In an effort to enlighten ourselves, we searched the term “sexist” on several stock photography sites, and we came up with some fairly resolute results. First of all, almost all sexism occurs in the office. Second, coffee and ties are often unwitting accomplices to sexism. Third, there’s a guy out there somewhere who has a shirt with little pigs all over it and the word “Sexy” in big letters. Watch out for him: he’s clearly very sexist and dangerous.

It’s hard to put humor aside when looking at some of the photos. They’re more ridiculous than sexist.

As they pointed out, many of the photos chosen by the companies (or maybe just by HuffPost) take place in an office. It’s at work where there’s an obvious imbalance of power. It wasn’t always men, though, who were the perpetrators of sexism (or ridiculousness).

But what makes this fascinating isn’t that these photos are ironclad definitions of sexist behavior. Some of them clearly aren’t. But they are what someone, somewhere – specifically, researchers at these stock photo companies - perceive as sexist. Because two people won’t perceive a situation in exactly the same way, discussing perceptions usually lead to interesting conversations.

So, take a look at the slideshow at the Huffington Post and tell me what you think.

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She said, “You guys are all about who has the biggest swinging dick.”

From VentureBeat:

Huffington said that’s a dumb, very male way to look at the world, when in fact both the Journal and the HuffPo can flourish, and a bunch of new publications can take off too.

Huffington also rejected the idea that the HuffPo is in a rivalry with Tina Brown’s site The Daily Beast, especially now that The Daily Beast has merged with Newsweek. Whenever two women are involved, people assume “there must have been a catfight somewhere,” Huffington said, but she isn’t thinking about any rivalry, because her company is doing just fine.

Huffington added, “That’s an old-fashioned guy game…We women just need to resist participating in it.”

The question about which media company will be more profitable in five years is a bad one. The respondents were executives, not fortune-tellers. Huffington is also right in that there’s room for multiple profit-making organizations in media. There can be more than one winner. The catfight statement is also true. Countless reality TV shows are based on getting women together and then turning them against each other.

But is there anything wrong with competition? Competition can keep products and services fresh, new and appealing to consumers. For individuals, it can be used a motivator to achieve their goals on the playing field or in life. It’s when a person or company becomes obsessed with their competitors that problems develop. Focus is lost on the job or life in front of them and turns to their competitor’s “swinging dick.”

It’s about balance.

Do you think men generally focus too much on who is the best or the biggest? What are examples of how men and women compete differently? Is one way better than the other?

Leave your comments below.