And I don’t think her photo’s all that “stunning,” either. Happy now, Charlotte? And what are you smirking about?
On the left is Alexander Carter-Silk, 57, the head of Brown Rudnick’s intellectual property group in Europe. He had received a LinkedIn request from human rights lawyer Charlotte Proudman, 27, on the right. He responded positively with the friendly comment that he was “delighted to connect,”,adding “I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture !!!” as well as “You definitely win the prize for the best Linked in picture I have ever seen.”
The Horror. For this arguably excessive degree of praise for her posted image, Proudman decided that Carter-Silk must be shamed world-wide. She responded with this A-Bomb rebuke, and shared it on Twitter:
Naturally, Carter-Silk was immediately torn to shreds by a feminist social media mob.
I hope the backlash against Proudman is fierce and merciless. She is a cruel, malevolent, mean-spirited jerk, and I would advise avoiding her, man and woman alike, like human plague she is. She contacted him. He did not find her by trolling the Linked-in photos. His comment was benign, and even if it was not, he deserved, like any of us, the benefit of the doubt. Instead, this self-righteous feminist grievance-seeker decided to shame him for a compliment. She doesn’t know he is sexist based on the single word “stunning”: he could well have been what we call, and I’m sure this isn’t Charlotte’s repertoire, “trying to be nice.” By no definition does complimenting a woman’s photograph constitute misogyny. Eroticization? Saying a photo is “stunning” is eroticization? She needs to get out more. That’s not just hyperbole, it’s fantasy.
All forms of compliments have human interaction benefits, but today this message was a sinister plot to “exercise power over women.” The guy said your picture was “stunning, ” which has no sexual connotation: it usually means “beautiful.” He did not say she was stunning, but that the photo was, as in “Good photographer!” There was no reason to use social media to squash him like a bug. If she was made uncomfortable by the compliment, 1) she needs to take the chip off her shoulder, and 2) she should have nicely responded with something like this:
“Thanks for the including me in your network. I’m sure it wasn’t intended like this, but I was made uncomfortable with your comment about my photo. Thanks, but in the future I’d prefer to leave appearances out of our professional relationship.”
Instead, she implied that he was a dirty old man by mentioning his age.
Carter-Silk was too much of a gentleman, and kow-towed to this feminist thug’s power play. I would not have done this: it only gives awful feminist attack dogs like Proudman license to prowl. He should have written back:
Ms. Proudman: I obviously misjudged your professionalism by agreeing to be in your network. I now withdraw that agreement. Your unjustified and abusive response to my harmless and well-meaning compliment of your photograph shows a dearth of kindness, proportion, fairness and common sense that is shocking in a human rights advocate. I resent your insults and grossly unfair characterizations of my attitude towards you and women in general, and I regard your Twitter post: “How many women@ Linked-In are contacted re appearance rather than prof skills?” deceitful and misleading. You contacted me–maybe it was because of my appearance—and I returned the contact as a collegial courtesy. I would have no way of knowing first-hand about your skills or your lack of them, but I know first hand about your character, and that’s enough. Please move on to your next victim.
Based on this episode, no man, woman or beast should want to work with Charlotte Proudman. If all women were like her, misogyny would be not merely justified, but essential for survival.
______________________
Pointer: Res Ipsa Loquitur
Facts: The Telegraph
Graphic: The Telegraph
Ethics Alarms 
Can you offer him the use of your response? It was poetry.
Could have been a more grievous insult – he could have held a door open for her.
It was always funny in graduate school to watch the Southern male students hold a door open for a female graduate student from the Northeast. Those poor, confused boys would get chewed out for 2-3 minutes for the crime of being nice.
She must be excruciatingly embarrassed every time she says her own name.
She set this up. She is perfectly groomed, well lighted, posed to impress, and from the look in her eye she knows she looks good. She obviously wants to look good. It’s certainly much easier to just let nature take it’s course. Acknowledgement of her efforts should be appreciated. It’s not and the reason is she’s trolling for a reaction to react to.
I don’t think she set it up, but she definitely overreacted.
I got “sort of” complimented today at work — I was dressed for a business meeting but wearing my black-rimmed glasses because my contacts were bothering me – I also was still wearing sandals because I had left my heels in my car. I looked half classy/half frumpy. My boss commented that my look “kind of turned him on.” He was joking — and I KNEW he was joking so I laughed. What he really meant was something along the lines of, “Wow — I hope you pull yourself together for that super important meeting with that Fortune 100 client that we are trying to land.” I suspect that Ms. Proudman would have run straight to HR.
