To think sexism in the UK is not as bad as the UN rep says it is?

[AICM]

Yes I know you don’t have to look far to find many examples of sexism in the UK and yes the reaction of some men to this report has been awful but as I live my daily life I don’t feel as though I’m being oppressed and kept in my place by a patriarchy. I live the life I want, my OH does half (if I’m honest more than half of all domestic chores) my boss (a male) treats me with respect and my co-workers (who are nearly all male) treat me as an equal and don’t make any sexist comments.

Am I lucky or is my experience fairly common?

I've recently come back to the UK with two young children after over a decade abroad . I am absolutely staggered by how gendered my daughters' experience is. The way they are spoken to, the gifts they are given, the marketing. Everything is split into into boys' stuff and girls' stuff. They are constantly pressured into activities partly on the basis of their sex, the way they are praised and the things they are expected to like all very much pushed along gender lines.

The objectification of women is very visible and there seems to be a lot of pressure on younger women to be sexually attractive, with women's looks constantly commented on in the public sphere (and very little else about them seems to be considered newsworthy).

Culturally we seem set on the idea that women are responsible for children. But we give them little help and that begrudgingly. The failure of the CSA is a massive transfer of wealth from women to men, but it is one of the few debts that cannot be pursued through the courts. The resulting imbalance in the relative poverty of women and children compared to men is significant.

So I'm not that surprised the UN representative found it to be so visible. I do too. From my perspective it's shocking.

The gendering for little girls is much worse than when I had my first in the 80s when we were not that rare to buy books about the female doctor with stay at home husband or the female plumber and our girls were outside, running around and clothes were not just pink for girls and blue for girls, when girls did not think about plastic surgery and manicures. It has got much worse than even 20 years ago.

did she really say UK media was the most sexist in the world? even more than, say, Italy?

Ok. We weren't talking about the police being a feminist organisation. However if by the loose ideology that feminism is the support of equal rights/opportunities for women I would say police forces definitely are feminist!
The original point of contention was whether the police are sexist. Perhaps you have insider knowledge of institutionalised sexism.
As an employee and service user of two police areas I would say there is no institutionalised sexism.
Our CC is a woman.

Forago, perhaps someone ought to point this out to Nigel Farage. According to him sexual discrimination in the City just doesn't exist.

I think she said it was more sexist than comparable western countries. Only heard it on the radio so can't be exact.

It being the media.

Conversation I had with a male and a female primary teacher (I'm one too.)

Man:" Yes, but it's so clear that we need more male primary teachers!"
My friend:"I agree, but wouldn't it be nice ifthey stayed as teachers for a few years, give the kids continuity and be a role model?
Man:" We do. Kind of."
My friend:"Yep. As heads who don't teach."
True. So true. Every single primary male teacher i've ever known has been deputy at least within 5 years.

Nigel Farrage is an idiot! Wasn't there something in the news this week where he reportedly said to a female questioning something he said 'Shut up you stupid woman!'
Cretin.

hotfuzzra a recent report for the Greater Manchester Police found a working culture that disproportionately affected women's health and in terms of attitude to women within the force said "Females from right across the organisation felt that there was a male-dominated culture. They spoke repeatedly of demeaning sexist conversations."

www.dropbox.com/s/5umy4c90amv2f0s/Diversity%20in%20recruitment%20final%20report%20-%20January%202014%20%281%29.pdf

.. and the HMIC report on domestic violence found " alarming and unacceptable weaknesses in some core policing activity" and "The overall police response to victims of domestic abuse is not good enough and police forces need to take decisive action to rectify this."
new report, March 27www.hmic.gov.uk/news/news-feed/police-response-to-domestic-abuse/

I've lived in quite a few countries in Europe over the years, and my personal experience is that the UK is far more sexist than any of those. Even more sexist than Italy, because despite the similar levels of abuse in the streets, there seems to be more a culture of women in high level jobs there.

The UK is particularly bad for (a) sexual abuse in the streets (I cannot believe some of the stuff that has been said to me, e.g. yesterday a friend and I were walking along the street after work to get a coffee, a group of 3 normal looking professional men passed us and said "How much do you charge? Do you come as a pair?" and (b) more insidious sexism ingrained and often hidden behind notions that it is "being friendly", "being helpful", "giving women a chance", etc..

That said, I find a lot of British women very timid and/or lazy and unable or unwilling to do things for themselves compared to say your average Swedish or Dutch woman.

Sexism is when a couple divorce and the sahm gets to live in poverty despite it being a joint decision for her yo sah and it has helped his career flourish.

It is when you don't get a job because you are of chold bearing age and might go off on maternity leave. No one will ever say this to your face but it will factor in the decision making none the less. The man at the interview is automatically at an advantage because he's a safer bet!

It's when absent father's are not made to pay the real cost of raising their kids but the single mother is made out to be some kind of criminal because she needs benefits.

