What acts of sexism have you encountered today?

[BertieBotts]

I thought it would be interesting to have a thread where we can come on and post any day-to-day sexism/effects of sexism, thinking mainly low-level things, but big things are alright to post too of course. I thought it might be eye-opening (if depressing) to collate how much crap there is to deal with on a daily basis.

I'll start - while listening to music on spotify, having to listen to an unskippable ad for a rap artist playing a clip of his song which includes the lyrics We bring the women and the cars and the cards out

The other one I can think of (which fair enough was during a seminar about feminism) was a guy in my class who kept saying things like "Well yes women are paid less than men/women are vastly underrepresented in parliament/rape conviction rates are ridiculously low. [etc] But that's just the way it is. It's the same in all societies that I know of. I don't know what you can do about it."

Anyone else?

well i haven't actually spoken to anyone today apart from the dcs so this isn't something that happened today anymore than any otehr day. but the very fact that i am the one who wakes early with the dcs, fed and dressed them, checked homework and scrabbled round for dinner money, did the school run then cam back and tidied up their dishes all because their dad is a man and as such does not consider any of this his responsibility winds me up just a tiny wee bit.

I sat through 2 hours with a boring double glazing salesman trying to flog us his company's windows. Both my husband and I were there the whole time, were working full time and asked questions. He rang a week later to find out if we were going ahead with an order. I answered the phone...he did not introduce himself and asked to speak to my husband. I was furious when I found out who it was afterwards, rang the company and complained. They made the right noises, but it was too late, they had lost our business.

Sorry, just re-read the op and realised you are asking for things that have happened today. Mine was a while ago, but still relevant I think.

I was rubbed up against at the train station last night by a strange man. He come up really close and spoke some weird shit right into my ear and then went.

It was odd and I was majorly pissed off.

Watching "One Born Every Minute" I was reminded of an incident which happened whilst I was pregnant with DD (obviously didn't happen today, but I was thinking about it today).

I was telling a colleague at work about how sick I had been throughout the pregnancy. She said (without any humour/with a serious look on her face) "I bet you wish you hadn't have opened your legs now".
Not sure if that is sexism, really. But I suppose I see it as just another example of contempt towards working women getting pregnant/taking mat leave (she hated me as I had quite a bit of time off when preg due to the sickness).

Oh, forgot about the salesman who knocked on our door the other night.

I opened the door with DD on my hip and he asked me if I was the homeowner. I said no, and was just about to say "we rent the house" when he interrupted me and said "Oh, is HE home then?"

I just shut the door.

Last night watching 'snog, marry or avoid' (I flicked over by accident, I swear) my OH commented about how sad it was that women used to right for rights and now they're all Jordan wannabes.
Unfortunatley he kept his gob open long enough to spout on about how women have all the power now and men can't even make 'funny' comments. Although when I tried to pull him up on this he couldn't come up with any decent examples.

fight for rights. brainspellcheck needed

Up until about a week ago it was impossible to go into my hotmail account without seeing a banner ad for a cosmetic surgery company with the slogan 'Get a new body for the new year' (or words to that effect). The ad (which was animated & so impossible to ignore) featured a woman in her undies displaying (presumably) the outcome of a recent boob job.

I didn't take up the offer but I imagine seeing that message & image on a daily basis would have felt pretty intimidating to the company's target audience.

None in RL as I haven't actually left the house all day (am a bit poorly).

There was some sexism in 'Dr Quinn medicine woman' tho' which wound me up. Basically the storyline (set in I guess 18th/19th century) still seems relevant today - about a female Dr. whose husband made her give up her career when they got married.

I was at a church life group meeting and one of the guys there said he believed men should be the 'head of the family', that he's against feminism and that having a penis does automatically make one better at decision making, and if you disagree with him you're disagreeing with Jesus.

It was the first time I'd been in months and suddenly all the reasons why I'd left came flooding back.

Bloody St Paul.

BingBongSong, sorry you don't feel at home on that forum any more.
I love (in the sense of "actually I usefully hate") the word "immature" because it is a really good indicator of knee-jerk unreflective conservatism (gets used by dominant cliques in schools a lot - including by teachers). I was reminded of this by something else the other day (apparently it is "immature" to criticise bankers) and then again today on another thread in feminism where someone is saying that feminists need to "grow up" (= put up, shut up). (Ironically, that poster means "have no body hair" by "growing up", which I think means "remain a child").

Friend let is slip that her DH thinks my DH is a wuss because he actually, differing from him, does some housework.

I work as a lawyer in a very male-dominanted environment so I have plenty of experiences like Lindseyjane described. But yesterday, I was in a meeting, only woman there. There were no secretaries or assistants present and the GM looked around the room and asked "Is anybody taking minutes?". And, listen to this, he did not look at me suggesting I should take them! The sad thing was that based on all those previous experiences, i was totally expecting him to do that..

I'm sat in a voluntary lecture to learn about feminism. Where there are 4 women and 4 men. All but me think the word "cunt" is an acceptable word for a woman. The other 3 idiots women, cannot see the derogatory problem, as they "use the word as well".

AIBU or is this word becoming ok?

Dittany - yes, I made the assumption that Lala had herself assumed that the person who assaulted her was male.

That was because she described what happened in her post on this thread which is about acts of sexism.

Surely if a woman had hit her, it wouldn't be a sexist act.

I'm not sure if this is sexist or not, but I was watching TV last night when the advert for Innocent orange juice came on and said something like "squeezing nature's best bits" in a slightly sleazy voice.

I may be overthinking this, but comparing making orange juice to being groped doesn't particularly make me want to rush out and buy it. I just found it a bit weird.

Surely nature's "best bits" are vaginas and breasts

I have a BFPO address for delivery of my official and personal mail. DH is allowed to use this too. The men (they must be men) at BFPO clearly cannot comprehend that it is the woman with the job, and put a sticker over every piece of mail addressed to me with "c/o MR Schadenfreude".

I was in a meeting the other day, and my boss said, to no-one in particular "Could someone bring us all some coffee?" All eyes swivelled to me, as the only woman there. Even though I outranked several of the men there. I said, very sweetly, "Oh sure, Steve will get the coffee, won't you, Steve?" (Steve most junior person in the room, even if he does have a penis.)

Asking my DP whilst mending the computer if he was having any joy, I got

'don't worry your little head about it,'

then asked me to make him a cuppa

Sorry - Thursday not today but am pissed off.

Dh took dd for her 8 month check (she is 10 mo :) )

I did not attend as I generally find getting medical advice from someone who wouldn't know a proper piece of science if it put on a top hat and did a tap dance annoying.

Dh returned cross about a number of things but mostly because everything that the HV said to him she followed up with 'Can you speak to your wife about that?'

Apparently she said it about ten times. At no point did she ask who is dd's main carer.

not sure if it counts as ds1 is only 5 bless him but he earnestly told me the other day that mummys DO NOT WORK daddys work and mummmy stay at home look after the children and cook tea. THis was when dropping ds1 off at school surrounded by mummys who do work!! Very embarrasing I'm a sahm at at atm but the subject of me returning to work has been discussed between me and dh a number of times lately. He's obviously been listening.

I was in a corner shop and I overheard shopkeeper saying to his colleague/friend whatever, 'tits on her!' looked up and he was staring right ot me and his mate was grinning.

I wasn't dressed tarty or anything, and when I went to get served same bloke said hello, you want a bag sweetheart?

ino pretty trivial but makes me feel a bit urgh , I'm not used to attention it was more wierd that anything.