Wondering...Are Older Men More Sexist?

[MelonadeAgain]

Just a few things that's happened to me lately. For instance, an older man (sixties I'd say) started chatting to me in my gym class, and I couldn't really be bothered chatting back, so just answered in one word answers and walked off when the class started. He then spent the class glaring at me, doing his circuits right next to me and then did the same thing in the gym afterwards. I don't think I was especially rude, I just don't chat to people at the gym.

Ditto a couple of older men of I'd guess a similar vintage online, friends of friends on FB and on another forum I use. Sent me pms which I ignored and then started making comments about me being snooty etc on posts visible to me. Actually quite a bit of nastiness about it.

I'm trying to imagine if I got arsy with a young guy 25 years younger than me for not engaging with me in similar situations and failing.

Not necessarily

I think how they manifest their sexism can be quite indicative of their generation though...paternalistic condescension, eg, being something you might not see so much in younger men.

Hmm, listening to young men/ teenagers convos in the gym - no. They are really disrespectful about women. Not a rough gym either and not the first one either.

Older men might have attitudes they learned in different times.

The gym example you gave could have come from anyone. Why not quietly and politely tell people you need to concentrate in the gym and don't want a conversation, rather than being short with them?

Men of all ages get tetchy when they fancy women who won't play along.

DH is 52, my dad is 72, DH's dad would have been 91 ( clearly an older parent!)
All of these men took care of the children, had wives that worked, did the shopping,cooking and cleaning.
My mum and DH's mum had the freedom to work,socialise ( some of the tales I've heard over the years from them have been hilarious)

I have never heard any of them mutter anything sexist.
I don't believe they are the exceptions either.

I chat to 'older men' but I don't get any lewd suggestions.
Where are all these sexist blokes because they don't appear to be in my neck if the woods.

Yes exactly Sicaq, public transport seems to be a breeding ground for them.

NotHisMistress The gym example you gave could have come from anyone. Why not quietly and politely tell people you need to concentrate in the gym and don't want a conversation, rather than being short with them?

Why should I have to though? Yes, I am being slightly rude in not engaging in conversational chitchat but there is nothing terribly rude about answering "Yes" to a question ("Are you going to this class?"). The inference is I don't want to chat further, if someone did that to me I would leave them in peace, not follow them around glaring at them.

DrinkFeck yes I know the type of younger men you mean, I have heard it too. But generally they only do it in packs and don't engage you individually.

The thing is, I know older men do it because they label it "harmless flirting" but I don't want to play that game. And I wouldn't be happy with my DH playing that game either. If I found out he had been pming me the sort of stuff I've received from men on forums, I'd be really horrified and upset at him.

And of course its sexist - women don't do it!

"Men of all ages get tetchy when they fancy women who won't play along."

Aw, diddums.

Some are, some aren't. I think they are sometimes sexist around different things ("shouldn't you be in the typing pool?" was a corker I heard once) but I know other men the same age who were more "gender blind" than men our age.

I like this analogy for "harmless flirting"

www.theferrett.com/ferrettworks/2012/08/can-i-buy-you-a-coffee/

I don't think it's related to age. I know many blokes in their fifties who are very liberal and see women as equals. That's just the age range of my friends. But there are men like this and you really notice it when you hit 40. They can't be bothered to speak to you once you become uninteresting to them in a sexual way.

I come from a family of feminist men on both sides. Hugely supportive (to the point of slightly pushy :) ) of study and work for females. E.g. DGM was the head and breadwinner of the family after DGF was paralysed, but luckily she was allowed and encouraged to educate herself and get a job. Also my Greek DGM2 was an entrepreneur while married (which normally would have been seen shameful, because it meant that DGF2 couldn't support the family with his own salary) and the mother to the first woman in a small town in Greece to dare to cycle around in RED TROUSERS (it was a bit scandalous, believe it or not). Also, DGF2 genuinely didn't see his two daughters as any worse to boys, or disappointing, which would have been unusual in those times. Both daughters (DM and DA) went abroad to study and become highly respected professionals.

In the continuum of men and women in my family, in recent history, I hardly figure as a feminist..

Men of all ages can be sexist.

However older men are less likely to expect women to shave their pubes as they haven't grown up looking at internet porn.

I bet the OPs DH on the "vaginal abscess" thread is under 40 or at a push under 45.

Some 7yos were harrassing my DD today because she was playing football so no, sexism happens at any age.

Some fantastic generalisations on this thread.

Yup, and some men make "massive generalisations" about women. < shrug >

I think as you get older, some men think you should be grateful for any attention from men.

Of course you are not being rude. It is not your job to entertain them or be their counsellor. I chat to strangers. If someone isnt interested in chatting, I stop talking to them. I don't throw a strop, because I don't feel entitled to others time and attention.

I'm 61 and I hope not a sexist, but I think I probably have to recognise and resist assumptions and attitudes which I acquired from both parents and from the world around me which my DS, now 29, would not even understand. It's the way of the world.

