What sexist behaviour would be the most shocking if reversed?

[GrumpyOldNag]

I was thinking feminist thoughts to myself (as you do ), and I was thinking about how this belief that sexism doesn't exist anymore creates a huge backlash against anyone who speaks out against it, which in turn makes people who do in fact believe in equal rights for men and women try to distance themselves from feminism because it's perceived as crazy and unreasonable. The problem is that a lot of it is so ingrained in our culture and society that it is completely normalised, and the majority of people don't even notice it anymore.

So what would be the most obvious, outrageous sexist behaviour, if we swapped the genders? Would it be men being followed, harassed and intimidated in the street, or on the music channel men gyrating and grinding dressed increasingly revealing clothing while women are all fully clothed? Men dancing in the windows of the red light district, or the overwhelming majority of politicians and CEOs being female?

What in your opinion would bring about the most uproar if one day sexism suddenly switched genders?

Sorry if any part of this doesn't make sense, I had a beautifully written OP all typed out and then my iPad lost it all for no apparent reason...

Dressing for (office) work? a man has, effectively, a uniform to wear with very little deviation acceptable. My wife would much rather not have to work with people of either gender who dress as if for a night out (her words). Yes you're right, it shouldn't matter, but it does apparently. People, including your peers set the agenda as regards one's look. Please don't turn your fire on men (we get zero input re. clothes anyway) but suggest what might constitute a set of common goals or standards perhaps. I would love to wear whatever the hell I like at work but am expected to toe the line, is it too much too ask for a reciprocal arrangement??

As regards men having to address the reason for making women feel so uncomfortable in various public environments, how about this:
Some women have been scarred by deeply unpleasant men. Absolutely true. Is there any point trying to convince you of my modest efforts to address this? BUT there are also women who are mousy, unconfident people who want us men (and confident women) to go away while they go about their business, and sod how we feel. OK, fair enough, but why can't you see that us guys would like to sometimes request that we don't want the distraction of, say, acres of flesh thrust in our faces at work, and sod how you feel. Equality is a two way street unfortunately.

"woman somewhere being an hysterical, illogical, unreasonable tyrant"
Come on now, Billinteds... why did you omit my balancing statement - "I WILL accept that for every man who storms off to the pub there is a woman...." That's not very helpful is it?

Anyway, you remain unconvinced of my credentials so i fear there is little hope of you reaching out to the neanderthals who don't even give a fig what happens. At least I'm showing a glimmer of interest and often stick my head in the oven to be involved. A passionate topic this might be, but we're going have to keep talking and talking etc..... and hopefully get to where we all want to be.

My posts are long, but short utterances do the topic a disservice.

Because "storming off to the pub" and the offensive phrase you used were nothing like equivalent in levels of belligerence.

HTH.

By the way, I am no longer going to respond to your posts, as you have no interest in discussing this in good faith. Good bye.

Adifferenttake can I suggest you change your name to theSameTakeYou'llHearOnEveryTVShowRadioShowInternetForumNewspaperOrRandomBlokeDownThePub

Flo

Oops!

Flora, hello!

I wholeheartedly agree to the existence of various male faults, why oh why can't anyone here admit to the ocasional female fault. Are you all as perfect as us guys are regularly told?

Billinteds... Don't cherry pick sentences out of context, it took your subsequent explanation to make belated sense of it.

And good night to you, got a busy day tomorrow with work, childcare, cooking, cleaning..... oh you wouldn't understand. (It gives me a glimpse of both sides of the fence).

What never ceases to amaze me when these men turn up is that they all have this absolute arrogance that they're telling is Something New, as if we will suddenly see the light and scales will fall from our eyes. When the truth of course is that scales fell from our eyes long ago, which is why we're here, and they're saying exactly the same thing as AnotherRandomGoodGuy told us last week and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that.

"I'm on your side, honest, but if you'd just be nicer to men you'd get a lot further with your feminist stuff".

Meanwhile, "being nice" has never got women anywhere other than the universal doormats and punching bags of men.

Ooh, I wanted this to exist AND IT DOES!

menlaughingalonewithsalad.tumblr.com

Check out the last guy throwing the salad and being carefree!

Unfortunately this tumblr is less joyous. Oh well.

100percentmen.tumblr.com

Oh, I don't know, Buffy. The guy with the bowling pin crown was quite amusing.....

He was a "hot accounting CEO", apparently.

