The barrister who accused a male solicitor of sexism after he described her photograph on a business website as ‘stunning’ has previously told men online they were ‘hot stuff’.
Charlotte Proudman, 27, claimed Alexander Carter-Silk had ‘objectified her’ with the message he sent on the networking site LinkedIn. She then posted his comments – and her outraged response – on Twitter, telling the married 57-year-old that focusing on women’s looks ‘silences women’s professional attributes as their physical appearance becomes the subject’. The row was triggered on Monday when Mr Carter-Silk responded to an approach from her to ‘connect’ on LinkedIn. He wrote: ‘I appreciate that this is probably horrendously politically incorrect but that is a stunning picture!!! You definitely win the prize for the best LinkedIn picture I have ever seen.’
She responded: ‘Alex, I find your message offensive. I am on Linked-in [sic] for business purposes, not to be approached about my physical appearance or to be objectified by sexist men.’He emailed her an apology on Wednesday, but Miss Proudman said there was ‘no acknowledgement that the message he sent was inappropriate or is sexist’. Within hours, thousands of people were replying to her tweets, praising and ridiculing her for shaming Mr Carter-Silk. However, it emerged yesterday that the award-winning human rights barrister has commented on pictures of men on Facebook herself to praise their looks. She also told female friends they looked ‘sexy’ and ‘stunning’ – the same word used by Mr Carter-Silk. On the profile of a postgraduate student at Cambridge, where Miss Proudman is on sabbatical from her chambers to study for a PhD, she wrote: ‘Hot stuff!’, while under an image of a long-haired male friend, she wrote: ‘oooo lalala!’
Do you think Alexander’s message was just innocent and should not have been taken seriously or that Charlotte took it too far?
Sexism row: Mr Carter-Silk’s wife of nearly 30 years, Jacqueline, 60, pictured, has refused to comment on her husband’s message
Credits: Proudman, Carter-Silk, Linkedln, Twitter