What sexist behaviour would be the most shocking if reversed?

DoingItForMyself I know - and it was an EU funded ad to try and encourage more women to pursue a scientific career. I think they totally misjudged their audience. I can't remember anything that inappropriate aimed at men.

A single father would write an enormously successful series of books about a schoolgirl witch fighting Lady Voldemort under the benign guidance of an elderly headmistress. When turned into films, the DVD extras would have a feature called "The Men of Harriet Potter"

Bugger, double post! Oh well, maybe it needed saying twice...

And 2 men every week are murdered by their partners. 85,000 men are sexually assaulted every year by women. Most of them are too ashamed to report it to the police. If they do, their clothing, drinking and behaviour will be questioned and held against them. Wearing shorts, tight clothing, aftershave etc would be seen as a sign that they were leading women on and asking for it.

And 2 men every week are murdered by their partners. 85,000 men are sexually assaulted every year by women. Most of them are too ashamed to report it to the police. If they do, their clothing, drinking and behaviour will be questioned and held against them. Wearing shorts, tight clothing, aftershave etc would be seen as a sign that they were leading women on and asking for it.

And now random second post? Oh phone, what are you doing to me?!

DDog's, not Don't. Stupid autocorrect. I fixed it once and it just re-autocorrected!

Men are allowed to work sometimes in the same industries as women. But anything that is left undone or not done completely is seen as reflecting badly on them. This reinforces the well-known truth that men are not thorough, tend to be scatty, and are generally not suited to work and should not be promoted.
If they become very thorough indeed, to combat this view, they are just demonstrating their unsuitability for seniority in a different way – being obsessed with petty administrative detail is just pedantic and shows that they don’t engage with strategy or big picture stuff.
If they do engage with strategy or big picture stuff, they are uppity and need to be crushed, if necessary by sexual humiliation.
Women at work leave things undone – things which they are not interested in, or which are not directly relevant to their main objectives, or that they have just unilaterally decided are trivial enough to be handled by men – with impunity, because this just demonstrates that they have focus.

There are women who go through lives literally never thinking about washing or ironing any of their clothes, or where the food they or their family are going to eat are going to come from, or how the time will be found to prepare it, or ever washing a floor or cleaning a toilet. They will move from childhood, through adolescence, into adulthood, in a serene drift from meal to meal appearing on the table, from clean garment to clean garment appearing in the drawer. The literal years (cumulatively) of physical labour and mental energy that have gone into this – and if they have children, into them receiving a clean, secure, nutritious upbringing, with the benefits to their health and happiness that will stand them in good stead their whole lives – will have been provided for free, and unacknowledged, by a body of workers numerically equivalent or even greater in number, whose labour, skill and talent is utterly ignored and elided (men).

In fact, the men who accomplish all this at the same time as having many other activities and achievements in their own right, will be habitually belittled and assumed to be stupid and inadequate relative to women.

Women are not good at many of the things that men appear to do effortlessly, because they have not learnt how to do these skilled things – but somehow being good at these certain things reflects poorly on the men, not on the women who are bad at them. Bizarrely, however, the things that women are good at, reflect well on them. The lack of logic here is a puzzle, but not one that women have ever noticed or questioned or thought about.

Despite men noticing the illogic of this – by having their noses rubbed in it every day – they are assumed to be the illogical sex and if they get angry about anything – including the assumption that they have years of free labour to offer to women and are willing to do so – this is seen as evidence of their illogicality and stupidity.

After work, socialising with his senior, almost exclusively female colleagues, a man would sit through hours of boring conversation about women's sports and, I dunno, baking, and other stuff in which he hadn't the faintest interest. Every now and then, someone would notice his boredom and womansplain for his benefit the rules of rhythmic gymnastics or how to clean an oven.

He'd be expected to sit in the pub for hours but not to get tipsy or become loud —unlike his colleagues. Afterwards they'd all go out for a meal together, where he'd eat less than the others but have to pay an equal share of the bill. If he ordered dessert, he'd be subject to extra intensive scrutiny of his waistline for the rest of his professional life.

Pretty much every male presenter, newsreader, actor in an advert looking like a buff, trimmed Brad Pitt, Jude Law, Johnny Depp type. Everywhere. And the Daily Mail castigated all those poor men who didn't make more of an effort to look like them.

Doing. Paragraphs your dp can explain why women only earn 79 cents to each dollar earned by a man? That is the figure that is quoted after adjustments made to allow for maternity leave etc, so a like for like comparison. In fact, even for graduates with same degree same industry same job an same boss there is still a discrepancy of 7 to 11% for female to make earnings.

If he doesn't believe me he could look up articles by Forbes which reports in these things.

The figures cited are bars in 2012 earnings, the most up to date ones we have. 2013 earnings reports will be out later this year.

So here's another one. When men start earning within 10% of women's earnings then people will gladly declare that equality has been reached.

Oubliette I can't believe that science ad! It's ridiculous.

I ended up having an argument with my DP last night off the back of a comment about the Beschdel test when we were considering going to the cinema.

He's adamant that there isn't really any sexism these days because he knows lots of successful women in his industry and that things are near enough equal except for where biological differences inevitably cause issues such as maternity leave impacting women's careers etc.

