3w ago

UK | Man loses sex discrimination claim after boss says ‘sorry boys’ at awards do

www.theguardian.com Man loses sex discrimination claim after boss says ‘sorry boys’ at awards do

Nathan Blakeley lodged claim after comment made by boss when female colleague won award at the company party

Nathan Blakeley lodged claim after comment made by boss when female colleague won award at the company party

Archived version: https://archive.is/newest/https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/feb/05/male-marketing-executive-loses-sex-discrimination-claim-over-company-awards

Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.

12 comments

Yes, it's as dumb as the title makes it sound.

~~Unless the dude was complaining about his boss being a misogynist weirdo for making that comment, both suck.~~
Nevermind, boss is a woman this guy can eat shit. (Also yes I am aware of the irony of me making the assumption boss was a dude)
- 95% of the employees are women. I would say the comment could be construed as bad taste but not something to sue over.

The director Megan Robertson told the tribunal: “When I read out the results for one of the award categories, I introduced it by referring to ‘she’ and then went on to say ‘sorry boys’. Given that approximately 95% of the workforce is female, this was not statistically surprising.”
So if men only make up 5% of the workforce, why single them out at the awards ceremony🤔 did she apologise to the other women who didn’t win? After all it’s not statistically surprising that only one person wins.
Sounds like the boss needlessly injected gender into the contest.
- Gender was needlessly injected by the English language, which requires gendered pronouns. The boss had no choice about referring to the winner as "she", she just chose to comment on it.
  
  Did she not have the gender-neutral pronoun 'they' in her lexicon?
- If you read the article you would have seen that she said "sorry boys" after inadvertently revealing the winner was female during the build up to announcing the winner. A bit lame and infantilising, probably, but it was a marketing exec saying it so what can you expect?

12 comments