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On a recent episode of the_ Today _programme, the chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), Ann Francke, suggested employers should discourage staff from talking about
sport. Such conversations, Ms Francke said, may make women feel “uncomfortable” and encourage a “laddish culture” that can quickly escalate into “slapping each other on the back and talking
about their conquests at the weekend”. The CMI boss’s comments were ridiculed widely and they do seem to rest on some sweeping assumptions about the sexes. Most predictably, she annoyed
women who like sport and feel patronised by the idea that they don’t want to talk about it. Her remarks come close to echoing an old chauvinist jibe that the “little ladies” are not capable
of understanding technicalities like the offside rule or the LBW law. Men are more used to generalisations about their behaviour being deemed unacceptable. But even so, the idea that we’re
looking for encouragement to boast about our sex lives in mixed company is a little insulting. Most chaps understand perfectly well that the water-cooler in a workplace is not the equivalent
of a pub or a football changing room. The assumption that modern offices are laddish environments is surely outdated, in any case. Even if men wanted to behave badly, which many don’t, by
now they are too scared that a misplaced comment might lead to disciplinary procedures. If sports conversations were banned among employees, I’m pretty sure I would never have exchanged a
non work-related word with about half the people I’ve worked with over the years, including a number of the bosses. Indeed, were it not for football, a lot of meetings between men would
probably pass in uncomfortable silence. Imagine all those excruciatingly awkward taxi journeys, all those silent hair-cuts. Sport is important for lots of reasons, but perhaps most of all it
is a social lubricant. It draws together people who have little in common and provides a shared language when otherwise they might struggle to understand one another. For that reason, it
was heartening that Ms Francke’s comments weren’t taken too seriously. Her point was easy to lampoon, but it exposed how easily we can be tripped up by an unhealthy obsession with causing
offence or being offended. There are always clashes and contradictions when we try to balance sensitivities too earnestly. One woman feels that she’s being excluded by men talking about
football; another thinks she’s being stereotyped if one assumes she doesn’t like the sport. If we start to discourage topics of conversation because they make some people feel left out, it’s
pretty obvious we’ll soon be left with nothing at all to talk about. I once worked in an office with two women who could spend an entire morning discussing the merits of different
fragrances. I found it terrifically boring, just as they probably weren’t too thrilled by my analysis of the January transfer window with other colleagues. The truth is that we’re socially
conditioned to navigate these awkwardnesses and we do it rather well. We’ll all be fine unless we’re forced into competing in the fashionable new sport of offence-taking.