I mentioned some of the scenarios on here but, as I haven't experienced some of the work-based sexism myself (being self employed) it is difficult for me to fully convey why I am so uncomfortable and passionate about these issues when they don't relate personally to me. I'm grateful for all the examples on here that remind ME why I get so worked up about it!

In fairness, having watched a trailer for 22 Jump Street I'm not sure that the poster shown on here accurately reflects the film, as there weren't really any clips of semi-clad beach babes in the trailer that I saw! it seems that the poster was edited to lure in men being led by their dicks their target audience still looks like a dumb film though .

DDog's, not Don't. Stupid autocorrect. I fixed it once and it just re-autocorrected!

As DH and cleaned up the results of Don't explosive arse this morning, it occurred to me that housework, especially the more labour-intensive stuff like scrubbing carpets, is bloody hard work, and is easier for people with greater physical strength, ie men. So in our reversed word, it would definitely stand to reason that men are the natural choice to do the majority of the housework.

Going to parents' evening with your son and hearing teachers joking with parents of daughters about their disruptive and loud behaviour, then being told your son was too quiet and easily intimidated. Being told your son was doing okay when the parents of girls with the exact same grades were being told their daiughters should aim for STEM courses at top universities.

A man who works in a STEM field being told by a female office worker that he should show gratitude to women for all the scientific and technological advances that women have avhieved so that men can be pampered, because it doesn't occur to her that he might work in a STEM field because he has kids and isn't 'ugly.'

Going to the cinema and walking past a wall sized advert where two clothed women protagonists stand in the middle with guns, one slightly short and podgy, surrounded by hot well toned nearly naked men. We won't get to know those men's names, characters or stories because their only relevance is to make the women look powerful and provide eye candy.

If my date complains about it I'll tell him he's being too sensitive or that he's jealous.

FWIW Scarlet, I don't think anyone here wants that to happen. I for one feel very uncomfortable on the rare occasion I see men's bodies used to sell things. Probably because I know how dehumanising it feels. Why would I wish that on a man?

Working dads are considered the scourge of society and one of the main causes of its ills (up there with single Dads, the scum). They are also attacked for taking jobs from women that need them to support their families.

Stay at home Dads are belittled for living off their wives. If Dads that have stayed at home for the children divorce they are attacked for not having a career and just wanting their wives to pay for everything bloody gold diggers. Any penny of marital assets or maintenance given to the father will be considered to have been stolen from the mother, regardless of what contribution he made, by our male biased courts.

If men complain that they just can't win ever, women just sneer and say "well you wanted equality" when there is nothing remotely equal about their treatment.

If people stay late at work, make fun of them or criticise them for not being on top of their jobs. Ask what's wrong with them, that they don't have children or grandchildren to attend to.

Men gain power by wiping out those in charge. So it stands to reason that they expect the same treatment.

I'm on a roll with these now.

The Masculinist movement would be derided and ridiculed in the press and amongst women. Any men identifying with the movement would be written off just needing a shag from a real woman but being too ugly to get one.

Gay men would only be acceptable when they were young, attractive and doing it for female benefit. All other gay men would be viewed with deep suspicion and assertions that they are just ugly masculinists etc.

Straight men would be encouraged and coerced into giving other men blowjobs whilst their girlfriends watched. This is hailed as the ultimate expression of male sexual empowerment. Men that don't measure up would be considered prudish and closed minded.

Does make me wonder tho, do men worry that they would be treated like this if the positions were reversed? Is that why they are so keen to maintain their positions of power? I know the first privilege of male privilege is that they are unaware of being privileged, but, why can't they bloody see it..??!

I agree scarlet I wouldn't want the version of the planet this thread evokes to be real either. I saw it more as a consciousness raising exercise about how silent and all encompassing male privilege is in society.

I don't think anyone would really want to see this reversed would they? It's been a great way to introduce the concept of male privilege to people who just don't believe in it.

I commend your brilliant equanimity, and absolutely yes, in an ideal world (particularly as my kids are male) that is what we're striving for. But this version is incredibly appealing. To be the ones in charge? To not only not be patronised and belittled because of my genital equipment, but to get to be dominant because of it? Wow! What a trip!

I can see why it is so appealing to men and why there is so much resistance to changing the status quo!

Scarlet no one wants to treat men in a dehumanizing way, we are not imagining a matriarchy but what it would look like if all the patriarchal structures were still in place but with women in charge.

I feel deeply uncomfortable with many of these, it is my own internalised sexism, as though placing men in the subordinate position makes it much more real and serious. It highlights that actually all this sexism is not OK and it is serious.

Any small business run by men will be viewed as a hobby for pin money only. Both men and women will ask his wife when she is going to make him get off his swollen testicles and get a proper job. The fact that he earns double the woman does will be either ignored or disbelieved as she must be lying to protect his feelings because we all know how oversensitive bloody me are.

Any women clients will be incredulous and disbelieve him when he states he runs the business, they will insist on speaking to the woman in charge.

Any woman is setting up a small business will be viewed as the next Angela Sugar.