Those are just some of the examples off the top of my head.

Maybe it's just Northerners.
I'm joking! Are we allowed to joke on here?
All I can say is in my two forces I've worked for, I've not seen or heard anything close to sexism and especially not institutionalised sexism.
I work a 24hr shift pattern and don't see how it would be particularly detrimental to a woman's health, rather than detrimental to any human being!
That's just my experience and my opinion, and I respect anyone else's opinion.

It is true that sexism has a negative effect on men as well as women. However, why is that fact used so often to "justify" feminism?
Using the fact that "inequality affects men too" as the main reason to fight against mysogyny shows just how insidious sexism actually is, iyswim.....

Possibly Northeners ;-)

I think shift work is detrimental to women's healthg as it is associated with a higher chance of breast cancer. Don't ask me how that works!

I can understand why some women don't 'see' sexism. I felt that way until I was about 19.

I think sometimes it can take something particular happening and then you start to analyse everything around you and realise your problem was not unique to you but part of a patriarchal system which affects all women.

I agreed with the report. I think Britain is less sexist than France, Spain and Italy (and a lot of other countries) however, but more sexist than Northern Europe.

I can understand why some women don't 'see' sexism. I felt that way until I was about 19.

I didn't either - my parents were both teachers, shared chores and my brothers ironed, cooked etc. I had no idea this was not the norm. I knew I wanted to be a scientist, somehow it really didn't impinge on me that there were so few other girls doing it... wasn't really till I was a postgrad, on an early (pre WWW) internet forum when there was a discussion about feminism... the participants were all male except me, and there was one clued-up feminist who wasn't me... that's where I had 'I'm all right, Jill' line applied to me and it shook my complacency. (thanks, long-ago anon male feminist!)

Totally YABU.

I guess I've probably had a similar life to you, no obvious discrimination stopping me what I want to do for the vast majority of my life.

However I'm not sure if things are getting worse or I've just moved in to worse situations. I'd never really felt discriminated against at work in the first 10 years I worked; in my last job sexism was rife. All the big deals and major decisions were made at the pub, football, golf club and one time, a strip club. Clearly the women in the team weren't invited to attend so we never got credit for anything achieved by our department. Comments were frequently made about the attractiveness of women in other departments of the company, the woman who worked for our clients, the women who worked for our suppliers. They would even comment on the female newsreaders on the TV. I'd tell them to ask Jane in accounts about something and get things like "Is Jane the fat ugly one?" in response. I confronted them several times about it and got told it was "just banter". The manager and the senior manager both joined in with this so there wasn't even anyone to report it to.

I eventually resigned as I was fed up of it; cue them advertising my job. Applications from male candidates got sorted by qualifications and experience. Female candidates got rated on attractiveness and childcare arrangements (the office was in a community where everyone knew everyone - one of the applications was a neighbour of one guy's cousin, so he phoned his cousin to get the low down on how many kids she had and who looked after them.)

This wasn't even a little SME with no HR policies - this was a major high street name that frequently appears in "best employer for women" type awards. I'd previously worked in their head office where everything was seemingly lovely, but the regional office just seemed to be on another planet.

Not to mention the (female) medical student I lived with at university who insisted DV only happened to working class women. Glad she's not my GP.

Sexism is all around, every day and I think far, far worse now than 20 years ago. The UN woman called it right.

Prof Manjoo's press release can be found here. Her comments have been taken completely out of context which is a real shame IMHO but not terribly surprising. Her report will follow in June.

jess 888 may I respectfully suggest that you take a read of the "vaginal abscess" thread

You cannot compare men shaving and women shaving If a man chooses not to shave his face... he doesn't get the same vitriol that a woman gets if she chooses not to shave her legs.

In fact Veet pulled their "don't look like a dude" advertising campaign recently after a storm on Twitter.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a2049845-To-be-annoyed-with-my-dh-regarding-vaginal-abscess-Might-be-a-bit-tmi-sorry

Hmmm not sure op. I feel uncomfortable calling our IT department after the twat who answered the phone yesterday did nothing to fix the problem buy instead asked me a large amount of personal questions including my age, where I live, what I'm doing with my life and finally my number. He is from south africa and mentioned that women in south africa get harassed especially if they have big boobs. He also brought up my photo id and told me I looked 18. Then told me personal things about him. I was incredibly flustered and embarassed. I'm married ffs. The thought that this guy can remotely access my desktop at any time gives me the creeps. Unless south africans are different to British men, I believe this is a fine example of sexism in the workplace. I was too embarassed to be confrontational when I had a colleague sitting beside me and so had to try my best to steer the conversation in a different direction. Can't help but think my male colleague beside me would have had an entirely different and quicker conversation. By the time I got this prick off the phone he had wasted a massive 45minutes of my time and I still wasn't able to print.

Worst thing is he knows I am married and it didn't stop him.

Sexism is rife!