My son is sexist.

Ok, Rich, if we're ever on a sinking boat together, I'll insist you get off first.

There! Feel better now?

Not sure what this means? And organisations for men, chiefly professional ones have given special encourafement to women - which ones and what encouragement? You seem to be quite cross that organisations set up by women to support women exist. Why is that? If it's bothersome, why don't you get active and set up similar ones for men? Women won't do your heavy lifting for you, you need to get accountable if you want change.

The YWCA and WI and womens centres give parental support and training only for women.

ROFL - the YMCA can run courses too you know (and does), men can set up a men's institute, and men's centres if they feel the need - although in my area all the community centres have parenting courses which are open to anyone - I think you're making this up.

I don't think you've really looked into this Mega - parental leave already is equal (outside of the recovery period for the person who just grew and ejected said child), flexible working open to both parents.

The only sex exclusive toddler groups I know around me are just for men (and they truly do get bacon sandwiches, rather than having to share half a rice cake and a couple of grapes with their kid), so you can tick that box too.

What was left? Courts start from the presumption of 50/50 care and work from there, so if you want 50% care of your child following divorce, all you have to do is 50% care for your child during the marriage - that one's entirely in the father's hands, and men are completely at liberty to start mens parenting groups (and I've seen some), and their own websites (although they are also welcome on Mumsnet - including in their own little section of the site), and welcome in most parenting groups and courses too.

See? You have those rights - go ahead and use them to fulfill your responsibilities!

Locally we have a Mums and Tots club.

Terminology is important in changing attitudes. Thats why we changed to firefighter did away with postman and postwoman barmaid...matron and sister seem to be slower to fade.

Single fathers have no rights except as allowed by the mother. In order to secure parental responsibility otherwise he has to go to court several times. That's if he knows he has a child There is no obligation on the mother to tell a father ofhis child.

And organisations for men, chiefly professional ones have given special encourafement to women. The YWCA and WI and womens centres give parental support and training only for women.

And the phrases Women and children are well known and boats are abandoned women and children first by tradition and fact.

I don't think the fact that Clarabumps is a SAHM is behind these comments from her son- it's rather naive to underestimate the influences on a 9 year old boy from outside the home. I have many friends who share work in the home and outside the home roughly equally and make a conscious effort to give their children of both genders messages that gender does not define their role in life or abilities etc. Yet by the middle of junior school they have all started to make gender biased comments (eg. pink is for girls, girls should have long hair, tidying up is for girls, bikes/cars are boys toys, boys will be better at building things etc).

Similarly, when my DC were young I worked in a very male dominated industry and DH was a SAHP. I am not the sort of person who wears frilly things, any tons of make-up etc. But when playing dolls with friends my DD would always allocate gender steroetypical roles ( eg -you be mum and push the pram and I'll be dad and drive the car). She would also go for 'girls' toys when in the company of other girls despite the fact that at home both she and DS had all types of toy. I think children take in more than we think of the sexist views of society at large. I try to combat this with open discussions about abilities/gender differences etc and can only hope that this helps.

" the concept of women and children first when abandoning ship."

When was this last a thing? On the Titanic?

Dads post here too. FYAC.

Shared parental leave is available and fathers have always had as much right as mothers to request flexible working.

Mums and tots clubs - have you an example in mind? Most sure start stuff etc is just called "play and learn" or similar these days.

What rights for single fathers are you after?

Men shouldn't have access to women's organisations eg refuges etc but are welcome to start their own.

Mumsnet is a business - strapline by parents for parents. Dad's post here too, just as dads shop in Mothercare.

"give up/scale down work to enable men to concentrate on their careers and thus become bigger earners therefore perpetuating the inequalities down the generations, of men out in the world while women are confined to the domestic sphere. If you want society to be any different, you need to be part of that change. The OP's husband should give up work to allow the OP to get back into the workplace and build her career".

...but if men are to take their part equally they need equal parenting rights eg equal parental leave equal parental responsibility and rights for single fathers and access to womens organisations and no more Mums and tots clubs. And the assumption that women are the natural carer of children needs to be challenged ss do the phrases women and children and the concept of women and children first when abandoning ship. The concept of a site called Mumsnet offering support to "mums"s is flawed.

9 y.o. only, he has a chance to become a normal man

Men out in the world forging ahead/ woman as the domestic enabler has not really a whole lot at all to do with the OPs sons comments - women can't be builders,boys are better at Maths...
Those are sexist comments about ability and you can talk about them and challenge them.DS is another who produced the whole doctors are men,nurses are women bit despite having only ever seen female doctors,with hindsight it was really quite funny watching him think about it,you could see his brain going "does not compute,does not compute....."
And I disagree with the implication that a successful life must of necessity involve forging ahead in the world.

Your son isn't sexist; he's 9 yrs old.

Saying boys are better at maths, is an incorrect statement. It's not calling the op, or girls in general, stupid. Intelligence isn't something that is one attributed to one subject.

A 9 year is unlikely to think of it that way. That's why it's the OPs job to challenge what he is saying and make sure he thinks about what he is saying fully. Rather than repeating something he has heard and assuming it's fact.

It's her and her Dps job to make sure he doesn't believe everything he is told and that he understand the implications of what he says.

I also think we can shield kids to much from sexisim. We live or lives and challenge our kids when they repeat sexist statements. But I don't think many people discuss the impact sexism has on women. I think many kids believe that because women/mothers can work, can go to university, go to the same schools, get the same lessons etc that sexism isn't relevant anymore and it does really exist.

