Examples needed please

Much closer to home and quite recently, DH of 25 years had cause to see our marriage certificate. “Look at the state of it! It’s all crumpled”.

”Yeah, no shit Sherlock”. How many times in the past 25 years has he been asked on a form “have you changed your name? If you have, please provide proof”. He has never answered “yes” to this question in his life.

Well, yes I have changed my name (because I married HIM!) and I have had to provide proof of that change. Every, single time I have been asked.

Others have covered the ongoing professional belittling of women but I can also add - random comments from total strangers on my appearance, clothing and body that men wouldn't dream of saying to another man and have no reason to speak to me about but for the patriarchal attitude of women's existence being solely for the pleasure and service of men. There is no chance that in any of these cases it was just a clumsy or inappropriate attempt at a chatup line it's just that they think their opinion on my appearance/clothes/body ought to matter to me.

Examples - i go running regularly, my running kit is red. I am not trying to look decorative or alluring while running, I am doing it for my own benefit. I regularly hear comments (which obviously I ignore and just keep running) from random males who are out walking their dog or whatever, often singing or referencing the "lady in red" song and commenting on how very unsexy and unattractive I appear to them, as if I am failing in my duty to look nice for them.

Similar kind of thing but I wasn't running and wasn't looking a sweaty mess, just on a train and sorting out my bags while wearing a shirt printed with a pattern that included a particular animal, and a random man asked me quite aggressively "so are you some sort of an expert on (animal) then?" - in context i think he was feeling afronted that I was failing to "woman" properly as I was dealing with my own luggage and not simpering and asking for help from a nice strong man.

Or the time I was just walking along the street going to fetch my child from school and a man walking in the opposite direction yelled "hooters" at me - yes he had spotted that I have breasts, and felt this to be worthy of comment. (I wasn't showing any cleavage just wearing an ordinary Tshirt, not that this should matter)

Obviously a load more but I can't list every single time. It's just constant reminders that if we dare to be out in public and we aren't actively performing a role of being decorative, weak, and subservient then there's a large number of men who will take offence at that and try to think of a way to shame us into being more womanly. Though I am aware that there's a flipside to this as the women who are out in public and are effectively following the "womanly" expectations are no less subject to comments and demands for attention from total strangers. Men are allowed to just get on with their day minding their own business, women in the public space are subject to the approval or disapproval of the men who see us and a great many of them feel entitled to let us know to what extent we are succeeding or failing to earn their approval.

Being ignored in meetings. THen your idea is repeated by a man, to notice & acclaim.

In my field, academia: many macro studies show that students' assessment of teaching is a better indicator of students' sexism & racism than of teaching aptitude or quality.

I'm waiting for a women's surgery right now. The official NHS recovery guidance says no lifting heavy weights for 6 weeks but you should be back to normal activities around 8 weeks. I dug for more detail. 'Heavy weight' is defined in NHS literature as no more than 'half a kettle of water'. 1) on what planet is that heavy and 2) I guess women are too stupid to be told an actual weight limit, but can only understand a domestic-based example.

I looked up a reasonably comparable male operation - they too are told not to lift heavy weights - which is defined as over 20lb.

So, apparently the average man's strength is about 10 times that of the average woman, and men can understand numbers while women cannot.

I am fuming about this mysogenistic, condescending shite.

They also claim that being able to walk for 30 minutes after 8 weeks is a normal activity level for women.

Years of Drs visits for issues and pain for what was basically perimenopause. Reduced hours at work. I was diagnosed with hypermobility syndrome. I now know that yes, I’m very hypermobile but the syndrome part (pain, fatigue etc) is primarily caused by lack of female hormones and deconditioning.

I had hrt for a while which helped hugely; when I had to come off due to cancer I then found out about the importance of strength training to help menpausal aches and pains and symptoms. But I had to do a lot of reading and listening to find this out

Another woman I know was diagnosed with hypermobility syndrome as a young woman. She was told not to carry heavy shopping bags. She tried that for a bit and then became a personal trainer and weightlifter after realising it was total BS.

Parent of a child recently said “women are aggro though aren’t they” whilst describing the behaviour of his 4 year old daughter during a professional meeting educational about his older child.

A male nhs endocrinologist I saw for a consultation didn’t know that it was normal to have amenorrhea while breastfeeding.

