How? It's the woman pushing back on her boss making a crude remark based on her looks. From my understanding and the newspaper's, the boss was implying the woman had a dick, meaning he thought she looked unfeminine or """mannish""". It is an obscene remark by an authority figure based on a woman's looks, and it should be called out as such. According to the Irish Human Rights and Equality commission:Thats fine and I might agree with termination, but you think it's ok for her to call this sexual harassment? This will do nothing but make it even harder for women to be where they belong imo.
It was a comment of a sexual nature that was humiliating.Sexual harassment is any form of unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature.
In both cases it is defined as conduct which has the purpose or effect of violating a person's dignity and creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for the person and it is prohibited under the Acts.
And what's the alternative if she didn't push back? Your comment about "making it harder for women to fit in" alludes to this idea of "culture fit" that's excused a lot of terrible things over the years. If the corporate culture asks that women tolerate crude comments like the one this executive made, then it should be pushed back upon and be changed to properly accommodate women.