Asking female colleague if they are going through menopause ‘is not harassment’, tribunal rules | Daily Mail Online
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15545405/Asking-female-colleague-going-menopause-not-harassment-tribunal-rules.html
Posted by CasualSmurf
16 Comments
So calling a bald man bald is harassment, but getting upset and asking a woman if she’s on the menopause isn’t?
Guess as long as they didn’t ask if she had hysteria it’s ok?
‘You’re just acting that way because you’re going through the change’
Disgusting
Sounds like we need an addition to the rule “Never ask a man his salary, or a woman her age”. Or “conduct yourself like a decent person” would be a good one too.
On brand. The Daily Mail loves writing about topical shit like this haha
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A reminder as its clearly needed:
Being insensitive does not constitute harassment. It might mean they are a twat, but that’s it.
I’m laughing at all the comments here and in The Daily Fail [sic] where it’s evident 99% didn’t actually read the article.
Weird outcome here. They rule that it’s not inherently harassment to ask if someone’s going through the menopause if its genuinely meant (which of course is not what the headline implies, shit tribunal journalism as always), but they seem completely credulous when it comes to the manager’s motivations.
Saying “you’re just acting that way because you’re hormonal” is blatantly not an effort to support someone, and she also did win a claim for constructive dismissal because she was victimised following a complaint.
Okay, so it is a bit more nuanced than the headline suggests (as always). If she was being open about her symptoms in order to encourage openness around menopause, then theoretically it should have been okay for peers to raise it when contextually appropriate.
But language matters. “The change?”. Fucks sake. “How is your descent into crone-hood going?”
Apply common sense, nobody gets hurt or upset.
Oh look, another nonsense headline from a British newspaper about a tribunal case.
(First-tier) Employment tribunal cases are highly fact-specific, and do not set any kind of precedent. It would be embarrassingly unprofessional for a national newspaper to make a headline suggesting a tribunal ruling had some broad meaning or application if our newspapers were capable of embarrassment or self-reflection.
The full judgment is [here](https://www.gov.uk/employment-tribunal-decisions/ms-l-waller-v-swann-engineering-group-ltd-6017991-slash-2024) for those interested. It is 30 pages.
The tribunal did not rule that “asking a female colleague if they are going through menopause is not harassment.” The tribunal ruled that *in this case*, *in these specific circumstances*, a person asking their employee about going through menopause was not harassment.
Those circumstances including being in an office situation where there was a history of open and honest discussion about menopause, where the person being asked had shared information about undergoing tests relating to menopause and the results of it, among other things.
Specifically, the tribunal found that while the questions were “insensitive and upsetting” they did not have “the purpose or the effect of violating the Claimant’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the Claimant.”
As always with these cases, this ruling doesn’t mean you can go around asking employees about menopause. It doesn’t mean you cannot. It will be fact-specific.
For completeness, she won her case on constructive dismissal and victimisation, just not on harassment.
Every single case of employment tribunal reporting by the Daily Mail, if you open the actual judges summary. The case is very different than reported. I’m fed up of doing it as I’ve done it on 5 of these articles. The Daily mail will see a comment like it’s not discrimination for the purposes of a ethnicity for someone to enquire about menopause. Or it was a coworker who asked, not management, so not discrimination. Then completely misquote the case for headlines. We should ban these posts or force the tribunal notes to be posted as a pinned comment.
So women can say stuff like “You’re just acting that way because you can’t get hard anymore” right?
“The tribunal found that Ms Waller was not visibly upset by the first comment, and that this was why Mr Gregory made a similar comment later on the same day.”
Translation: Woman held it together in public when humiliated by male colleague, so he, proud of his little joke, came back for another go later on.
I hope he’s slapped in the face by every woman he ever meets in future. Condescending little prick.
From the article:
>’By themselves they would not have been sufficient to amount to a breach of that term’.
>But the judge said that when the comments were ‘taken together’ with two other matters – Ms Waller being placed on a performance improvement plan and being moved to a ‘noisy and smelly’ office next to a workshop – was conduct ‘likely to destroy or seriously damage the trust and confidence’ between Ms Waller and the company.
>As a result, she won a claim for constructive unfair dismissal relating to her being forced into resigning because her boss ‘cold shouldered’ her when he found out she complained about him.
In what way is even asking that of someone necessary?
By that extension any male colleague you can just tell them “you must be going through your midlife crisis” or “oh you must have the male menopause”
This just seems like an excuse to justify workplace sexism
So you done with your monthly bleed from your vagina yet ?
Sound better ?
🙄