'Why don't you get your husband to call us, instead?' - GRRRR

[RevoltingPeasant]

This is what the woman at the membership department of a charity I just joined said to me when I rang up because they had mistakenly listed our membership under HIS name, not mine, despite the fact that I am paying for it.

Why had they done this? - oh, because when the membership lady was filling out our form, she'd automatically put 'Mr' in the box 'because of course it's generally the man of the house who pays' (). I thought she was kidding, but apparently not.... And of course they couldn't fix it unless 'my husband' told them it was okay!

This also comes in a week when, after we bought a wardrobe, the salesman turned to DP despite the fact that I was getting my wallet out. When I pointedly held out my debit card, he took it, saying 'Unusual, very unusual' and then asked DP if he was going to take me out for lunch to make up for it.

AIBU to think the world is full of sexist pigs? Or am I stuck in some weird timewarp where women still need permission to have bank accounts and get egg money once a week Devon ?

Ooh ooh I think I might be able to beat you all...

Not only am I a woman, I am also in a wheelchair, so I am quite used to being entirely invisible and all questions directed at my DH

The time that really took the biscuit though was the midwife at the hospital when I was in labour who insisted on talking only to DH 'that contraction was a bad one wasn't it' 'how do you think she's coping with the pain' do you think we should sit her up a bit' and most helpfully of all 'do you want her to deliver naturally or would you rather she had a c-section, its up to you' at which point I growled like the girl from the exorsist 'it is NOT fucking up to him ffs' and she stormed off in a huff!

Oh yes, double glazing & solar panel people are bad for this, always asking for a time when MrGrockle will be home too. When I questioned it, they seemed surprised that I owned the house myself. Then, when they fitted the window, I was told ' your husband's painted this recently so you should have a bit of spare paint for MrGrockle to put on this chip here'

And also, when DP has been around, builders addressing him despite it being MY house, MY money and MY decision. Grrrr

If I speak to someone who won't take my money and asks to speak to Mr Tangled, I say "good luck - you find him" and hang up.

I have immense trouble engaging the services of tradesmen (let's face it, they are invariably men). I arrange them to come round and quote, then inwardly cringe as they say "will mr sparetime be home then?"
As if I can't be trusted to supervise a quote
Then DH comes home and asks how Sorting the quote went, and I once again have to get him to call, using the same exact words, arranging the same time for the quote (still only me home) and they readily agree.
When they quote, they usually say "would you like that written down", er, yes, that's the point of getting a written quote!
Then when I show any indication of technical knowledge, they look affronted and say something along the lines of "ooh, you know a lot about plumbing/electrics/solar PV/etc. For a woman" as if I'm supposed to be thinking about pretty kittens or something.
I would write it offas one bad apple, but I have supervised double glazing, an extension, replumbing the house, new floors, solar panels, new boiler, smoke alarm installation, and it's the same story every single time!

Immortal -

I have to say I don't mind my dh being handed the bill at restaurants etc. I leave all paying taxis/card carrying/ordering to him when we're out. Maybe because I'm the breadwinner and spend my week making money decisions at work.

I work in construction and come across my fair share of blatant sexism.
I do hate the when's the boss going to turn up attitude at 1st appointments. FFS I am the boss!
I get an awful lot of letters addressed to Mr obviouslywomansname, which although only a small thing on a bad day has the ability to wind me up.
I also get called little girl a lot. I'm in my mid 30's and ok I'm quite tiny but it's the patronising tone of voice that comes with it.... A few years back I was employed to I oversee an important project in London on behalf of the client as it was going a bit wrong. Walked into the tea room to overhear one of the senior engineers bitterly bitching about 'what gives that little girl the right to come and tell me what to do, what the he'll does a little girl know" .... I cleared my throat so he realised I could hear him and told him that if he had been able to do his job right in the first place I wouldn't have to come in and tell him how to do it now!

I tried to fob off a door to door salesman a while ago and he said ' I get it, you're a housewife and you have to ask your husband's permission...'

I was outraged and put him right. He appeared to have no idea why this assumption bothered me and, worse, when. I relayed this tale to DH he thought it was funny, and also didn't understand why I was bothered.

YANBU by the way.

"I'm not married and I'm sick to death of everyone ticking the Mrs box as a default then getting a withering look when I ask them to change it to Miss - yes MISS none of that Ms crap!"

There was a long discussion in the office recently about how you should reply to a letter, where the letter did not give a title, but was just signed "Jane Smith".

