Sexism you deal with in everyday life? ***Mod Note in first post. Please read***

IzzyWizzy

monkeypants wrote: »

My Da. Doesn't say it all the time, but has said it. I would have thought it was a compliment.

It's supposed to be a compliment, but there's a definite undertone of 'I thought you'd be thick/a bimbo because you're pretty.' I have never heard anyone say this to a man. It's far from the worst thing anyone has ever said and I know it's supposed to be a nice comment, but why even bring looks into an academic context?

Das Kitty

IzzyWizzy wrote: »

It's supposed to be a compliment, but there's a definite undertone of 'I thought you'd be thick/a bimbo because you're pretty.' I have never heard anyone say this to a man. It's far from the worst thing anyone has ever said and I know it's supposed to be a nice comment, but why even bring looks into an academic context?

I've heard that used moreso directed at guys. I don't know its origin, but I've rarely heard it said to a woman.

monkeypants

IzzyWizzy wrote: »

It's supposed to be a compliment, but there's a definite undertone of 'I thought you'd be thick/a bimbo because you're pretty.' I have never heard anyone say this to a man. It's far from the worst thing anyone has ever said and I know it's supposed to be a nice comment, but why even bring looks into an academic context?

My Da is 71 and I'm almost a 38 year old bloke. He has said it to me, but not in a number of years. When I was a kid.

Glinda

People in work (men and women) congratulating me on a promotion and following up with a well-meaning "You'll be able to afford to go part-time now"... What?!!!:mad:

Malari

monkeypants wrote: »

My Da is 71 and I'm almost a 38 year old bloke. He has said it to me, but not in a number of years. When I was a kid.

A father saying it to their kid is hardly the same thing as a stranger or colleague saying it! My dad says it to me and he knows it's said in jest. Same way as he'd say "I thought you were going to get dolled up!" when I was a teenager heading out for the night, all made-up and in a skirt and heels!

SarahBeep!

Das Kitty wrote: »

I've heard that used moreso directed at guys. I don't know its origin, but I've rarely heard it said to a woman.

I've said it about men and women, even myself! But I'd never say it to anyone I wasn't friends with or anyone who thought I was being serious!

Malari wrote: »

A father saying it to their kid is hardly the same thing as a stranger or colleague saying it! My dad says it to me and he knows it's said in jest. Same way as he'd say "I thought you were going to get dolled up!" when I was a teenager heading out for the night, all made-up and in a skirt and heels!

This ^

Neyite

I was told by my female manager when my pregnancy started to show that I should invest in a few smocks to cover up my bump so "the lads" would not get embarrassed.

clairefontaine

Neyite wrote: »

I was told by my female manager when my pregnancy started to show that I should invest in a few smocks to cover up my bump so "the lads" would not get embarrassed.

What? Why would they be embarrassed?

Crimson King

lazygal wrote: »

I was told by my male supervisor before I went on maternity leave that I'd be coming back from maternity leave pregnant again because that's how women play the system. I also heard on the grapevine another male colleague said after I came back after getting married that I'd be having children and out all the time so I'd be no use to his team.
When I was a teenager and started going out on the town a man at least ten years older than me shouted he'd shove a vodka bottle up my skirt to see if I was wearing knickers.

Don't normally frequent this forum (male here) but thought I would contribute my own experience. Once in an interview after I was offered the job and had agreed to join the company and I was chatting to the MD of the company whilst the Chairman and my soon-to-be-manager where out of the room getting paperwork(3 man panel). Anyway after the usual awkward small talk with relative strangers that we have only one thing in common with each other (i.e. the workplace) he said that I was the third male they had hired that year because 'women tend to go on maternity leave more'. He chuckled as if it was our private joke.

Queue a very shocked Crimson King sitting there stone silent when the other two arrived back into the room and clearly picked up something had been said I was not happy with. The only reason I even took the job after that was because I was out of work 4 months and getting desperate (how times have changed, this was 10 years ago).

All I know was I was shocked that people a) thought this way and
b) were dumb enough to say these ignorant thoughts out loud.

