I have worked on some fairly male dominated companies, and pity many of them as their middle management was so ineffective, but I did find that it was no good putting up with 'off' behaviour - in fact it was best to make a comment at once. Never - never - anything rude or disrespectful or threatening, always look them straight in the eye and smile slightly.

I used to start off by saying something on the lines 'You aren't used to working with women - I can tell, maybe you have had some girls around, and that's given you the wrong idea about how you ought to behave.'

If you let a situation develop it is far harder to get a normal working relationship established.

If you are a new arrival in the company contacting the personnel department in the first two or three days with your initial disquiet is likely to have a far better outcome than presenting a huge list of complaints after several months.

Anne