Have you ever got into a disagreement with a man because of his sexist opinions

[Lolabray]

I was in the pub the other day and someone was discussing how female bar maids need to be ‘fit’ good looking and ‘tidy’ and be able to hold a conversation in order for the pub to work.

At this point I’m like woah I don’t agree with you there (I’m female) and said I was a feminist.

Basically I was trying to stick up for women/I don’t like sexism.

At which point said persons friend flew off the handle and started having a go at me about feminism and got quite nasty.

I ended up walking away. I do have an opinion however sometimes I don’t like the way men speak derogatory about women.

Am wondering if I should have kept my mouth shut but it kind of just came out, as I suppose it did on the other person.

I am not a conflict maker before anyone says anything.

Aibu here to open my mouth and tell them I didn’t like it.

Yes, and it ended up destroying a friendship unfortunately :(

YANBU

I’d have told someone to stop talking such utter tripe if they started that kind of chat around me.

Yanbu at all, I’m not interested in listening to sexist bores either.

FIL. He's a 'woman's place is in the home' idiot man. He said all children who's mum goes to work when they were babies turn out to be feral brats. I went back to work when DS was six months old.

The conversation did not go the way he wanted.

Yes all my life, Ever since I was old enough to have my own opinions

YANBU at all.

I wish more people would challenge sexism and misogyny.

Yes I have, I'm quite outspoken and give sexism short shrift.

Flying off the handle at you about feminism is why we need feminism. If someone can get so angry at the notion that women should be treated with respect then that tells me all I need to know about that person. I've come across plenty of people like this, men and women, and it always shocks me how enraged people can get.

FIL who thinks women shouldn't complain about men looking at them/making comments because one, it's a compliment and two, the chippendales

Except when his young teen granddaughter was targeted at school, harassed and eventually assaulted, he was ready to go down there and use his fists throughout. Because it's okay to comment upon a woman's appearance if it's not my DD.

I've had some v heated conversations but a couple of Christmases ago, SIL (another of his DILs) stood up at the dinner table and called him a disgusting old letch who had failed to understand sense, reason or the perspective of 50% of the people in his life and told him to stfu around her DC as she was teaching them better. He's piped down since.

My father once compared me to my sister. He said I'm not a "proper woman" because I don't have "child bearing hips". I was 9 stone at the time. My sister was 17 stone. This was the only difference. It REALLY hurt me at the time. When I got older though I saw it for what it was. He's said SO MANY comments like this over the years. I've distanced myself from him now.

Oh god yes always. Even with men I'm close to know and love.

Got to be done. It's so ingrained in our culture that we have to call it out. I call it out at work too now I'm a bit more senior (I didn't when I was junior though).

So a guy can be as ugly and thick and is fine to work at the bar, but a female has to be good looking and a scintillating conversationalist....he's a misogynistic twat.

Yes, usually ends in further sexist abuse.

It depends on the circumstances. If I was in a group of people having a discussion I might raise it. If it was Mr A. Random in a pub I'd probably leave it, you're not going to change their views and you don't know how they'll react.

I'm curious as to what you actually said. If you said "woah there I disagree, I'm female and a feminist" - that's not countering his point of view. Being a feminist, or female, doesn't automatically end the debate. You don't convince someone they're wrong just by telling them they are, you need to make them realise they are wrong by providing evidence. Usually belittling someone or pissing them off isn't a good way to change their way of thinking.

Without having been there it's impossible to tell if YWBU. If he was saying "this country's so fucking sexist, for a pub to be popular a barmaid's gotta be attractive, efficient and personable or people fucking slate them" and then you weighed in as the random opinionated person in the pub, you probably were.

My FIL, he believes anything to do with raising a child, other than bringing the money in to the home, is a womans job. He is very proud that he never so much as changed a nappy.

But then, this is also the man who refers to people of colour as "darkies" and tries to excuse it by saying that's how the Scottish talk. Vile man.

