'Don't you have a boyfriend or husband who can look at that?'

[buzzmoon]

boiler issues, and speaking to a plumber who says the above.

Sorry just because I have a vagina that makes me incapable of doing it myself?

AIBU, or should I have said F you!

I have remembered one. 18 years ago when we first moved here I went to B&Q for some stuff to plaster the kitchen, we couldnt afford to pay someone else to do it so I did it. When I asked the assistant where something was we got chatting about the job and he asked if I was sure I had everything my husband needed. I said yes, he had the number of the takeaway to order dinner while I did the plastering.

Fuckwit.

My recent brushes with DIY-associated sexism have come mostly from non-tradies. When DH was alive, DIY was his domain and now I do it, as I did before I met him.

1. Mentioned I was up on the roof mending a leak (think shallow apex, metal roof, single-storey Australian house) to an acquaintance:

Couldn't your( visiting) DB have done that? I'd have to get up on the roof to show him where the leak was, etc.etc.

I'm sure the government says you shouldn't go up a ladder after 60 as your balance isn't good (DB is 60, I'm 62) Like a switch is thrown.

I must tell her I was karchering the roof of the carport today. From the roof of the house, having hauled hose pipes, cable and pressure hose up the ladder and onto the roof. It will do her nut in.

To be fair, I think a lot of it is projection as in I can't/won't do that, so you shouldn't.

Rude, but just supporting a fairly supported stereotype. Now please read everything before you flame me on this. There are still a lot of women who do not know how to do things like change a plug or change bulbs on a car etc. I will give an example:

When I was in the Forces when we would go to Afghanistan we would leave a rear party of a few people. One of there jobs was helping with looking after the welfare of the wives (and two husbands). They were always being called round to do things like fix a plug, put up a shelf, look at the car, get the lawn mower to work etc. A lot of the wives husband's would do all that and when away they didn't know how. Some of them never used a power drill etc. My ex wife included.

Now this isn't because women can't obviously. In fact a fair bit of the rear party were female so often it was females who going round and doing the job. It's more a case that society has not encourage or taught these women how to do these household DIY tasks. It has been noted expected of them. I had to teach my ex wife lots of things in this department. She still would lack the confidence with these jobs even after I taught her how. So this is fairly common and helps reinforce such view when trades men come across so many women that can't. It is rude and the wrong attitude of course to make these assumptions but it is something they know doubt see every day.

So to stop these attitudes (that I think are fading out anyway) we need to not just let these people know their attitudes are unexcepable (even if well ment) but also empower women to take a keener intrest in these things. I think more women than maybe we would like to admit struggle. A fault of the society they are brought up in rather than a fault of their sex. When my little girl is older I will be expecting her to help me with all the technical/DIY tasks as well as all the household tasks, same with her younger bother. I don't see a distinction between the need how to use a washing machine and how to change a fuse. They are all valuable life skills that everyone should know. If my daughter said daddy my car needs an oil and filter change daddy when she is older. I would say great, tools are in the shed, get the instructions off line and crack on. Of course I would be there to give a guiding hand but I want her to stand on her own two feet and do it for her self.

No DIY associated sexism but a car salesman once told me there was plenty of room in the boot to put all my shopping. I replied that I was more interested in reliability to ensure I could commute the 60 mile round trip to work every day. Nob.

I didn't buy the car.

My grandma experience a lot of this in her life. She grew up on a farm in Yorkshire. She was a tractor Driver durring the war and taught how to fix tractors and farm machinery. When she was young so many men and women would be amazed that she could drive. Same for even my mum when she was young too. Plus men young men hated that my mum had a better and faster car than them (Grandad always made sure my mum and grandma had good powerful cars). Often they would refuse a lift home from the dance. To be fair a lot of my grandmas generation knew how to do stuff for them self's durring the war. They kept the country running when so many men were away fighting. It's something I guess that got lost after the war say the 50s generation.

echt you reminded me of my grandma. She was a tough old boot. She and my Grandad both were. We would still find her up ladders in her late 70s (Grandad dead by this point). We would say why didn't you call us to fix the roof etc. Not because she didn't know how but because she was old and frail. She would say didn't want to bother you. It was second nature to her to be self sufficient.

It was funny to watch her when tradesmen/blokes would patronise her. She was a fearsome proud Yorkshire woman and not one to mince her words.

PyongyangKipperbang also I don't think it's always just a matter of sex. Salespeople and tradespeople sometime just get a sense when someone doesn't come across confident or knowlagable. You must come across fairly confident. Plus a good sales person identifies who is the person who will ultimately sway or make the decision. He must have decided it was you.