LittleBook

Crimson King wrote: »

All I know was I was shocked that people a) thought this way and
b) were dumb enough to say these ignorant thoughts out loud.

Doesn't shock me that people think this way but yes, that they're stupid enough to say it out loud to relative strangers in this day and age is a bit surprising.

Reminds me of the Italian firm which had to make redundancies and selected only women to be let go.

The Company wrote:

"We are firing the women so they can stay at home and look after the children. In any case, what they bring in is a second income."

That they'd do it wasn't shocking but that they'd say it was. I can only assume they got away with it.

Of course, this particular form of sexism won't change until both parents have equal/interchangable maternity/paternity leave rights.

clairefontaine

I've overheard things like that too. I overheard an HR manager not hire someone because she had a child and wouldn't be able to commit.

Gotham

lazygal wrote: »

When I was a teenager and started going out on the town a man at least ten years older than me shouted he'd shove a vodka bottle up my skirt to see if I was wearing knickers.

Is that really sexism? Sounds like a drunk idiot being a dick.

Roadtrippin wrote: »

I remember a male colleague venting about our supervisor being pregnant again and that she was doing this 'on purpose' and never had to do a lot of work because of it...

Can you deny that it's not an inconvenience to have someone in a supervisory job just disappear from work for whatever reason? Wouldn't you feel cheated if you were in his shoes?

jaffacakesyum wrote: »

Some of the more common sexism I encounter in my social circles would be that I know nothing about sport because I'm a woman or the usual being a terrible driver, should be in the kitchen etc.

It's very easy to prove these people wrong by just talking to them, if in fact it turns out that you do not have knowledge of these fields (sport) then I'm not sure you have a right to complain about being stereotyped. The kitchen thing is a different matter however. If they aren't jesting, they are dicks.

rainbow kirby wrote: »

"Oh, if these bugs are too complicated for you two to figure out, we'll just hand them off to the men", as if genitalia determined ability to do our job. I also suspect that he put me at the desk beside him because I'm rather busty...

I've done testing before, I have noticed differences in the way men and women report issues. Men have a systematic algorithmic approach with succint steps and information. Women tend to flourish their documentation and emails with long-winded language- which is fine if women have to read the bugs and program the fixes, but men cannot really wade through paragraphs of flowery language with the same patience. Perhaps this is unrelated, but I wanted to put that out there. And that guy sounded like a dick in general. (ps, is it KW?)

Wibbs wrote: »

When it's aimed at another gender then it's pretty clear sexism IMH.

If I call someone who is Black, a sh*head, is that racism? That logic is flawed.

Whispered wrote: »

Walking through my town, lost in my thoughts, an old man passing me stepped in front of me and roared "IT WOULDN'T KILL YOU TO SMILE" then walked away.

He wouldn't have done it if I was a man. I'm almost sure of it.

I can picture an old woman doing the same to me, I'm sure she wouldn't do it if I were a girl. That's not sexism.

Candie wrote: »

A colleague insists on stepping out into the road and halting traffic so I can reverse

Maybe he thinks youre a bad driver, maybe he likes you? It's patronizing definetly. Sexist? Maybe.

Candie wrote: »

My boss, whom I'm very fond of and enjoy a warm friendship with, has called me 'pet' in front of others.

Sexism is a double edged sword, he probably wouldn't be so fond (and presumably proud) of you if you were a man. You sound like you're working hard in a difficult male dominated environment and making a lot of progress, I'd be proud too. At least you have job security from it.

Scarinae wrote: »

he’d received the copy of the magazine I’d sent him and added “I didn’t realise you were so good looking ”, or much more blatant such as the editor of a rival magazine who invited me to come home with him one night even though he knows full well I have a boyfriend.

Is that sexism? As discussed before, the same thing could transgress with homosexual men.

Scarinae wrote: »

He can't see why we don’t use being female to our advantage, to get better stories from people and negotiate better rates with the freelancers.

