"he fights like a girl"- To feel despair at engrained and pervasive sexism

[Evelight]

yesterday evening, I took DS (10) to his Taek won do class. I was reading a book. The Master's son, same age as mine, had broken his collarbone and couldn't practice, he came and sat next to me, and bored out of his mind, started chatting, what are you reading, what is it etc, a nice kid. At some point I asked him if he knew my DS and enjoyed fighting with him (sthg like that anyway). He answered yes, and added jokily "he sometimes fights like a girl."

I was surprised, because at that particular school, there are several female instructors, one of them a former national gold medallist who is amazing. They literally kick ass. I should have had the presence of mind to retort "well if he fights anything like Miss XX, it would be awesome!"- but of course I only thought of that later, as one does, and only smiled uncomfortably in the moment.

the point being- I witness kids (my kids included) come up all the time with all sorts of these (what I would have hoped are but obviously not) outdated pronouncements still rife with casual sexism (girls suck! boys are gross!) despite the best efforts of PC school programming and education. It's not getting better as they grow older either. Sometimes I argue, sometimes I don't. But really, when are we going to move on from this crap?

Oh it's so funny up thread where Lass is trying to defend Flat, but Flat doesn't get it and think Lass is disagreeing with her.

Frankly, I'm just impressed Flat has a job. Never seen someone so completely foxed by a hypothetical statement.

Charity
I was quite aware what WiLass was saying thank you. As that all you have to add to the mix?

What's the point of saying more? Half the thread seemed to go over your head, and I'm not interested in trying to convince people who are sure they know so much better.

LassWi
I am wondering where these women work with all these 'out of date' sexist men? Im seriously intrigued. Unless it was way back in the past and they think this is still the norm. Because it certainly isn't.

It has not been my experience either in the 5 law offices I've worked in over a 30 year career. The percentage of female partners in my current firm is just under 50%.

Don't normally do this not read thread but YANBU it's shocking how deep seated it is.

DS is 19 and been brought up my me a quietly hippy feminist who calls him on 80% of dodgy comments he makes but it just rolls off. In spite of my input he's a mini version of XH

Only consolation is watching Mad Men the other night he was aghast at the sexism on that but clearly doesn't see his own insidious views

Here is a bunch of research on some of the issues being discussed. If anybody is seriously interested in any of these items and they can't access them, please let me know, maybe I can download and send. (a couple of e-books).

BTW- I totally (and sadly) believe in Flat's reports from the conversations
with her lady doctor friend and gentleman broker coworkers. From personal experience and meaning no disrespect, physicians, engineers and finance/management are generally of a conservative (with a small c) mindset, established in privileged positions where they have little or no incentive of pushing for social change, and little understanding or sympathy for those who do not share their prestigious lifestyles. They are absolutely "nice", clever, well-educated and lovely folk, but suddenly seem to change to raving asshats when you mention words like "sexism" or "refugees" or "the poor" or even "mothers". I've witnessed such a metamorphosis recently at a party where a (female) economics prof and an NGO worker clashed, and it was -entertaining and yet disconcerting.

Oh- and no- I've worked in a variety of offices across at least three different countries and as many industries, and it never happened that any of us got coffee for everybody else on our "team". Generally people would take turns to make a big pot in the am, and then people would get their own or brew a fresh pot as needed. Flat- please stop getting those lazy bastards their coffee!

Monroe, Kristen Renwick, and William Chiu. "Gender Equality and the Pipeline Problem in Academia." Science, Ethics, and Politics: Conversations and Investigations (2015): 222.

Restaino, Kate B., "The Other Side of the Glass Ceiling: For Females, Climbing the Corporate Ladder is only Half the Battle" (2016). Scripps Senior Theses. Paper 785.
scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/785

Women leaders in healthcare| Going beyond the glass ceiling
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40596-015-0476-9

www.managers.org.uk/individuals/existing-members/get-involved/management-articles-of-the-year/management-articles/networking-a-male-dominated-game

Women and leadership in corporate America: A qualitative study of role congruity and female leaders:
gradworks.umi.com/37/18/3718629.html

Flat we realise you don't do 'hypotheticals', they seem to zip straight past you.

But you've said a few times that your workplace is not sexist, that times have changed, it's not 'like that' any more.

So how do you think that happened? By accident? Or could it have been because of... feminism?

I totally believe flats recounting of the conversation with her coworkers. It's proves she works in a dates environment. She doesn't see the sexism. I believe it's there.

Just like she seems to think making jokes about 'mners being mental' is funny. She works in an environment where making fun of anyone is accepted. So she doesn't see sexism because everyone is game.

flat several months ago I was at the gym at 6am doing a circuits class. The class is a mix of men and women. At the end we were stretching and a man commented how busy the gym was. The PT, who did the class said morning were busy but it would quiet off at about 8am. The man replied 'yeah I bet you just have a few women in who live off their husbands swanning about'

I replied that I usually come in at 9am. He said 'yeah exactly, bet you live off your husband too...the least you could do would be stay and do the housework'

Again the assumption that because I am woman with some free time I must be living off dh and don't do anything. I didn't have to say anything though. Because several of my male friends laughed at him, pointed out I own my company (that he actually used but could not grasp that a woman would own it) and told him to stop living in the 1950s.

