Men and Women at Work

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/opinion/men-and-women-at-work.html

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To the Editor:

Re “When Job Puts Sexes Together, Workers Cringe” ( front page, July 2):

I understand the general safety concerns about being careful around people we do not know well. But I find the “caution around members of the opposite sex” and the aversion many people have to eating lunch with a friend or co-worker of the opposite sex ridiculous and sexist.

What is on these people’s minds that they cannot trust themselves in these situations? Women will never be equal as long as they are perceived primarily as sexual beings and objects.

I have had many men as friends and colleagues in my life, and often had lunch with them, traveled with them, driven them to events and so on. I had no romantic interest in them. There were never any problems.

I wish that we could learn to get beyond this nonsense and relate to one another as individual human beings. This article just reinforced my belief that sex is the root of most social problems.

REBECCA S. FAHRLANDER, OMAHA

The writer is an adjunct professor of psychology and sociology at the University of Nebraska, Omaha.