BTW Jack — I disagree with you. Her photo is stunning. I wish I looked that good in my professional photos. I’ve always managed to be: 1) pregnant and puffy; or 2) physically ill during all my sessions.
Oh, I was just being mean for effect, raising the question of whether its safer to say the photo is crap than to compliment it. The amazing thing is that she REALLY looks like THIS….
That’s more typical.
My God. I think I dated her!
Everyone has, at some point.
My hair never looks right…
That’s just wrong on every level. Like being slapped with a mackerel.
So, if YOU told her in a linked-in message that her photo was “stunning,” how would she react?
She would say “thank you.” That’s what most normal people would do, regardless of gender, to that kind of compliment.
BUT, we do have to acknowledge that there is an awful lot of sexual harassment that does happen in the workplace. A LOT. Just my own experiences have been shocking. So, there are women out there who have experienced actual sexual harassment and then assume the worst whenever presented with a normal or more borderline comment. Too bad — I hear there are good counselors out there. Find one.
For me, sexual harassment is similar to pornography in the sense that “you know it when you see it.” Men and women with integrity and good sense know how to create an environment at work that is still full of life and laughter without lines being crossed. That’s the ideal and it’s not that hard. Men need to be a little more careful with their behavior and comments, and women need to know the difference between a compliment and harassment.
One more point — and speaking as a former employment lawyer. Usually men who do sexually harass start off with little compliments here and there, perhaps a legitimate excuse to work late, etc. and THEN it turns into actual harassment down the road. So, it’s quite possible that the man featured in this woman’s bitch session is a serial sexual harasser. Who knows? But you don’t get to make that judgment until he has actually done something wrong.
Great comment Beth, and dead on. In my SH seminars using actors, I have the actors read the same words to a male and females using difference body language, tones and facial expressions. Some times to know it you HAVE to see it.
“…the reason is she’s trolling for a reaction to react to….”.
Of course she was trolling, and, as she expected, got some poor schmuck to bite. Jack’s response would have been perfectly appropriate, and very similar to one I would have issued, save that I would have been nowhere near as gentlemanly.
But she IS pretty….for a British girl.
Ha, google Katherine Jenkins.
See, now SHE’S pretty. To me, most Brit girls look more or less like Linda McCartney. I know Linda McCartney isn’t British, but she LOOKED British. In fact, my guess is that Paul married her because she reminded him of home.
She’s a human rights lawyer, probably steeped and marinated to the fibers in progressive claptrap about how every race, creed, orientation and gender except white Christian hetero males are MOPE (most oppressed people ever). She’s also only a few years out of school and maybe less than three in the real world. Reminds me of these three sisters in college who constantly corrected other people’s language and grammar if it wasn’t gender-inclusive enough for them, or my brother’s old gf, who had skin as thin as parchment, zero sense of humor, and who I finally barred from my home, which may have contributed to him finally ditching the bitch. This woman needs a smack in the face, hard.
I would certainly not recommend a slap, Steve, as tempting as it may be. I do believe Jack’s response would have been ideal.
Exactly what is wrong with complementing someone on their looks? I do believe enough studies have been made that show looks can lead to a more positive presentation. Even height for males has an impact on hiring.
My sister-in-law (a twin of my spouse) routinely rejected males (and still does) that do not match her own specific physical requirements and, of course, her far left politics and the necessary academic credentials. Thankfully, I married the saner twin. And, yes, at age 69 she has never been married.
Nothing wrong with never getting married. Sounds like she wasn’t cut out for it anyway.
She dated several married men. Need I go further with the results of those relationships.
I’d recommend it. Dress up in a Ninja costume and go for it ! You’ll be glad you did. I’ll be glad you did!
He just failed to use trigger warnings is all:
“Hold on tight, sit down, I’m going to give you a compliment and you may get offended by my compliment. You may want to leave the room.”
This is what happens when inculcated pathological pettiness runs its course in a person’s mind, and (in this case, because of a comment about how a photograph of someone looks to one observer) produces a form of paranoia that triggers disproportionate (if even justified) hostility.
I said that the way I meant it: It’s what’s inside the receiver of the communication (not what’s inside the sender, or the content of what the sender sends) that is the trigger and that is “bad.” In my experience, the evangelists of the gospel of warning about, and avoiding, “triggers” generally exhibit more deficiencies in their social skills and ethics literacy than the vast majority of the unwashed heathen whom they call out (or whom they feel they must demonize for the greater good) for so “ignorantly,” “negligently” or “bigotedly” using such so-called triggers.