I suspect older white men and women are also more racist, even if they are not conscious of it, than their children and grandchildren.

I don't think older men are necessarily more sexist - yes some older men are sexist, but so are an unfortunate amount of middle aged men, younger men, teenagers etc

However, I totally understand being frustrated by men who feel entitled to your time and attention. I remember as a teenager, "older gentlemen" frequently chatting to me on buses and trains when I was clearly trying to read and they ALWAYS overstepped personal boundaries by patting my arm or putting a hand on my shoulder. It was really creepy and unnerving but I was too conditioned polite to tell them to leave me alone - I think what you experienced is an extension of that.

I think the reason older men do this more is because there's the added social convention of not wanting to be rude to an elder - I'm sure younger men do it to younger girls as well.

Caruthers some fantastic generalisations on this thread

Ah, the old "generalisations argument. The alternative is not discussing "current trends" other than through personal (unproven) experience. Generalisation can be a less offensive tool for critical analysis. Alternatively, you can "pretend it doesn't happen" and show no interest in discussing the topic. Your choice. Challenging ingrained attitudes is one way we now have the concept of indirect discrimination recognised in many areas of life.

Grennie I think as you get older, some men think you should be grateful for any attention from men

Direct quote from one man I accepted as a friend on FB because he does the same sport as me and has mutual friends, but who clearly has a girlfriend. "I've heard it all stops for women after 40, you better make the most of it while it lasts". (on me rejecting his suggestion to meet up for coffee).

Last month I read The Essential Dave Allen. Its a collection of some of his monologues. And each chapter has a foreword written by Graham McCann the biographer.
In the clubs where Dave performed they quite often had strippers too. Apparently one of them had VERY long pubic hair.

Blokes were queuing around the block to get a chance to see her.

If it was now she would be expected to shave. So its not generalisation. Older men don't tend to expect this because it just wasn't done back then.

I am genuinely shocked by the number of people (presumably women) on this thread who think the OP is being rude.

Why should she engage in conversation if she doesn't want to? To be polite? To be 'ladylike'? I can just about see the reasoning behind that, even though I disagree - it's nice to be nice, and so on. But sexually loaded PM's from men she's never met in person? Why the fuck should she engage with that shit?

I would have thought they were like that because they didn't like the way you treated them and was nothing to do with being more sexist since they were older men. Fair enough if you didn't like their attentions and didn't want to reply, but they wouldn't be being sexist just by not liking your response.

To answer your general question, no, I think it depends on each man individually. There are many sexist older men and many sexist young men, and vice versa. I know plenty of each.

I don't think so SweetEspresso. Women just don't behave in that way. They want a reaction from a woman to make their day. I don't see why I should give them attention when I don't want to. I don't have some kind of job description involving making polite conversation to random strangers. Maybe some women do pester men for attention in "normal" settings like gym and exercise classes, I've never seen it. If a random woman did come up to me and try to start chatting away as if she knew me I would react very similarly - and possibly consider her a bit of a nutter.

What I have noticed is that since I've got older, I get more of this low level unwelcome attention from much older men. As if they somehow thinks you're now within their "range". Younger men usually only harass you when they're in packs. The older version seems more planned and subtle and far more prone to having tantrums if you simply ignore them. And I don't see them behaving like that towards other men.

I would like to ask those posters who think its rude to respond to men with one word answers or ignore them when you don't feel like engaging with them, how they would feel if their DH or DP was making a pest of themselves like this. Because if you do engage with them beyond a "yes" or a "no" they inevitably try to make little conversations with you and small talk and before you know it you are having these little private conversations with them and they do it every time you are in the same place as them. I see enough posts on mumsnet complaining about people's husbands contacting women on the internet, why complain about someone who has been contacted doing the right thing and ignoring them? Seriously?

I think older men have a stronger sense of entitlement to women's time and attention. Yes, that's sexist but I think young men are sexist in different ways.

Flora wrote what I was going to say :) I have generally preferred partners younger than me, because men my own age (b. 1955) are far more likely to have crappy attitudes about wifework, careers, money and lechery. Men of my generation with brains have learned 'non-sexist' behaviour for workplace and social situations, but still have generally misogynistic attitudes. There are glowing exceptions, but the point is they're exceptions.

We were trailblazers for women, and men didn't start catching up until 10-15 years later.

Pornification bothers me immensely, though. I think young women now face almost identical problems to those of my generation, just with different window dressing. Feminism really needs a revival.

But it's still not related to all older men being more sexist than younger ones. They may have behaved differently, but that doesn't mean they are more sexist, just show it in a different way. Plus, as I said before, there are plenty of older men not sexist at all and lots of younger ones who are.

I've had women chat to me when I've not particularly wanted it and follow me round to get my attention. Sounds like pretty much the same thing only without any sexual comments.