Are you a business woman, possibly traveling, and do you have meetings at business clients’ offices? Then I bet you know “him” just too well: the male client who is getting too personal just because you’re a woman. The one who is starting to flirt with you. And when you want to tell a client to get off the subject of personal life, you may be considered to be unfriendly. But really you aren’t in his office to make friends, instead, to do a service you were hired to do.

This might be an over-sensitive subject for me, but I also know I am not the only woman who has these feelings. We have long been out of the evolutionary trap where we were kept barefoot and pregnant and in the work force. Many successful women in business today have planned out college and career, putting off marriage and having children until a certain age or goal has been achieved.

It still seems we get singled out because we have chosen this path in life. Many people wonder why we aren’t married, and we become the subject of gossip and ridicule. Especially if we choose not to allow our personal life into the stictly-business conversation.

Even though most of us would love to have a significant other, and children to come home to, people just don’t seem to get it:

Should Any Woman Have To Put Up With This?

1. dirty jokes
2. unnecessary touching
3. comments on physical attributes
4. being called babe
5. crude and offensive language

Now these are five that I have had to deal with in the past year. I do not consider myself a prude, and with my friends I am more laid back, but with a client, i.e. when I’m on business, I feel it crosses the line. Yet most of the time, it is done to see my reaction.

Still it doesn’t belong in the work environment.

Women have come a long way. We have started our businesses and climbed up the corporate ladder, usually fighting off this bullshit all the way. The sad thing is, even with harassment laws it is still going on.

I know my business attire is has changed drastically since my twenties - also due to this issue with clients. Hem lines longer, pants not so tight and jackets longer. The thing is, I still weigh the same and nothing has shifted physically; only the need not to attract attention to my body has increased.

The Problem With Problematic Clients

It’s tricky: if you work for an employer and go running to your boss with a problem like this, he or she may feel you can’t handle the job - now that’s for men and women; in business, you have to be able to handle yourself. Then, of course, unless there have been previous complaints about this particular client, it is your word against his, and he will probably deny it or say it was a misunderstanding - - and you will be labeled as a troublemaker (among other not so nice labels).

Women In Business Still Are On A Short Leash.

Especially in finance, for one. I haven’t seen any woman swiftly get promoted over a man, even if she is more deserving of the job. It happens too seldomly, and when it does, rumors start as to whom she has been sleeping with. The need of equality for women in business is still present in 2008. Now I do love my work, but I hate when I am not taken seriously.

Ironically, some men may have the bigger brains in the larger head, but think with the smaller one too often. I am I being too harsh ? I don’t think so. I know I am not alone when I say I have busted my butt to get where I am today and achieved a masters, as well as starting my own agency. I feel I deserve respect, and if I don’t get it, I demand it.

As women in business, why are we subjected to this sort of distraction and unprofessionalism - one, by men, and two, by women who are at the top? Did they never experience this behavior from male colleagues?

Is it because of the old adage that it is a man’s world, and men have been in charge more than women over the years. Does this happen only here in the States? Perhaps we aren’t ready to make a change yet.

In other parts of the world, women have run countries as well as companies on a much larger scale than in the U.S.

So What Do We Do?

When a male client, or a business partner of yours, uses one of the five characteristics of backwardness I mentioned above, don’t just blow it off or ignore it. Confront him immediately and tell him! You do not share his interests, and his remarks are not welcome. You are doing a job and you expect him to do his as an adult, and conduct himself in a gentlemanly fashion, or you will speak to his superior.

It can start off as simple as “how do you stay so fit”. From there, the comments start - if you aren’t careful, he will be asking you, “how do you keep your butt so tight?”

Now this might be flattering to you, but remember you are not there to discuss your fitness regiment, or your butt, for that matter. What starts small, can quickly become a case of sexual harassment at work. No one should have to deal with that.

So it is for sure that unwanted attention for women in business still exists. The thing to remember here is: as a business woman, once you allow this behavior, or take part in it with anyone who is connected to your job, you will have open season for this behavior from men.