Probably shouldn't post while I can still feel the heat of my embarassment, but it's also part anger, and dammit, I shouldn't have to feel this way in any situation, let alone in a meeting at work.
We have team members in another city, and we have weekly meetings with video enabled so everyone can "be in the same room". Which gives us all the opportunity to see ourselves on TV. Today I was noting how far out my highlights have grown and made the comment that the only person who cared about the top of my head was my boyfriend, who is almost a foot taller than I am.
But a couple of the guys in the room stopped hearing me after "...my boyfriend" because they were laughing hysterically, obviously envisioning a sexual scenario in which my boyfriend would be seeing the top of my head. Their laughter was contagious, and I was horrified.
The thing is, there was a day when I would have had a come-back for that and I wouldn't have cared that we were in a team meeting, or that our boss was there with us. But as I learn more about rape culture and the patriarchy, I'm seeing that "harmless" jokes like that A) aren't appropriate in most situations and B) immediately objectify the woman being joked about.
Or am I just embarassed that I didn't think of a come-back quickly enough to use it - to take the power away from them? We joke around in our team meetings all the time. Is it just because I have a sexual assault involving fellatio in my past, or is it the bigger issue of sexual jokes at the expense of a woman? And would it be okay if I wasn't embarassed by it? Is it okay for our sexuality to be hinted at at work? In the company of only certain people? I don't consider sex "dirty" and am comfortable with the fact that I live in an animal body, but does that mean it's always okay to make jokes about it?
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