LinkedIn user sparks furious backlash over bizarre rant about women’s breasts

LinkedIn users have called for a self-proclaimed marketing expert to be kicked off the platform over an offensive post comparing a woman’s confidence levels to the size of her breast. In an extremely ill-thought out spiel on the social networking platform, ‘business storytelling expert’ James Langridge posted a 200-word post to his followers which began ‘let’s talk boobs for a sec…’. Langridge then outlined his theory that ‘the larger they are, the more they tend to be covered up’, whereas they tend to be ‘on show’ if they are smaller.

Posting a picture of actress Hayley Atwell alongside his rant, he continued: ‘But it’s got me thinking, the more confidence we have in whatever we’re presenting (boobs or otherwise) the less we tend to shout about it. ‘We might even try to hide our natural “gifts”,’ he said, emphasising his point with two balloon emojis and a smiley face. Continuing his bizarre analogy, he added: ‘There are a lot of people in marketing working with A cup ideas and using verbal pushup bras to attract eyeballs’ but ‘there are a quiet minority in turtle necks and big coats packing FF concepts and offers’.

Mr Langridge rounded out his message by urging people to ‘make marketing classy again’ by ‘showing off a little more,’ and asking them to get in touch if they ‘might be hiding your assets like I did’. Needless to say, LinkedIn users weren’t impressed by the sexist diatribe, and the post garnered over 3,000 comments in the 24 hours since it was posted, nearly all of them negative. One businesswoman responded by writing: ‘It’s only Monday and we’ve unearthed a caveman that does not belong in this millennium, let alone on LinkedIn.’.

Another person claimed the post was sexist, while another quipped: ‘Am I on LinkedIn or an Incel Subreddit?’. One user had a more pointed critique of Langridge, and responded by saying: ‘James, women have been objectified and sexualised so routinely that men seem to think this kind of a conversation is okay to have. ‘Imagine a post on LinkedIn that talked about men’s that stay hidden have more value; would that have been acceptable here? Why then would a post about women’s body parts?.

‘Also, did you notice that this post of yours is screaming & shouting, “Look at me!”. Does that mean, going by your argument, that your work may not be as valuable as that of the quieter ones?’. Many people called for Langridge to be banned from LinkedIn for the sexist remarks, while others simply wanted his posts removed from their feed. While Langridge has yet to respond to the criticism on his LinkedIn page, he did later post a message on Facebook about the incident, writing: ‘Think you have the balls to say whatever you think? Check out the comments on my LinkedIn post and come back to me…’.