If I was the hiring manager and Mr. Carter-Silk and Mizz Self-Righteous Scold were both competing for the same job, guess whom I would hire, after learning of the LinkedIn exchange?
All that said, I do think the photo that Carter-Silk commented on is an appropriate photo for networking, and is a positive reflection of the person.
But I refuse to cease commenting with candor in, say, Facebook, on “looks-related information” about family, friends and acquaintances. I regard my refusal as a deliberate and proportionate act of war for the right and winning side, as part of the War on Terror.
On the other hand, when using LinkedIn, I would always be more restrained than Carter-Silk was. But, I would neither discourage nor encourage him, in his future initial connections, to feel completely free to continue saying in honesty any more or less than what he said to The Scold whenever he might happen to receive the positive initial impression that he obviously received.
And for the record, maybe once again: I will never, ever use Twitter. I recommend that no one use it, ever.
I was discussing this case with my Gen-X niece who said that while she agrees that the partner didn’t deserve the treatment, she feels that he was a proper example to make considering how many men in business DO objectify young professional women.
Which makes no sense to me at all.
Have you introduced your niece to Rationalization #27, The Victim’s Distortion (by proxy)? Or is this attitude more like the unfair use of “making an example of” someone who falls, partly and irrelevantly, into a general category.
What gets my goat about this — and my elephant too (and he’s a big one in the room) — is that Carter-Silk’s* “this is probably horrendously politically incorrect” says clearly that she, like him, is a mature, intelligent, rational and discerning human being who understands the rules (even if they’re not his) and knows that entitles him to prove them by breaking one — casually, nicely — when the occasion calls for it.
()
* I’ll bet she took offense at his name, too: it has that auto-hated ethnicity and class to it; it positively drips White and Upper. You know she’s often considered changing the gender in her own name.
I almost forgot that I had removed the word “objectify” from my vocabulary a few years ago.
Seems to me that the attitude that “He’s not guilty of anything, but we have to make an example of somebody and he’s elected” led to some pretty onerous misbehavior during the Jim Crow years. We’re much too civilized to “lynch” someone now, of course. Unless, of course, he compliments a female professional on her choice of profile photograph.
Remember, all white males are guilty. Punishing one for the crimes of another is perfectly acceptable. If you can’t find a genuine example of a crime that you know is rampant, just punish someone for doing something somewhat related.
Starting at Square 1 with this, I’m hard-pressed to come up with a reason why she would include a picture with her profile. If her qualifications are her qualifications, then how can they be enhanced by inclusion of a photo?
The picture wasn’t with her profile. It was full-face.
What irks me about these acts of politically correct idiocy (which are probably set-ups to a large degree) is not only the audacity of the accusers, but the cringing responses they get from their marks. This is exactly what they want, of course. This almost certainly was a power device… but by a woman against a hated businessman, not the reverse. One of the secrets of being a successful man is knowing when to but the “gentleman” aside an call out a weasel like that for what she is. Never try to be nice to those who are blatantly trying to set you up as a target for political abuse. Mr. Carter-Silk should have just told her, “Listen, love-chunks. If you can’t handle a mild complement that no normal woman would take amiss, then I suggest you stay off the internet and, in particular, away from me. And while you’re at it, you might consider a change of address. North Korea might just suit you. Love; Big Daddy.”
Haha, that is perfect!
A human rights lawyer like George Clooney’s ” wife.” Oh boy. How do you make a living as a human rights lawyer? Must have to be independently wealthy.
I dropped facebook and ignore linkdin. I kept getting “come hither” photos of the daughters of guys I’d gone to high school with as people I might want to friend. A little too creepy for me.
Let’s say for the sake of argument he was hitting on her — so what? He has no authority over her and she is free to ignore it.
The odds are that she did not base her reading of his reply on that alone but also on his reputation in the rather small world of the Bar. Whether that makes it worse or better I leave to readers to decide for themselves.
If so, why did she contact him? That’s an unwarranted assumption.
(Donning my Political Feminist hat) I wouldn’t have accepted such an offer from anyone who uses such a highly sexualised photo on their profile.
(See I can play that silly game too, and being 57 rather than 27, might even be better at it. I just prefer not to engage in it, it’s puerile – or puellaile if you prefer)