@ShovellyJoe

FIL who thinks women shouldn't complain about men looking at them/making comments because one, it's a compliment and two, the chippendales

Except when his young teen granddaughter was targeted at school, harassed and eventually assaulted, he was ready to go down there and use his fists throughout. Because it's okay to comment upon a woman's appearance if it's not my DD.

I've had some v heated conversations but a couple of Christmases ago, SIL (another of his DILs) stood up at the dinner table and called him a disgusting old letch who had failed to understand sense, reason or the perspective of 50% of the people in his life and told him to stfu around her DC as she was teaching them better. He's piped down since.

I think I love your SIL. I may steal that line.

Not an argument as such but a complete stand off in a middle eastern desert with a man who refused to budge to let me past.

Constantly. I'm known for it. Men now do the whole "Oh I won't say what I was going to, you're hear and you'll start wittering on" to which I reply "Well if you spout that shit when I am not around people will still think you're a twat, they just won't have the decency to tell you. You should thank me"
I don't want sexist people in my life and as someone who is immensely helpful to a large number of people they generally tow the line. A few particularly egregious arseholes have had to be fully taken down resulting in a lost of 2 friendships (partners of the sexist twats). But that's ok, the women know where I am when they escape :)

Yup, plenty of times! I have a principle of "challenge every time". I doubt I will change many committed misogynists minds, but I hope I can at least make it clear not everyone agrees with them.

Yeah, numerous times. Sometimes ends up in a good discussion and the men thinking it through in these more enlightened times, but equally, doesn't. I remember a group of men surrounding and shouting at a young woman in my hometown saying she was a disgrace for being revealing dressed (she wasn't especially, for a night out, not that it matters, but she was alone and quite young). I stuck up for her, saying it was none of their business how women dress and that their group behaviour was intimidating to a lone woman and took away any moral high ground they might have inferred. They started on me instead, nasty little shits. Nothing terrible happened but ugh, they were so secure in their group and so self righteous. YWNBU.

Over the years there's been a few foolish men who thought I would tolerate their chauvinism. I left them alive........ just.

Yeah, of course. All the time, in fact. With strangers, it rarely ends well though so I do pick my times/tone. In the scenario you describe I'd probably say something like 'oh heaven forfend your eyes have to be offended by an ugly woman Brian, sexist much?' And then walk off rather than getting 'into it' but I wouldn't have let that one go.

Over the years I have got into plenty of disagreements! But so what, there are some complete arsehole men about who need taking down a peg or two and I’m happy to do it. I don’t want to be friends with that kind of man anyway.

Yes.

Out at a social event recently, FIL pointed out a woman at the event and said “see her there, this is her” and proceeded to show me a photo of her pole dancing (it was clearly taken in a pole fitness class, she was upside down doing the splits), which his friends, who were also all at this event, had sent around in their WhatsApp group that morning.

So I sneered “well aren’t you all quite the bunch of old letches” and got up from the table to walk away, at which point he proceeded to stutter his way through some bollocks explanation that they were only admiring her physical strength and fitness. This is a group of men into the mid 70’s and the woman was late 20’s/early 30’s at most. Creepy bastards.

There are way too many men that think women only exist to keep their dick happy and don't see them as proper human beings

FIL told a sexist joke over lunch at the weekend. I told him "I don't get it" and let him explain it then made on that I still didn't get it while he tied himself in knots trying to explain it, eventually my 12yo piped in "that's sexist, granda". DH took over the challenging when he started with casual and not-so-casual racism because I'd decamped to another room by that point.

I remember when my brother and I were teenagers and DB jokingly said that housework was womens work. Our parents overheard and he found himself responsible for all of the housework for the next week.

One of the reasons I love MIL so much - apart from the fact she divorced FIL - is that she brought her sons up to look after themselves, clean, cook, wash, look after children. BIL2 has slipped but he's a carbon copy of his dad anyway. DH & his other two brothers don't believe housework / childcare is only for women. And she gives sexist statements very short shrift.