It would be a formal business reply, you had never met and would probably never meet the person who had signed the letter, and you knew absolutely nothing at all about them. Various options were suggested -

1. Dear Jane Smith
2. Dear Ms Smith
3. Dear Mrs Smith
4. Dear Miss Smith
5. Dear Madam

However option 1 is specifically ruled out by the business, as it is deemed too informal, and if a letter was received from "John Smith", it would never be replied to Dear John Smith.

The problem seemed to be, that although Dear Ms Smith seemed the appropriate solution, some people had very strong views about it.

My dh died ten years ago, for six years after he died i kept getting letters (even after asking for them to stop) addressed to us both from the education dept.
In the end i rang them up and told them that if i got any more of the same letters then i would contact the local paper. The letters came addressed to me after that!!

just cancel the standing order

I went out with the OH the other day to buy him a new jacket for his bike as a present. All was going fine, bloke selling talked to the OH and all was going fine until I handed over my card to make the payment and the salesman said to the OH 'see, women do have their uses then...'

I might have demanded my card back, I might have explained loudly and clearly my views on his comment and I did get an apology

We joined the National Trust recently, I completed the form with the membership person, gave my bank details for the direct debit, and gave DH and DDs names and details as it was a family membership.

I was actually surprised when the confirmation letter and the membership cards came addressed to me, I expected them to be the kind of organisation who puts the man as the main member. Sounds like the experience is mixed though.

While we're naming and shaming, Thompson holidays did this to me. Booked with my debit card, gave my name as the first passenger, and my email address and phone number. Everything came addressed to Mr Cooper.

Immortal that is absolutely beyond belief!

Haunted I completely agree re: Ms. Why should women have to identify whether they are married or not all the time? I've been Ms since the age of 15 and still am now I am married.

I am another victim of sexist car salesmen. Whenever I change my car, I tend to take my Dad with me. My husband and mother don't drive and have no interest in cars, so it is our chance for a bit of father-daughter bonding. And whilst he has to buy sensible family saloons that my mum can get in and out of (she has had surgery on her spine) my last two cars have been sports cars so he gets to have a look around the fun stuff. It is however very difficult to get the salesmen to talk to me. Even when I ask questions, they answer to my dad. Even when he points out that I am the one buying the car. At one point he wandered off in an effort to force the salesman to talk to me. A few years ago one was so bad that I walked out, despite the fact that I had decided to buy one of that brand's models, brand new. I ended up going to the other garage a few miles down the road and getting it instead. After picking it up I was driving past the first garage with the roof down and a big grin on my face. The Pretty Woman scene where she walks back into the shop where they had refused to serve her saying "big mistake; huge" did spring to mind!

It's also happened with a holiday. Before my husband and I were married, we went to Egypt together. I paid for the entire thing on my credit card. When we arrived, we were given an envelope with vouchers for transfers and the hotel, etc. The envelope was addressed to him, as was everything inside. And he hadn't paid a bloody penny for any of it!

I have posted on here nefore about this. I had been dealing with an IFA to sort out Life Assurance for myself and DH. I had got a recommendation for this man from friends, I had sent the initial email, had a long initial telephone call with him, and followed up with detailed emails. His only knowledge of my DH was from what I had told him/what I had filled in on forms. When he sent a bundle of paperwork through for signing - the envelope was addressed to "Mr Fessa"

When he rang to ask why it hadn't been returned, I stated I hadn't received it. I let him know what I thought about his assumptions - he was very taken aback and hopefully will think twice in future. He defended it saying he was in a rush......?!

A couple of weeks ago we had an energy company phone up. I said I wasn't interested. They asked to talk to DH, I said he wasn't here at the moment. They asked for his phone number. I gave it to them and they actually phoned him.
He is currently living in Belgium.

Ugh, I hate stuff like that.

Doing a customer service course at college ATM (part of apprenticeship) and we were talking about this being a common mistake - a woman asks the question but salesperson answers to the man, or if someone in a wheelchair asks the question they answer to the helper if there is one. Amazing how people can be so judgemental.

A male heating engineer came last week to fix my boiler. Showed me what to do if it happened again.
Front off, attach hose, turn valve, turn tap, wait till x needle meets y needle. Turn all off and replace front panel.

Then said, "But as you're a woman you should leave it on all the time."
Me: splutter - "What?"
HE: (slowly as I'm obviously dimmer than he thinks) repeats "As you're a woman it'd be easier for you to just leave it as it is and only turn the valve on."
Me: "Because I'm a woman? And actually the woman who'll pay your bill. Ooh I wonder if I can manage that correctly, being so incapable of following instructions. I think you should leave now."

I don't get a lot of it, I don't tend to get patronised by tradespeople or salespeople, most of the ones I've come into contact with have learned not to do that I suspect.