These attitudes are fading fast. But as I said before its just as important to empower women too. Because in my experience lots of women do struggle due to the way society has raised them. Maybe this is and elephant in the room but we can't ignore it.

echt you reminded me of my grandma. She was a tough old boot. She and my Grandad both were. We would still find her up ladders in her late 70s (Grandad dead by this point). We would say why didn't you call us to fix the roof etc. Not because she didn't know how but because she was old and frail. She would say didn't want to bother you. It was second nature to her to be self sufficient.

The number of people who've said, since DH died: just call me if you need a ladder footing, and you know what, their time isn't mine (and nor should it be) but I'd wait forever to be fitted into the well-meaning help offerers' schedules.

I have oiled the deck since my last post.

Not a sign of my efficiency, but a window of opportunity in the wacky Australian weather that ain't be passed up. i.e. no rain, not too hot.

Ain't???? Not a cowboy.

Can't.

oK going off topic, however OP did you not check the plug before calling out the electrician ?

Just thinking it was an expensive plug/fuse change

1dad I wonder what age you are. I'm 40's and an army brat (well was) mum late 70's and was 'one of the wives' only time she asked for help she had a broken arm due to slipping awkward on ice. The other mums were mostly quite practical too. I think starting from my generation and on (younger adults) of both genders are largely impractical on these matters. My ex (also army and was teased mercilessly for his lack of diy skills) and my sisters ex are both younger and weren't taught this stuff. My dds friends parents (mostly in early 30's) pay others to do the most minor jobs, sometimes it's a case of cash rich time poor but more than half the time it's they don't know/lack confidence.

I find there's a similar issue with cookery, lots of late 20's/early 30-somethings don't/can't cook. Again I'm referring to men and women. Again they weren't taught at home AND cookery classes at school were either non existent or of the 'design an advert for this food product' type (and then we wonder why we have a childhood obesity and dental crisis )

It's odd isn't it ....I generally come across as quite capable (and on occasion I'm told a bit scary ) and for years worked in quite a tough job but would still get odd comments about not doing things like changing the trees in my car and it usually simply confused me ....I was married but couldn't see the point of ringing my exdh to travel to save me when I could do the same job myself

The worst I found were from women....I once broke down between offices (turned out to be a hinky wire that was easily fiddled with which I did) so I arrive at the next office granted a bit late and a little rumpled but otherwise got on with what I needed to do....a little later a female colleague mentioned how quick the rac must have been (fair enough reasonable assumption) so I made a joke about the state of my nails after doing it and having to etc them sorted later

She was horrified ...."why would you do that yourself"...I again sort of thought she meant why not ring the rac....so I explained I was in a rush couldn't really wait a good hour or so , so I'd just checked if I could do anything before ringing them (I'm not overly knowledge able about cars and wouldn't have attempted something I didn't know but used common sense)

She genuinely was disgusted and I got some corkers from her
"Why didn't you ring the office for one of the men to help?"....err well for several reasons....they are health and social care workers with no more car knowledge than me, frankly the services were very busy and I was the area manager and honestly I needed them doing their jobs not running after me , and just well...why?

She then lecured me on it not being ladylike and it painTed women in a bad light

It was so excessive after I had pointed out that women being empowered to stand on their own two feet in fact paints women in a good light , Ialso pointed out we were in the business of empowering female clients so I hoped she wouldn't say this to them....I then eventually had to remind her I was her bosses boss and her behaviour was inappropriate

I was genuinely shocked at her genuine disgust and horror ...kind of found it sad

Her parting shot was "you could have at least called your husband"

Yes...yes I could...who was in central London two hours away and wouldn't know what to do with a car engine if it put on pasties did a lap dance and fed him shepherds pie 😂😂😂....but yes ok I could have called him and listened to him laugh like a drain down the phone

I am 33. The wives spanned a big age range. I never did rear party as I was always needed my my mate she did and was telling me about the stuff they were sent out to do. My mate she couldn't believe how little many of the wives knew/did. Some of it was ridiculous and some like oh I don't know how to mow the lawn she suspected they may have been trying it on a bit. I suppose at least in my ex's case she was pregnant at the time with our first as I found out out there one Christmas morning (Best Christmas present ever). But seemed like a lot of jobs they would rely on their husband's for. Neither of the husband's they were looking after required any on these services. Maybe part the problem was having the rear party doing jobs for them? If they didn't maybe they would have to learn to be more self sufficient? But the hole point was to support the wife's and husband's so we would not have to worry about stuff like that out there.

Whilst I an imagine this annoyed the op and understandably so too, the plum error was probably ably trying to be helpful and not offensive. As for the safety side there are a while bunch of jobs that don't require a registered gas safety engineer: adding inhibitor, bleeding the system, cleaning filters adjusting pump flows, balancing rads etc. I'm guessing it was something such as the above and he thought you'd prefer to save the money, objects should have phrased it " would your or your partner prefer to. .." but he goofed and didn't! No need to accuse him of overt misogyny... lack of sensitivity and beinget daft perhaps! How many times do I read on mum's net "men are..." or "a man would say that" it's the samend thing you know!