This is a bit of a weird, "Know your place, woman!" one.

I played bass guitar in a band with two male guitarists and a male drummer. The two guitarists and I were also vocalists and we led on different songs.

When we were on stage it was almost random where we stood in the line-up, except I always ended up on one side or the other of the line-up and one of the two guitarists was randomly in the middle.

Then our manager said he wanted me to be in the middle because it was a better balance visually. We played a couple of times like this and then the guitarists kicked off!

They both said that it wasn't appropriate for me to be in the middle because it made it look as if it was "her band" rather than that we were all equals. Because, of course, we were all equals, what with them being "feminists" 😵‍💫

So I asked how they felt about one of them being in the middle, did that not make it look like whichever one of them was in the middle would make it seem like it was "his band" rather than us all being equal?

No! No! No! No! It wouldn't matter which one of them was in the middle, no one would make the mistake of thinking that it meant it was "his band"!!

But it would definitely give the wrong impression if I was in the middle, people would obviously think it was "her band" and that would be awful - because, of course, we were all equal!

Such fragile male egos these male "feminists" have - can't have a woman taking centre stage, literally! 😂

Oh! That has reminded me of another one! This time with some gratuitous violence!

This was a different band with a big line up. We were playing on a long, high stage and there were not enough mics to go round. We decided that whoever was on each end of the lineup would share a mic with the person next to them.

The band leader (there was one this time) was an arrogant twat. While the rest of us were setting up the stage and tuning our instruments he was off swanning around and mingling with other musicians in the audience whom he admired.

I was right on one end of the lineup again, because everyone had grabbed their place while I had been chasing round after the Band Leader trying to get him to come up on stage and get ready.

By the time the band leader deigned to come up on stage we were running late - waiting for him. Not even time for a sound check. Everyone had sorted themselves out with a mic, there was no time to swap around and he was left having to share a mic with me on the end of the line up, rather him having his own mic in pride of place, centre stage.

He was angry about it but I reminded him that it shouldn't be a problem because there was no song in the set where we sang at the same time, so it would be "his mic" when he needed it and I would stand back.

It worked out fine for the first song, where I did not sing at all and I stood back while he sang.

I had some parts in the second song but he did not sing at all, so it should have worked as a mirror image of the first song.

Except when I went to take the mic to sing my part he jumped forward and shouldered me away so suddenly and so hard that I staggered badly and nearly fell off the stage - and he sang my part!

There was a big gasp from the audience, both at what he had done but also because it looked like I was going to fall flat off the stage and break some bones, but he didn't seem to notice.

He planted himself right on the mic so I could not get to it to sing at all for the rest of the gig and he sang lead vocals for all the songs that I was supposed to lead. 🙄

The rest of the band were so disgusted with his behaviour that when we came off stage a couple of them told him they were leaving the band - then the rest of us joined them and that was the last gig the band ever played.

There is absolutely no way he would have done that to any of the men in band. There was one other woman in the band, a violinist who was a cut above the rest of us and played in several other bands. He would not have dared do it to her, both because of her standing musically and because the men in her other bands would have beat the living daylights out of him.

Just little me though, the least experienced member of that band, he felt confident he could use violence to take out his anger on me and at the same time assert his dominance as "leader", claiming part of the stage and the mic as "his" territory and stealing my songs.

What was this thug's day job, did you say?

Qualified Mental Health Nurse. 🤦‍♀️

I have remembered another one, going back to the first band, when I was basically treated as the Roadie after one practice session.

The two guitarists sauntered off saying they were going to the pub, leaving me with a van load of gear to transport home, unload and keep at mine overnight.

I didn't do it. I made them come back. But they would have got away with it if I had let them. Again, they would not have dared try that on with the male drummer or accordionist.

Cheeky twats!

On Tuesday I was having some essential work done on the roof of my house by a team of builders. The Big Boss turned up to see how they were getting on. For no reason I could fathom, whilst we were ducking past a pyracantha which overhangs the path to the site of the work, he said to me, "This reminds me of mistletoe."

Huh? In what world are they even remotely similar? And would he have said this to my husband if DH had happened to answer the door to show him round to the back of the house?

I am in my seventies....

A man assumed my male assistant was the boss. When I told him I was the boss he said, "What? A bitty little girl like you?"

