Am I being oversensitive or was this remark a bit.....odd?

[CiderLover]

I am currently taking driving lessons, second lesson was yesterday.

I was struggling to remember how to approach a junction and my instructor was asking what the problem was. I replied that I'm not very good at multitasking and remembering the different things I need to do.

His reply

"What!!? You're a woman, multitasking is your thing. Women, can read, cook a meal AND make love all at the same time!" He then laughed.

It made the next few minutes quite awkward when I was already anxious!

AIBU to think his comment was inappropriate?

He doesn't sound very nice at all. You have to wonder about someone who makes sexual comments and slags off their ex to someone they they have a professional relationship and barely know.

Change instructor.

Now, the instructor just sounds creepy. His further remark makes me think he's just a nasty guy.

My instructor mentioned his partner, but just in the normal way of "oh you're going to see '...' movie, my partner says it's good" or that he wouldn't be available for lessons due to going away with her and their daughter. If he had insulted her, I'd have been shocked.

Yeah, depending on the rest of his attitude I would have just laughed it off too.

I had great banter with my driving instructor.

If you feel uncomfortable with him then obviously change, but I don't think he said anything that awful really. It all depends on his attitude, but it sounds like it could have just been a joke that failed miserably.

It is inappropriate but if this was one isolated incident with you I certainly wouldn't suggest he loses his job over it.

I have been thinking about this whole issue. Excluding the sexual comment which would be inappropriate in almost any context I think the thing that annoys me most is stereotyping.

In my view, seeing all men or all women as a homogeneous mass with the same characteristics is a major problem. Women have suffered from negative stereotypes emotional, illogical, irrational etc. which don't have any basis in fact but I also have a problem with the more general stereotyping e.g. men are good at DIY, women can cook. I don't think we will have equality until people are viewed as individuals.

I'm not really in a position to say whether this bloke's stupid and crude comment was an innocent but ill-thought joke, or a prelude to something more sinister, but I can share my experience.

My driving instructor started out making similar jokes and stereotypes about women drivers. Nothing really outrageous on its own, but it irked me. I let it slide because... well.. I suppose because I had just grown up thinking this is how men treat women and we just have to shut up and get on with it. After a few weeks of the silly jokes, he started to get more suggestive. I had a car waiting to use once I'd passed my test and it was always parked on my drive. The last 3 letters of the reg plate were VBB, and my instructor asked if that stood for "very big boobs" before laughing while I sat silent and very embarrassed. I wish I had gotten out of the car then and sacked him, but I didn't because I couldn't work out if that would be overreacting, or if this was just how things are for women. I was 22 and very naive. In the end, I did stop booking lessons with him after he grabbed my bum while supposedly teaching me how to check the oil in the car. I never reported him or explicitly said why I didn't want any more lessons with him.

Aside from what I now know to be sexual harrassment, he was a nice chatty bloke. He'd been recommended to me by friends, so it really messed with my head to try and work out if what he was doing was Wrong, or if it was just part of the ordinary spectrum of behaviour. I kick myself regularly for that.

Incidentally I never found another instructor because I was too nervous to get in a car with a stranger again. It's been almost 10 years and I'm desperate to learn to drive, so I'm on the hunt for another instructor and this time will 100% report any such comments or behaviour. I could not blame the OP for wanting to do the same.

Jokes are meant to be funny. The OP didn't find it funny therefore it was not a joke.

This man thought about sex while teaching a student to drive. I wouldn't like it and there is no need for the OP to lighten up because she didn't like it either.