Sexist or oppertunistic? Some of the more "respected" business men are basically con artists, they expect you to be one too - that is how you gain respect with these people, they live in a bubble.

Scarinae wrote: »

She is a very pretty girl and takes care of herself.

You stick a good looking x in a room of y and you expect not to get stared at? Not sure this is sexism either, I would imagine she just stuck out like a sore thumb, a pretty thumb.

LittleBook wrote: »

but when a woman approaches the hand is out the begging spiel starts

Women are quite charitable. It's not a "bad stereotype", those beggars are just bad people for taking advantage of it.

vitani wrote: »

It was funny to hear the men in work yesterday talk about the rugby. They all just presumed that each other had watched the match, but when one of them asked me if I'd seen it, his tone completely changed, as if it would have been unusual for a woman to watch sport.

At least he asked you, tried to include you.

vitani wrote: »

In general, I don't have to deal with much sexism on a day-to-day basis. But I was a bit taken aback to be called a 'cheap date' when I mentioned to someone recently that I didn't drink much. It just brings to mind a horrible image of a guy trying to get a woman drunk.

The "cheap date" thing could be something said between two homosexuals. Also, I certainly wouldnt have inferred the same thing you did from it, it sounds like you have have this kind of thing in the back of your mind for whatever reason. It's probably even stereotyping when you imagine a man getting a woman drunk instead of another man.

Janey_Mac wrote: »

Not only had it never happened to him, he had no idea that it was something that happened to women.

It happened me as a kid walking on the street, got it from men and women. If you want to analyse it, it's probably something said to people who don't pose any visible threats, by people who are in a certain mood and mindset.

username123 wrote: »

I had previously worked in a supermarket where some of the men on the butchers counter thought nothing of asking teenage female staff sexually explicit questions. Actually there was more vulgar sexism in that job overall

Imagine the hypothetical and unlikely situation that all of the staff were gay men/boys. Would this still occur? Most likely.

username123 wrote: »

the most stunning display of casual sexism I ever received was at the hands of the elderly male family GP when at age 17

Pure ignorance, sounds like the doc had a lot more problems let alone his agendas on family planning.

true-or-false wrote: »

Sometimes they ask if there's anyone above her they can speak to. It's not because they're genuinely looking for someone higher up.

I do it because I'm genuinely looking for someone higher up, man or woman, I like to check. Is there some subtle reason you think people arent just double checking?

Das Kitty wrote: »

I just told him that he didn't get to decide what other people are offended by or find sexist. If someone tells him they find something he says to them sexist or offensive,

Being offended by any remark is just you being whiney, no matter who you are.
If what the person says is false, then you can ignore them - they have no credibility to you.
If what the person says is true, then you need to face facts. It's pretty straight forward, you can correct them or be upset, but being offended by it is what children do.
Additionally, there is a dictionary to tell you what sexism is.

krankykitty

Not sure if it's sexism or some other reason, but from time to time I've arranged meetings with people to discuss a technical topic, and if I bring my male colleague along to the meeting they direct the whole discussion and any questions at him. Even though I've been the one to initiate the contact with them in the first place. My colleague to his credit always turned the question back to me in these situations.

I hate hate hate getting a letter addressed to Mr & Mrs (*husband's first name* *husband's second name*). I always have a mind to send it back saying no such person at this address

IzzyWizzy

Gotham wrote: »

Being offended by any remark is just you being whiney, no matter who you are.
If what the person says is false, then you can ignore them - they have no credibility to you.
If what the person says is true, then you need to face facts. It's pretty straight forward, you can correct them or be upset, but being offended by it is what children do.
Additionally, there is a dictionary to tell you what sexism is.

That is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read.

lazygal

krankykitty wrote: »

I hate hate hate getting a letter addressed to Mr & Mrs (*husband's first name* *husband's second name*). I always have a mind to send it back saying no such person at this address

I hate this too. I can give older relatives a bit of slack but when cards come from friends who know better its annoying. We do sometimes get letters to Mr and Mrs my surname, so at least himself knows what it feels like.