You work as a broker because of feminism. I own my own company and work my own hours, because of feminism. I had two children and had a top job with one of the UKs biggest companies. Because of feminism and because my husband firmly believes I am his equal and should have the same choices.

I now work with some of the countries biggest supplement companies and we refused business from one of them because of their comments about how dh must be the driving force behind the business and I must just do a bit of paper work now and again. We won't do business with anyone who disrespects either of us.

Sexism is alive and kicking. It's not as bad as it was. But it's there. If you want to pretend it's not. That's fine. But your refusal to see it doesn't mean it's not there.

It has not been my experience either in the 5 law offices I've worked in over a 30 year career. The percentage of female partners in my current firm is just under 50%. - well that's of course lovely that this happens sometimes. IN my last law firm, it was close to that too. Not representative though.

Just out of interest, I took the first random law firm, and counted the partners in their London office. www.freshfields.com/PeopleFinder.aspx?searchQuery=&locationName=&practiceGroup=&ourServices=&ourClients=&role=partner&language=en&region=global&browse=&office=2147933623&pageNumber=1

127 male partners, and 30 'lady' partners. That's more like the industry standard.

I'll just leave this here....

56% of medical school graduates are women. Less than 30% of consultants are women.

It's not sexism, no, it's obviously that the women don't want consultant posts, or would rather put their career aside for families.

I'd also be interested to see what percentage of the 30% of "lady doctors" are in "womens" specialties- gynae, obs, child health, paeds etc. I would think it's easier to be successful in those fields as often women prefer a female Dr so jobs are more likely to go to women.

In academia- 11% of professors are lady professors, 36% are lady lecturers.

I also wonder how many of those 30% have children. Obviously, someone who has been or could ever potentially be on a maternity leave does not deserve to be promoted.

As for lawyers, average percentage of female trainees in Magic Circle firms is 48.6%. Partners -18,8%.

My child said 'lady dentist', because that is how the staff kept referring to her. It was unhelpful. There is quite a lot of this sort of insidious shit for preschoolers, especially around the roles of mums and dads (gift boxes for the fete full of tools/hair products, miss polly and her dolly, assumptions about who does what at home etc).

I didn't tell her off. I explained why there was no need to say lady. There was only one dentist, who happened to be female. Her response was to giggle, and said 'oh yeah!' Like it was a revelation.

If there's only one dentist, why on earth don't the staff just say "the dentist"? I go to a practice where there are male and female dentists, and they just refer to Mr Jones and Miss Brown and so on (except for using their real life names.)

Also, the direct equivalent of "lady dentist" would be "gentleman dentist" - describing a man as a "gentleman" plus occupation tends to have overtones of it being a bit of a hobby, not something he has to do to pay the bills like a tradesman would. That is a rather archaic way of looking at it (and probably partly why we do tend to say "man dentist" rather than "gentleman dentist" when there is some reason to specify it's a man,) but archaic as it may be, I don't think those connotations are entirely lost, including when applied to "lady" occupation - she doesn't have to be doing this, she could be at home where a man will look after her properly.

Finally - there isn't so much overt sexism in the workplace these days (though it's not all gone.) People know they're not allowed to grope their colleagues just because they fancy that colleague, and while it does still happen, it's not usually in the open. What is more of an issue these days is unconscious bias, where people are judged differently for the same behaviours just because of their sex or sexuality or skin colour. There have been plenty of studies to show its effects, as well as things like "the man who has it all", which someone mentioned above. It's also been all the rage in corporate circles in the last couple of years, so I'm surprised people working in those areas have no awareness.

Penguins I've seen a reading of Rapunzel that says the Prince fell in love with her for her skill (singing) rather than her appearance. And despite having regular unchaperoned visits from a prince she still gets her happy ever after with him. And the poor witch gets a hard time for loving her adoptive daughter too much and trying to protect her from the cruel world (lets not forget Rapunzel's father sold her for some lettuce). Don't necessarily agree with all of that but I think that fairytales are generally complex enough to cope with several interpretations and I wouldn't discount any of them (although I might not like every version).

To get back to youth sport, the DDs (who play football) get quite a bit of this sexism. DD1 has been told she's good at football 'for a girl'. Thankfully she's as feisty as they come. Yesterday her trainer said 'sit down boys' so she continued playing which got a laugh but also made the point well. Her DSis gets more upset by the comments from some of the boys and that is hard to deal with, I'd love for it not to be an issue but realistically we need to teach her the resilience to cope with it as well. Because otherwise she'll believe the crap and deny herself the opportunities to do things she loves because someone thinks they are not for her.