Very interesting piece. This dynamic really does occur all the time in the modern workplace. She got taken down in a way that is undeniably connected with gender, but isn't everything a person of any gender does connected with gender? It's an interesting situation because men take each other down brutally all the time in ways they wouldn't dare take down a woman, but it's not called gender-related, although it clearly is. It's not called anything; it's just the way guys are with each other. The supposed ideal in the workplace is to treat people the same regardless of gender, but in fact, no man's career would survive treating women the same way men treat each other! Men can be savage. That said, they both seem foolish to me. She's foolish to dress that way, because every corporate woman knows that you lose power when you expose skin. You never see a powerful woman in corporate life wearing revealing clothing. A powerful woman can be beautiful, but being overtly hot in the workplace is strictly for the secretaries. How can an adult person not observe this? And I don't care if she came in to the meeting in a bikini--the boss is a fool to comment on her presentation of her body at all, let alone in a meeting! You aren't hard on him, and even the way you tell the story, his handling seems dangerously inappropriate. Speech by a man that acknowledges that you have noticed anything south of a woman's collar doesn't fly in a corporate office.