Headlines, rewritten:

m.huhmagazine.co.uk/6785/tabloid-headlines-if-they-werent-sexist

Aaaaaaaand what do the comments under the Huh Magazine link say? Whataboutthemen!!!

FFS.

Average Male 4,000% Less Effective In Fights Than They Imagine

Heh heh. Love The Onion

Never read the comments!

Lol at The Onion!

If a man turned on the radio and heard a group of men discussing something, or a lot of music by men played in sequence, or several poems by men, he would know that it must be a "Man Special" - perhaps for International Men's Day as it never happens any other day of the year. His wife wouldn't even notice that she constantly heard other women's opinions on anything featured in the media.

The Prime Minister and all the other main party leaders would be women with young children, who would happily pose with a newspaper that featured a daily picture of a teenage boy's naked arse.

Every time there's an election or other national occasion, media coverage would be dominated by Joan Bakewell (pic), because only an old white woman would be considered to have the voice of authority.

Men would be taught from an early age to never express anger. When they are confronted with a world where the odds are stacked against them over and over again, they do what is expected of them, instead, and cry in frustration.

Those tears are used as proof that they can't be reasoned with.

This thread is brilliant. I am distracting myself with it as DH is keeping me awake snoring and spreading out over the bed, so here are some of mine:

Women's uninterrupted sleep would be seen as very important, and everyone would understand it was entirely natural and unavoidable that, in sleep, women tend to spread out their limbs and snore loudly because they're in the most comfortable position. Men would be socialised to find snoring unmasculine, and would have been socialised to take up small amounts of space. After all, women have to go to work in the morning. It may be some men work too, but that is hardly as important - after all, men are much better adapted to be good at multitasking.

Men would feel hesitant about commenting on debates, especially in public, where they might be mocked. It would be commonplace for the media to run stories about men making false rape allegations and ruining women's lives. However, many 'ordinary' men (masculinists, but not that sort of masculinist!) would be outraged and declare it is 'taboo' to talk about the dangers of fale rape allegations because of all the extremist masculinists.

Women would seek out niche chat forums with predominantly male users and post made-up figures 'correcting' what the men had said, with no sources and in perfect confidence every man would immediately agree.

Women would become very angry at men questioning them or rejecting their viewpoints, and would use long words and pseudo-legalistic terminology to subtly remind the men of their lowly place.

Many other men would chip in to argue for the women.

The phrases 'not my Nigella' and 'NAWALT' would be commonplace on masculinist forums. In fact, approximately 20% of all men's forum traffic would in fact be contributed by women, and on threads started by women, it would be more like 80%. Such forums would still be seen as havens of remarkable masculinism by men, and they would repeatedly start threads celebrating this oasis of masculinist freedom.

Parents would refer to boys' genitals as 'smudge' or 'pickle' or 'woo woo'. Girls' genitals would be calls vulvas. Many adult women would not how to refer to the testes and penis accurately - the same word 'widgit' would be used for both, with a sizeable proportion of women unsure where to find the penis. Magazines would run stories about the 'testical orgasm' and men would write in to problem pages saying 'I am 30 years old and have never had an orgasm'. Agony uncles would write back telling them to relax their bodies and try to enjoy kissing.

Oh: and misandrist women would be absolutely convinced, when they deigned to interact with masculinists, of the existance of many women much, much more misandrist than themselves.

This would give the women peculiar pleasure and would be seen as the major justification for telling masculinists to be less masculinist.

This would be seen as 'rational' and 'fair' by all misandrists, who would be completely incapable of recognising their own misandry. They would, paradoxically, be experts in misandry as a subject, hence their superior ability to educate men about the existence of misandrists worse than themselves.

at LRD

I am LMBO at this thread with the exception of one poster.

The mainstream media, as far as I can see, has a predominantly female commentary.

Really ADifferentTake? How many newspaper editors are female? Have you seen the Heil Online, with its sidebar of shame? I suspect you're the type of bloke who has, so you know it's all about judging women for being too fat/thin, wearing too many/few clothes etc.

To come into a lighthearted yet informative thread and yell "what about the menz" screams of Lowest Common Denominator. You, sir, are low hanging fruit and I've spent far too much time reading your vacuous shite and replying to it. Trust me, I shan't bother in future.

In ReversoWorld, 78% of all front page bylines would be female and 84% of all front page stories would quote or mainly be about females.

A male being featured would most likely be a cute royal in a new blazer, or a victim of crime; a female would be a world leader or other influential figure.

womeninjournalism.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Seen_but_not_heard.pdf