In this day and age! A thread for unbelievably obvious examples of sexism.

good point, Depth

He seemed pretty angry at me. I don't know if he was just angry because I wasn't going to give him a refund, or angry because I was a woman :s

You get that sort of stuff a lot, in that sort of work. Eventually, you just end up saying "I am the manager" on repeat, and letting the crap flow over your head. Because when someone is the customer, head office don't really take kindly to teaching them a lesson in the name of battling sexism :/

Young girls! Well in that case why let them out to deal with crime ffs. They were discussing the younger ones marriage plans and how she was worrying about making invitations on-line..

Greythorne, those PC's were also referred to as 'young girls' by an official from the Police Federation. They were 32 and 23 and police officers, ffs :(

How do you respond pfft? I'd be tempted to say fine and find the guy who is least likely to have a clue for them.

Although being honest you work in a games shop, it may be nothing to do with sexism and everything to do with the fact that some of the men you meet have never been in such close proximity to non-pixelated breast before.

Working as a store manager in a games shop. Irate customer not happy with something.

"I want to speak to the manager"

"I am the manager"

"No, I want to speak to a man!"

Don't get more blatant than that

I found it odd that they keep referring to them as female police officers. If they had been men would they have said male police officers?

Do calm down, Uppercut, dear. I was only asking.

eurochick same happened to me. Not only did I book and pay, I'm also gold-platinum-supreme-whatever member of this particular hotel chain's loyalty program. Put DH down as additional guest.

Get to the hotel, there's the usual fruit basket with letter: "Dear Mr Hisname, thank you for choosing to stay with us again, we appreciate your business, dear valued member.."

Small things like that but still..

Sadly, the description of one of the police officers brutally murdered today. Can you imagine a male PC being described as "a real chatterbox" as one of these women was?

Talk about undermining her, defining her with "female" attributes. How about lively, articulate, a good communicator? But now, she's a woman, so a chatterbox.

RIP

I've found airlines, hotels, rental cars and the like to be particularly bad about this.

I almost always book and pay for that type of thing on my card, which is in my name 'Dr. Occam'. When we turn up to check in, DP is almost invariably the one they address and try to deal with, even though I'm often the one who instigates dialogue by saying we have a reservation for Dr Occam.

I had to sort out our car insurance recently for the one DH usually drives (i.e. insurance in his name), and I decided to pretend to be him whilst speaking in a deep voice, as he was busy at work and had asked me to try to sort it out for him.

I tell you, I have never been so politely treated by a call centre. It was a revelation. You should all try it sometimes.

At the black country museum there is a 'pit. Experience' thing. You go down a reconstructed mine, bits of it pitch black so they hand out torches. Unbelievably they only handed torches to the men in the group. Presumably so that the women and children were forced into dependency on the men. It wasn't a joke and it wasnt part of the experience!!
This was 7 or 8 years ago, hope things have evolved there since!

Oh I love the idea of a fake beard, CMOTDibbler, maybe we should all have one ready to hand in case, they'd show up the ridiculousness of these situations very nicely. Maybe a fake penis too.

I have a car one too. I took my dad car shopping with me (husband has no interest and we enjoy it as a bit of father-daughter bonding time). One car salesman spent the whole time talking to my dad despite my dad making it clear several times that I was the one who was buying the car. I bought the same car I had been looking at from a dealer down the road. On the way back from collecting it I was sat at the traffic lights outside the first dealership with the roof down, feeling great, with the "big mistake, huge" scene from Pretty Woman playing in my head.

The other one is a holiday I booked with my then bf, now husband. I booked and paid for the entire thing as he had some problem with his credit card. We arrived at the destination airport to be met by the tour guide who handed him an envelope in his name with all of the hotel and transfer vouchers, also in his name. I may as well not have existed. I mean, what the actual f*?

Ha! Most of our bills and credit cards are in my name. Even our bank account is joint but DHs name has dropped off in the system somewhere. He always jokes that from a financial point of view, he barely exists. I don't think our IFA or mortgage company have ever dealt with him.

Databases are incredibly stupid. They go on whose name is in field one, so if that's the way the form was filled out (when I input data, I out whoever bothered to fill out the form as Contact 1). Credit card companies can only speak to the main cardholder anyway. I don't get wound up by it, but then I hjavent been told to 'speak to my husband' about anything.

I was a DJ for ten years. Gave it up almost two years ago as I couldn't put up with the drunken messes I'd have to be polite to on a nightly basis. And I was making myself ill from exhaustion.

At least once per gig one of the below would happen;
If I was in the DJ booth on my own - I'd be asked where the DJ was & when he would be back. Did they think I was wearing the headphones to keep them warm for someone else?
If I had a male friend with me and I spoke to the customer, they would ALWAYS presume the bloke was the DJ. Even if, as above, I was wearing the headphones and would have stepped away from the decks to speak to them while my friend was sitting on a stool at the back of the booth keeping out of the way.
Or a woman would say "oh a girl DJ- go you/girl power!" I know they meant nice but it annoyed me that they were so surprised that a woman would/could be a DJ

LastMangoInParis
"But Uppercut - what's really the point of your contribution to this thread? Are you trying to say that if women aren't extra vigilant all the time to second guess and compensate for other people's stupidity then they've got only themselves to blame for sexist slights, insults, etc?"

Saying 'Yes, I'm Dr Smith' in response to 'I've got a package for Dr. Smith' must be such a crushing burden of 'extra vigilance'. I don't know how the poor women manages to breath. I directly indentify myself to delivery people all the time like that, but it's taken years of Shaolin monk-like training to achieve this incredible feat of mental stamina.

I don't suppose its fair to suggest everyone else do it, rather than get their nipples in a vice over some misperceived insult.

At work a customer asked to see the manager over a complaint on the electrical department and sent in my direction.

I was speaking to a male member of staff, who unfortunately, then got a mouthful of abuse and shouting and couldn't get a word in edgeways and kept looking at me perplexed till I decided to step in and say I think you want to speak to me!

It is amazing how many men and even women start talking to a male member of staff before accepting I am the manager! It is also funny to see their behaviour change as I am only 5'2 and look about 12 though for many it makes them think they can walk all over me and bully me into getting what they want! I do have discression over what I do with faulty items and believe me I do not take kindly to being abused.

I have also had customers asked to be dealt by a male manager! Also my team have also had customers who had said to female members of staff that they didn't need help when asked and then go straight over to the closest man!

No idea who Judson is!

That would make sense. I assumed he, wasn't sure if they referred to "he" or whether it was because they didn't talk about "the female cyclist" Judson

I think there was the context that his work might have led to the death.

Good luck with your email WhoKnows. Our solicitor did similar but refused to change it as "it's just how the files are set up." won't be recommending them, ever.

Oh yes, and in the news the other day, an article about Sports Personality of the Year and the possibility of having a male and a female category this year. Someone was quoted as saying that having a female one wouldn't detract from the main award.

I'm currently trying to sell a flat I own, the estate agent lost all my respect when I said I would think about an offer I had he said have a chat with hubby about it. It was more the 'hubby' bit that got me

I think the cyclist was not considered relevant to uk media because he/she was not English. However, I am pretty sure they referred to him as "he".