Dolbert

Thanks for that Gotham, now that you've explained it to us in such detail I guess we are just imagining it after all! I was wondering how long it would take for a post like that to show up.

Gotham wrote: »

Additionally, there is a dictionary to tell you what sexism is.

Look up mansplaining while you're at it.

clairefontaine

I wasn't anticipating the denial to start so soon.

rainbow kirby

Less mansplaining, more on-topic posts.

B0jangles

Gotham wrote: »

[ Paraphrase: Let me explain your own experiences to you and show you how wrong you are you silly women.

You are totally ridiculous.

Also fyi I worked for 6 years in games testing and generally found that most people, men and women, wrote pretty coherent bugs once they got a bit of experience under their belts.
The best tester I had was a non-gamer woman who understood the job was not "playing", it was "testing" - she wrote clear, concise bug-reports with excellent repro steps, screenshots etc.

The worst were from the "gamerguy"-types who were generally too busy playing through as fast as possible to actually do any proper testing.

Edit: actual contribution:

As part of my job when I was in games Q.A. , I had to interview potential new testers with one of my colleagues. We'd always have a secret signal we used to end the interview before the skills testing stage was reached if the candidate was really poor, since we had to do up to 3 or 4 of these a day in addition to our normal Q.A. work.

Anyway, we got one guy in who spent the whole interview explaining in exhaustive detail how games-playing and thus games Q.A. testing needed a MAN'S brain, and how only MEN could really understood the complexities of the games we were testing.

My colleague (a man), gave the signal, but I just let it keep going just to see how deep a hole he'd dig for himself before noticing that it wasn't going down all that well.

He never stopped. I can only assume he thought I was a H.R. person and thus far too female to grasp the mysteries of GAMES.

username123

Gotham wrote: »

Imagine the hypothetical and unlikely situation that all of the staff were gay men/boys. Would this still occur? Most likely.

Doubtful, asking a gay man to show his tits for the lads just doesnt really make any sense

Gotham wrote: »

Pure ignorance, sounds like the doc had a lot more problems let alone his agendas on family planning.

I think you missed the point. His assumption that I would pop out a few kids was based on the idea that that is my role as a women.

Neyite

clairefontaine wrote: »

What? Why would they be embarrassed?

My male colleagues were not in the slightest embarrassed. It was her view that they would be, and I privately dismissed it as a ridiculous request.

awec

This post has been deleted.

coffee_cake

awec wrote: »

Is a doctor assuming that a women might have children now sexist?

The world has gone crazy.

Come on awec, you know there's a difference between "might have" and "you're a woman so you'll definitely be having kids"

awec

This post has been deleted.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

check your privilege awec

awec

This post has been deleted.

coffee_cake

awec wrote: »

Is there?

The doctor assumed she would have children. Given that the vast majority of people in Ireland have children at some point that is not an unreasonable assumption in my opinion.

Has the world really got to the stage where the suggestion that a woman may one day get pregnant is now offensive?

Refusing medical treatment which has nothing to do with having children based on the assumption they will 100% have children is offensive, yes (as with their marital status which again has nothing to do with the treatment)

You're being quite disingenuous by softening it to "suggestion" and "may"

vitani

awec wrote: »

Is there?

The doctor assumed she would have children. Given that the vast majority of people in Ireland have children at some point that is not an unreasonable assumption in my opinion.

Has the world really got to the stage where the suggestion that a woman may one day get pregnant is now offensive?

He dismissed her complaint and refused to treat her because of his assumption. That's fairly unreasonable in my view.

awec

This post has been deleted.

Das Kitty

awec wrote: »

The world has gone mad. God forbid you annoy anyone in the slightest, you should go out of your way to ensure you don't offend anyone because everyone now has this made up right to go through life without ever suffering offense.

If what you say to someone offends them, and they tell you that they didn't like what you just said. Are you saying you would keep saying it to them in spite of knowing it upsets them? It's basic manners.

Of course people don't have the right to go through life without suffering offence, most of us do on a daily basis. But we do have the right to speak up about it and be listened to.