We can assume that you couldn't have done it, based on the fact you called a plumber / boiler person.

It sounds like they were trying to do you a favour, suggesting you didn't need a qualified (expensive) professional.

As for suggesting that you (another poster) bring your husband along to a car dealership, it's because it makes it much more likely you'll buy a car on that visit. I'm not questioning your ability to buy a car without your husband but would you? I wouldn't and he wouldn't without me. We discuss large, expensive purchases.

The same goes for another poster moaning about window companies who wanted their husband to be there too.

1dad maybe they were mostly at it and it was more a case of didn't want to than couldn't.

Alipartout you're working very hard to excuse obvious sexism! As if he'd try out of kindness to do himself out of a job!

Plenty of adults make large purchases like cars alone even if married - my mum just did.

The poster the the Windows it sounds as if it's her property development business she's referring to or a similar business yet they're STILL trying to insist 'hubby give the little Mrs permission to spend that much money' AND that 'only a man will understand our highly technical description of Windows'

Looked at new windows but refused to go with the company who insisted that dp should be there when they came round to quote.

My dad sold central heating in the 1970's/80's.

He always asked that if it was a couple then both were present. Nothing sexist about it, most of the time if he saw someone alone then he had to go back because the other person had questions or suggestions about things like the location of radiators, why the temperature in bedrooms was set lower than other rooms etc etc.

He also worked evenings because that's when most people are home from work.

If the company insist only a male can understand that is sexist, having a policy of seeing couples together so both have input is not.

So much of this is actually about infantilising women. It makes certain men (not all by any stretch) feel good to do this as it gives them a sense of power. It is classic power and control dynamics.

My recent experience was an intermittent drop in my clutch. I went to the garage and said I think it is a problem with the master/slave cylinder. He smirked at me and said I think we should get that on the diagnostics, don't you. Picked it up later and was told it was an electronics problem and had been fixed. A week later same thing, back to the garage, explained that I thought it was the master /slave cylinder, patronising smirk, diagnostics run, electronics problem diagnosed and "fixed". A week later same problem. So this time I took it to a different garage, didn't tell them what I thought, they rang me within the hour to say that there was a hole in the master/slave cylinder, the part was 24 hours away and I got the car back in full working order 2 days later and had a very sensible chat with the chap about issues with VW clutches.

By chance I found myself at a dinner sat next to the Chairman of the first garage chain a bit later. And to his credit he was horrified, took it up with the garage personally and dropped me an email ti say it had been dealt with. He also said it was an endemic problem in the industry and one that the business was trying incredibly hard to stamp out as it is damaging to the bottom line as women are generally an equal part of the customer base.

So straight from the horses mouth, hit them in the pocket if you want this bullshit to stop.

Ratonastick I have the same experience and I am a man. I am an electronic engineer by background but in my military I have had a fair bit of experience with mechanics/vehicles. So I know a little bit and always inspect a fault if I can before I get to the garage to check I don't get mugged off. But sometimes I don't have the specialised tools for the job or the time (working single parent). This may not be a gender thing more an issuse that they assume anyone telling them the fault is a joker. And in my experience in my field the user would often try to tell you the fault but you need to be the judge yourself as they are often talking out their arse.

So much of this is actually about infantilising women. It makes certain men (not all by any stretch) feel good to do this as it gives them a sense of power. It is classic power and control dynamics.

But, as some examples on this thread have shown, women do this to themselves, often to ensure someone else does something. My DW would deny it till she's blue in the face, but constantly pulls the "I'm a woman, therefore couldn't possibly be expected to fix/assemble/install/lift that myself" crap the whole time.

Some women do this to themselves? Definitely makes it alright then?

I despair.

Definitely makes it alright then?

Absolutely not, but solely blaming other people (i.e. men) for it is a stretch.

Some women do this to themselves? Definitely makes it alright then

I remember being in Currys. Women near me was asking some basic questions and asked the salesperson for help - she said "she was having a blonde moment". I wonder what the salesperson thought of that statement?

I can't believe (well actually I can) the amount of examples here in all kinds of places! And the people saying it's just a part of life and we should grow up! really?!

And the people saying it's just a part of life and we should grow up

It's also depressing that some people are saying 'well, it's working class tradesman who went to comprehensive school'.

Pretty certain there are many men who are working class and went to comprehensive school who don't treat women like that.

That is the Farage excuse though - the "It's just the way people speak from that background". If we excused and minimised attitudes like that, things wouldn't change.

Seems to some people that everyday sexism is acceptable because that's just the way it is - and if you raise it, you're being a snowflake and making a fuss.