"Why are Asian women's feet so small? So they can stand closer to the sink!" a male employee joked with his Asian colleague, then got angry when she didn't like it.

"Why are you so uptight?" he asked. "You're misconstruing what I'm saying."

She replied: "That's not it, it's just that I want to be treated with respect."

Explicit bias, racist and sexist comments and offensive "jokes" are rife in corporate Australia, according to a report from Diversity Council Australia and the University of Sydney Business School, which asked 230 culturally diverse businesswomen (defined broadly in the report as someone with a non-Anglo Saxon background) about their experiences in the workplace.