I was in my late thirties, so clearly not a little girl.

I used to work in a maintenance department. I was the only woman the other five were men. It suddenly dawned on me after nearly a year that I nearly always went for the coffees or sandwiches and every Friday "the boys" went down the pub at lunchtime and left me on my own to deal with any problems. Often they didn't return until after 3pm when they would roll back in having downed several pints. Sometimes they just didn't return. I am not sure why it took so long for me to realise what was going on, I can only think that it was my social conditioning which began at birth. The final straw was when the job of assistant manager came up and the manager chose his lazy arse mate despite the fact that I had not only been working in the department the longest but I had also been successfully deputising on a regular basis for the both the manager and the deputy manager for several years.

When the kids were at school, my husband worked part-time while I worked full time. He was down as the primary contact in case the school needed to get in touch. Despite this, they almost always called me first. Including when I was trying to deal with medical emergencies.

Also - my husband was thoroughly praised for being so wonderful - he works! He looks after the kids! He cleans and cooks!

Strangely such praise didn't come my way when we swapped round.

"Unisex" meaning "men's, but the wimmin can wear it and it will probably be fine"

The endless assumption that I (10 year post qualified auditor when DS1 was born) would ‘rather be part time to see more of the DC’. DH and I agreed that I needed to be polite when anyone at all had asked him (teacher, earns less than I do) the same. Spoiler alert, DS1 is a teen and I still don’t need to be polite.

Definitely making a point in a meeting, it being glossed over, then a senior male making it 5 minutes later and it being the best idea since sliced bread. To one's credit, he did say that I'd said it first but that's the only time that that bit happened.

SNAP

Oh oh SO MANY work ones.😎

1. Welcoming a member of my audit team who they assumed was the lead as he was 50 ish and I was a 40 ish female. I still enjoy the memory of the look of horror and dismay when they realised that the lavish grovelling was misplaced. Not Naomi Campbell level of briskness (heaven forbid) but “gentleman shall we make a start”…
2. An older gentleman assuming that my female colleague and I were secretaries. “Can you help me with the photocopier?”. “No. You need the chap in admin. We can only help with legal matters”. Completely flummoxed by the world inversion.
3. Assumption that two women must be gossiping when we were problem solving in our shared office, with the door closed and did not welcome interruptions “for a chat”.
4. On my last day as a university academic my manager said I was difficult to work with but at least now I did not work there anymore it was ok for him to now slap my bum!!! The same Professor wanted the females on my team to “smile more”. Red flag.
5. OMG yes. Take notes, make coffee, make charity cakes, do collections. Look after new starts. Waifs and strays. Interns. No. Is a complete sentence.

And people wonder why I am so sodding @r&ey.
Everyday misogyny everyday of my working life.

There's the often cited study where male and female colleagues swapped names and email addresses for two weeks. Revealed gender bias at work. Link

www.hrdive.com/news/how-an-email-experiment-between-two-co-workers-revealed-startling-gender-bi/437918/

My aunt was an auditor. She did it for 30 years and trained up several dozen people to do the role. She regaled us with stories at Christmas but always complained that, without fail. Every time she had a (even much) younger male trainee with her when visiting properties, the person would open the door and EVERY time would shake the man's hand first and refer questions to him instead of the 50yo woman who has knocked.

Someone the same level as me at work writing on teams 'good girl' when I answered a simple question on two separate occasions. I complained to his manager and he was made to apologise. He proceeded to try and explain away why he'd said it

Whenever I buy a car they talk to my husband. If I ask questions they answer to my husband. He doesn’t even drive! He tells them this and they just keep doing it anyway.

I’m being paid less than my husband to do the same job. We can’t challenge it because it’s in our contracts not to discuss pay even though obviously we know what household income we have and who gets what.
During a meeting, I got told by a male coworker to make notes like I was his assistant. We do the same professional job.
A colleague told me the other day that he thinks the law is unfair because only men can be charged with rape.

Booked an appointment at the bank.
All banking done by me.
Man comes out of office and 3 times addresses only my husband, completely ignoring me, even though it was my name on the appointment.
He couldn’t even see me over his computer monitor.

My ex manager only ever asked female staff to bring coffee to to the meeting room when he had a meeting. Never the men.