"Micro" acts of every day sexism...

@daisychain01 so in your opinion, what is the reasons for so many people, not jsut one or two that just happened to say that, to say to a woman it’s great to have a girl to be able to go an have your nails done together??

*13/11/2019 21:41 teawamutu

I've started playing Patriarchy Chicken after noticing males just assuming I'd be one to move aside on the pavement. It's quite good fun.

Also Patriarchy Chicken: Aquatic Version. Males who assume I'll let them go first in the swim lane even though we're about the same speed. Denied.*

@teawamutu

you are great. That’s all.

When men I know socially become fathers, I always ask them if they are going back to work part time.

When they say no I purse my lips and say “ gosh how are you going to combine a career and being a father ? What are your childcare arrangements ? “ etc .

If course they all say their wife / partner will deal with it. So I put on my surprised face and ask if they don’t feel guilty allowing their wife to sacrifice her career for theirs , I hope they are very grateful for her, what are three doing to make up her pension contributions etc

They are all genuinely puzzled. They are quite happy to receive congratulations on becoming a father, safe in the knowledge that it wont affect their lives in any major way, and that all costs will be paid by their DW/DP.

My latest one is people saying that if I have a baby girl (I'm pregnant), it will be great cos we can have girly days out and get our nails done

If I can muster the energy to even cut my nails, I consider it top quality grooming these days but no, as I am a woman, I must be longing for a daughter so we can go and make ourselves look attractive to men.

I see this as confirmation bias. According to what you've written, it's you^ who has made the assumption that the reason for keeping your nails cut and shaped is to 'make ourselves look attractive to men* not the person who said it would be nice to spend time with your daughter.

If all you do is read into everything as being micro-sexism at play, you must be making yourselves miserable.

Took my car for an MOT recently and the garage had a sign up saying 'Foxy Lady Approved Female Friendly Garage'
It made me think of cafes etc that have 'dogs welcome' signs

My phone (iphone) doesn't capitalise male.

I was at a social event last week and a man asked what my job is. I replied that I own a company that does X ( its a very specialised area in a male dominated industry so usually people ask lots of questions ).

He replied “ Ah, so you help your husband out with his businesses? “.

The terms Sir and Miss at school. Miss because a teacher couldn’t be a married woman as married women were expected to stop working.

And why Sir not Mr? Sir is the title for a knight. Almost as if female teachers were of lesser status......

I know the male thing is really annoying. My iPad now autocorrects male a lot less frequently as I’ve typed the word so often. If you type a city, small town and even a lot of villages into your phone / iPad and it will automatically capitalise the first letter. I don’t think it’s anything sinister tbh. Male is a capital city.

Why is autocorrect thinking I'm more likely to be talking about a city than someone''s sex? There's nothing about my posting history to suggest it, yet my phone still prefers Male over male.

My phone does that too. And has no reason at all to be thinking I mean the city rather than a very common English word.

YES YES YES

We need to talk about this

There's been books written on this. Its called the gender bias or the unconscious gender bias

Its everywhere and its shit

When DD2 started a new School 2 years ago, it wasn't until reader book #7 that a book had a female character in it that wasn't a prop for the amazing boy doing interesting things characters.

Come to think about it her books from school are still predominantly based around males doing stuff.

Why is autocorrect thinking I'm more likely to be talking about a city than someone''s sex? There's nothing about my posting history to suggest it, yet my phone still prefers Male over male.

I did not know that, thank you.

But I still think it was designed by men!

Sorry!! Capital of the Maldives

@Binglebong Male is a city, capital of Mali. ¯\(ツ)/¯

Also my autocorrect capitalises Male but not female.

Arse in the post office today. Started by telling me how my parcel was wrongly wrapped, got on to "I bet you'd do #metoo", I told him yes, I'd certainly report an assault and was told "it wasn't assaults it was power." Later said he'd been bating me and I'd fallen for it - I told him there were so many real arseholes how could anyone tell the difference? He also said something about "i suppose you're not going to do something about the parcel then?" And told him "Nope!".

He also went to the wrong counter and when he was directed to mine stood next to me instead of going back to the queue. Grrr. I should have called him on that.

None of this would have happened if I'd been male. But with attitudes like that #metoo is going to struggle.

wibdib our local Children's Centre used to run a Bring your Dad session on a Saturday (obvs as men are the only FT workers ) They served bacon cobs and hot drinks and were very much advertised as "let the kids play while you chill out and make new mates". Meanwhile the midweek groups, open to anyone, didn't so much as allow you a biscuit and were very much promoted as "spend quality time with your children". Very irritating.

Lots of people asked me in a very well meaning way whether I was going part time now when I returned to work after maternity leave. No one asked, or asked about, DH doing this. It was taken for granted that his working life wouldn't need to change.

Rotas and schedules for school events defaulting to just the mum. Because a dad could never serve tea or coffee at a fundraiser.

@FlorencenotFlo
It may be different in the UK but here under a certain age they're loathe to go for anything permanent. A vasectomy at least can sometimes be reversed successfully though it still comes under the "at your age are you sure?" banner. I know of couples also where the doctor has insisted on discussing "what if something happened to one of your children?/what if something happened to one of you/your marriage?". But those discussions can be started by doctors talking to men considering a vasectomy also. I can see why they want you to consider all angles.

Argh, not sure how I posted that!

Anyhow, wondered what fab ‘treat’ they had lined up after the helicopter the year before, got told it was tile painting. When I said no I meant their big main activity, y’know like the helicopter last year as that really impressed the kids and was something different and tile painting was just one of range of additional activities last time... nope. That was it. They did something special for the dads but couldn’t be bothered to do it for the mums. I did tell them it was incredibly sexist and setting a horrible example that dads were worth treating but mums weren’t but they weren’t too bothered.

Seriously not impressed with them!

The dc’s infant school used to alternate Being your Mum/Dad to school days every year. Bring your dad day first - they organised for a helicopter to fly in, give a little talk, pictures of kids and dads by helicopter. Much excitement, big deal made of it, lots of other activities going on too that mums were asked to volunteer to help out wth other activities.

The next year - take mums day and the invites went out - asking for mums to volunteer with the activities. I went to ask the head why they weren’t asking for me n to volunteer she did have the good grace to say that they had got into the habit of asking mums for help so did change it - albeit to parents - for the reminder. When I asked what exciting activity they had lined up

@HeyNotInMyName
I do realise what you are saying. Sorry to hear you have similar issues. I go very very slowly a lot of the time. I do appreciate my comment was not exactly about feminism. But I do think I’m invisible a lot of the time and this has to do with my age and sex. Too old to be sexy. Too young to be old aged.