* Edit: The comment I was replying to a few posts up was edited, which affected what it looked like I was trying to say, so I deleted my reply.

--------------------------------------------

Your parent comment doesn't make any sense regarding the Sasha Grey remark. I assume you're talking about

>"You look amazing in that bathing suit, like a rock star." -Vic Gundotra, to me, when I was a junior engineer at Google. In Maui.

I agree that may be an inappropriate remark depending on the context, but "yep I/Google evaluate women on the basis of their looks" is complete hyperbole.

Yes that is the comment I was referring to. I am a guy and so I'm not necessarily the best judge of whether that comment would make women feel uncomfortable. But imagine you're sitting there with a bunch of female executives and they are talking about some actor's muscular shoulders and you realize that many of the higher-up males do have muscular shoulders and that they clearly really like that.

How will that make you feel if you don't have muscular shoulders. You might feel pressure to go to the gym more, or that your prospects at the company are limited in a way compared to if you did have them. You might even feel a bit insulted if your shoulders were clearly far from muscular, and this is a characteristic that you could actually change by working out. Looks in general are much more a lottery/luck kind of thing.

So while looks are definitely part of life and most people are average looking, the expectations that women face regarding looks are different than those faced by men. This just means that they have more pressure to look a certain way and to be judged positively or harshly on the basis of their looks.

>How will that make you feel if you don't have muscular shoulders. You might feel pressure to go to the gym more, or that your prospects at the company are limited in a way compared to if you did have them. You might even feel a bit insulted if your shoulders were clearly far from muscular.

I would not feel insulted (I'm not attractive at all, but someone talking about an actor's physical traits would not bother me), but I suppose someone else might. If this is an "after work drinking" occasion, things like that are par for the course. If the comments aren't directed towards you in any way I think it's kind of ridiculous to feel offended or harassed. The bathing suit comment is different because it was directed only at her, though I think that's just more an inappropriate remark that would make one feel uncomfortable, not evidence that "I represent Google and I judge women based on their looks."

Insulted is not the feeling I'm concerned about. Generally people only feel insulted by something that is personal.

It's only relevant because women are typically judged on the basis of their looks. I'm not saying that comment is alone indicting, but in the context of the other comments it appears that Vic is more of a man's man who has fairly traditional ideas of men, women, beauty, and workplace conduct.

Everybody is judged on the basis of their looks. Men too.