I do get it a bit though being a SAHM - its assumed I am being "supported" by my husband. This happens more online than anywhere, if I take part in a debate about work/life balance or division of household jobs etc and thus far women have been the worst though to be fair the forums I frequent tend to have more women than men or certainly in these discussions it tends to be that more women contribute.

It was once suggested to me during a discussion about work life balance that my husband would be able to spend more time at home if I went out and got a job, and then he could work less. I know that for some, in theory, that is the case but FFS my husband doesn't do the job he does because we need X amount of money - he has a career that to enjoy and progress he has to put in a certain amount of effort. This was the case for me too when I was pursuing my previous career. If I were to return to work, it would make it even less possible for him to progress his career due to the children we had together.

If he wanted to give work up, he could. (not forever but he could take a sabbatical no problem) I have an independent income which I would be most happy for him to "live off" or "be supported by" or whatever. He doesn't want to, and I don't want him to because I know what he gets from his work, and its important to me that he is happy too.

It is often implied that my husband is doing me some huge favour because I don't have to work, as if its all down to him, and that I should be in some way obliged to make it up to him by doing all the housework or giving him blowjobs or some such.

Yet it is never implied I'm doing him a huge favour having a career break to help raise the 2 children we had together - its just assumed that that would happen and that I'd be grateful for the opportunity. I don't think I'm doing him personally a favour as such - we both do favours for the family as a whole of various kinds.

I think it grates my father-in-law big style that the bigger, faster, main family car is "mine" - registered in my name, etc, and driven mainly by me - and the small, much cheaper to buy and run and much less fun car is "his" - it only gets driven to the train station and back once a day, so no need for him to have anything too fun at the mo whereas I do more schlepping about with kids and then we use it as the main vehicle on the weekend. He still likes to say its DH's car which he lends me, oh its nice of him to "let" you drive it during the week, I suppose it does make sense as he doesn't do much driving etc etc

To be fair I don't tend to go into massive detail about our personal set of circumstances and motivations for setting up things the way we do but it is still interesting/irritating to see what the default assumptions are.

Revolting, I'm pleased you didn't cancel. If you can be bothered, it would be worth contacting the charity's membership manager (or just address to chief exec) and letting them know about the incident. The person you spoke to may put others off joining / staying with the charity and needs to be steered away from this.

That wardrobe salesman was just plain rude though, how dare he make assumptions about how you conduct your relationship, however 'lighthearted'. Was he young? I find a lot of young salesmen have no real concept of manners and think it's fine to talk to customers the same way they would to their friends.

A memorable example is going to an outdoor shop to look at walking boots and buy some other things. The Saturday sales staff were all young men, late teens / early twenties. Me, early thirties. Looked at boots for a while, salesmen chatting about computer games rather than approaching me. Salesman approached 'alright darling?'

Looks innocuous written down but I was quite shocked both that he thought that was an appropriate way to address a customer and, given the 'bar chat up' style of the line, that he had the gall / thought I'd have looked at him twice! More like total lack of social skills. I've bought much, expensive, outdoor gear since, all at other shops that employ grown-up sales staff.

Actually I'm glad you didn't cancel revolting, if you believe in the cause etc, it would be a bit flouncy admittedly.

Oh you know what my pet hate is, I'm sure its been done, but "baby change" facilities.

Went to Frankie & Bennys so very much a child-friendly type place (probably the only reason I'd go there!) and this is a brand new, purpose built building - it wasn't there a year ago, I watched it go up - there is a disabled toilet with nothing in it in terms of change facilities, a men's toilet with multiple cubicles but no change station in it or any of the cubicles and a women's toilet with a change station in one of the cubicles.

WTF!!!

It is assumed, on that basis, that it must be a women's job to change a nappy and that nobody else has any reason to do so. That a baby wouldn't possibly go out without a woman present, and that if that baby was to break one off then it would be that woman's job to sort it.

What about lone parents or single parents who happen to be male? What about women who change nappies all week because they are in sole charge of the children during the week and consider it their partner's turn? What about, god forbid, the father being the one who notices the poo and decides to sort it? FFS?

That really rips my knitting

It is some years ago but we were going to have a double glazed patio door put in. I was going to pay the £2000. We made a couple of apointments to get quotations and the first visit was from E..... He arrived at about 6.00pm and started to spout forth. He addressed everything to my husband so I began to seethe inside and thought, "You are going to have a wasted time here". He was obviously planning not to leave until he had a contract.

He tried to get paperwork signed but, when he asked me at 9.30pm to "Let's have a cup of tea, dear", my mind was made up. Silent communication with my DH and he went on and on until 11.00pm, leaving then with nothing signed and his evening wasted. The other quotation got the contract. Why don't they learn?