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.

I think they see it as having a common interest with you which entitles them to 'harmless banter'. But let's face it are any of them making a bee line for the older women in the gym, highly unlikely, so they are seeing themselves as other than they are, old farts.

I'm old and wouldn't start banter with a young bloke unless I happened to trip over him, I'd just assume he would have eyes for someone his own age if he wanted 'banter'. I'd prob talk to someone female and my age, unless there was a reason to speak to someone, then I'd make a passing comment to anyone and chat if they appeared to want to.

I can remember the first time I realized that I was being chatted up by a man who must have been at least 30 years older than me, oh the wave of horror and revulsion that came over me! I don't care about age differences, whatever floats your boat but for me that was too much I'm afraid. I'm very close to my father and I view any man who is more than 20 years older than me as being in the "father" bracket if you know what I mean. It was horrifying to realize that someone my dad's age was sexually interested in me! I also felt a little annoyed by the man. I guess I thought it was presumptuous and entitled of him to assume that I would be open to his advances.

I think older men and women are more sexist. Some things a society grows out of. If you explained the racism of the first 70 years of last century to a group of schoolchildren they would be amazed. Gay issues as well. The younger people are, the less homophobic they tend to be.

But I do mean younger people are less sexist than older ones. There is still plenty of work to be done.

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

THIS I couldn't have put it better.

Some old men like me were exposed to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own; Simone De Beauvoir's The Second Sex; and Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch (Possible not Betty Friedan, though - too scary!), when we were younger. You probably don't see us in the gym, though. If men of any age are sexist, I blame their mums.

". If men of any age are sexist, I blame their mums."

Lolz.

Just wanted to say how much I am enjoying reading this thread. It maddens me at times to realise just how ingrained sexism is in our society. Only yesterday I had to smile to myself when I walked past a building site without that awful feeling of awkwardness and dread , wondering what the men on site were going to shout at me. Now I am over 40 ... shock, horror ( and also a lot plumper than I used to be ... also wear flat comfortable shoes but that's another story ).... I have become sexually invisible to men on the street and it is marvellous!!!

On the other hand " older " men seem to want to engage with me . On saying " good morning " to an elderly gentleman a couple of days ago I was regaled with silly sexist jokes , basically along the lines of " I wouldn't say my wife's mouth is big but I found the car parked in there the other day ....". It took me some time to get away from him and I felt angry with myself because I felt I had spent my time with some sexist , unintelligent twat of a man and hadn't told him where to get off . As a feminist I still feel disgusted with myself over this and other " little, insignificant " incidents that I didn't challenge.

I would consider my DH as pretty non sexist but even he at times thinks " we" ... as in women .... read too much into things .This stuff really is ingrained in everything we say or do and I despair at times of sexual equality ever being achieved .. ... well, not in my lifetime .

Another example of it (this one is quite funny). I was doing a 5k running race, and was in 3rd position of the women, and caught up an older man who had started too fast and then started walking. As soon as I passed him, he started running again and overtook me, only to walk again a minute or so later. This happened a few more times and as it did, he started chatting to me:- "Hows your time so far?" "Do you know how far we have run?" etc which I ignored or tried to grunt in response to. He obviously worked out he wasn't getting the response he wanted, so his next comment was "I'm 55 you know, I haven't been doing this all my life like you". At this point I'm afraid I said "If you want a personal trainer, pay for one" speeded up and left him behind. It did disturb my running rhythmn, but it was worth it.

Some of my female training partners in my running club do talk about this "phenomenon" - its well known you have to avoid this type of older male runner at the end of races when they try and corner you to bore you to death about their "achievements". Or the ones at your running club who try and corner you and ask you all sorts of questions and tell you all about themselves. From experience, its just best not to engage with them in the first place, so you don't get drawn in.

These are the ones who I never ever see talking to the several older good standard female runners in their forties and fifties. Never happens. They are also to be distinguished from the genuinely nice older male runners, who are maybe a little bit more serious about their sport and are there for the running, and also capable of making pleasant "light" conversation not all about themselves. I can think of several really nice older male runners like this that I enjoy exchanging a few words with from time to time. I think I've got quite good at spotting the difference!