole in her hotel room was, "That's horrible! She pretty much asked for it, though." The afterthought isn't a result of a woman's professionalism or work ethic. It stems from the mentality that women don't belong in the same jobs as men.
There are even some women who still believe that.
In her blog on the U.S. News & World Report Web site, Bonnie Erbe says women who support and participate in "male sports culture" shouldn't be surprised "when something bad emanates from it."
Maybe all those Mad Men episodes are going to our heads. The TV show set in the '60s depicting men whose main job responsibility seems to be working the secretarial staff shows how much things have changed since women became a presence in the workforce.
But that chauvinistic mindset seems to have remained permanently ingrained.