So it's not something they think about too much. I talk to my Dd about how sexism presents today, how it's damaged women, families and society in general. If something sexist happens to me, I talk to her about it.

I do with Ds too, but to lesser extent because of his age. We can't have the indepth discussion that Dd and I have. Dh also does this, which is important.

Your son isn't sexist, he lives in a sexist society and receives messages on a daily basis.

Is that so? Then at what age do men become responsible for their sexist attitudes? 18? 25? Never?
You know, society is made of people. And yes, 9 year olds, too, are part of society.

9 ist old enough to have some empathy, and know that calling his mom stupid and worthless (even if he does so in other words) is a shit thing to do.

There's hope that, as his brain matures, he will develop more empathy and more wisdom, but so claim that he is not sexist would be to pretend that 9 year olds are not capable of independent thought, and frankly, 9 year old me would have been very insulted by that.

What about if your mum works in a nursery or as a cleaner?

Must we all be astrophysicists for the cause?

Or maybe we could accept that money earned is not the only indicator of a worthwhile contribution to society.

"Plainly the son is not stupid and can see what is under his nose"

The son's comments have been about maths ability, strength, and being a builder (as far as the OP tells us) - not that women don't work. So not sure what you are referring to here. I imagine he sees a significant number of working women at school, probably some of whom teach him or his friends maths, don't you?

I agree with you, whatthese.

But it can be as hard for men to change it as it is for women. My request to reduce my working hours was automatically approved, but my male colleague's was greeted with horror and incredulity and declined. His wife therefore had go part time. It wasn't what either of them wanted.

'If the OP hadn't worked for 9-10 years then her earning power will be affected'
That is precisely the point I was making. Men are out in the world forging ahead because a woman has sporked her earning potential. Plainly the son is not stupid and can see what is under his nose. Male role - out in society with economic independence. Woman role - domestic enabler unable to command a decent wage. It is a shit paradigm that won't change if families keep sleepwalking into the same old stereotypes.

But the fact is, the default position for women to give up/scale down work to enable men to concentrate on their careers and thus become bigger earners therefore perpetuating the inequalities down the generations, of men out in the world while women are confined to the domestic sphere.

Whilst of course there are more women at home, the reason the choice is made may be very different. I, personally, don't know any sahms that stayed at home to further their husbands careers. They stayed at home because they wanted to to and/or made more sense economically. Not because they had to.

davos , your DC is an absolute legend that started me laughing

she is far more fierce than I ever was at the age. She is pretty fab.

But still came out with sexist crap when she was younger. Because that's what she was told. She was also told if she ate an apple seed, a tree would grow out of her head. She believed that too. Again a discussion about why that's ridiculous not true, resolved it

When my son was 5 he told me that men are in charge. When he was 6 he said it again.

DH and I both work outside the home and share school runs, childcare and domestic jobs. But I know that there are still ways that DH behaves, and I behave, that make him think this. It's made me very defensive, if DH asks me to do something, or jokes that I'm crap at something, I leap down his throat.

The message is so hard to avoid. They get stuff from school, their friends - one of his friends' dads once pompously lectured DS on always opening doors and pulling chairs out for ladies, in front of me. I immediately explained to DS that was bollocks but now he keeps saying 'ladies first' because he knows it winds me up.

I just keep reinforcing the message, I never let an example of a woman in charge escape his attention. If for no other reason than this I'm pleased that we now have a woman PM.

Paid childcare is hardly 50/50 male/female staff is it.

Sending a child to nursery / childminder still perpetuates the idea that it's women who do the nurturing.

I think it's just his lack of life experience.

My 15 year old was surprised when our last Amazon delivery was made by a woman. Logically he sees women driving and working but most of our deliveries have been made by a male so a female stuck in his mind.

The Pink/Blue culture created by marketers has really set sexual equality backwards. Each colour, hobby, toy is gendered and it's just ridiculous. My youngest is 10 and sees sexism in his life. We talk about news stories like the boys who were decided to wear skirts to school during a heatwave because they weren't allowed to be school shorts or pe shorts instead or that coverage of Tom Daly the diver always mentions that he's gay where as they don't say that about straight or single people.

If he says girls are weak watch Jessica Ennis throw a shotput, girls don't play footie then point out that the England women are far better at football internationally than the men. I don't believe that top maths table at school is all boys. Girls outperform boys in exams.

Haha, that was funny, I aspire for my dc to make comments like that,

Despite constant challenging of stereotypes, my dc, 3 & 6 are still spouting stuff like this. I hate the term girls toys and boys toys but O think they get it from friends. Plenty of people don't see the harm, particularly ime if they only have boys or girls of dismissing items as boys/girls toys. No we don't have any dolls, we only have boys toys etc. it gets my goat.

'Dd recently was told she couldn't be an engineer, by a boy at school. She wants to work for Airbus. They are at secondary. She asked him which part of an a330 was built using a penis'

davos , your DC is an absolute legend that started me laughing

I like the gentle discussion approach. Encourage to reach own conclusions rather than repeat blanket statements.

It would be quite easy to express opposing evidence to the statements you give as examples.

DS2 (10) could make the statement that boys are better at maths than girls. He finds maths easy. In his class there are three boys who are just very good at maths and only a few girls - in this instance none of those girls excel at maths, at present. I would counter that with wider examples showing how things can vary at different ages. His opinion wouldn't be wrong based on his limited experience but I'd hope to expand his experience to help him form a more balance opinion rather than state you're wrong.