Benevolent sexism - should men hold doors open?!

[RedHotPokers]

Just heard an interesting discussion on R4 about 'benevolent sexism'. Did a quick search and foundthis article which is rather less measured than the R4 discussion.

Interested to know what people think.
First post on Feminism topic so hope I haven't repeated a previous topic or put my foot in it!

Reading all these posts, all but one or two people understand the concept the researchers are getting at.

So I've decided to no longer tolerate or make excuses for those people. In words they might understand: 'You are being mulish and wilfully offensive, but that's all right. I'll let you off, Lovies.'

What I wish the researchers had explored were other examples of benevolent sexism that actively exclude women from jobs and other status activities rather than create a climate of exclusion in general.

Few examples from my experience as a journalist which I bring up because it's always angered me but also because I'm appalled by the attitude of that Telegraph journalist. Maybe she was happy to report on shoes and kittens. I wasn't. This was a while ago but it still happens. They've just learned to be a little more subtle about it.

So: not being allowed to attend the print works to sign off final proofs because 'printers are animals, Love'.

Insisting on visiting the print works, because it was my job and a path to promotion and better pay, and having obscenities, plastic bags containing fuck knows what and metal objects thrown at me and being told: 'I told you they were like that, Love.'

Obviously no question of disciplining the offenders under HR rules [joke] or calling the police for assault.

Actually, I don't think the police would have been that bothered since I've been told countless times by male police officers that 'this isn't a very nice story, don't they have a bloke in your office?'

Having a coroner's officer (male) suggest I shouldn't be reporting on a case of erotic auto-asphixia because it was 'er, not very nice, but I can't really explain why.' When I said I'd be okay he brought this to the attention of the coroner behind my back. For my own good, obviously. The male coroner told him not to be so ridiculous, so luckily not all men are like that.

Interesting, this one: in a newsroom having men try to intimidate you by swearing and when confronted with the same language having them behave as if you have destroyed their faith in womankind.

Some of these men boasted about not swearing in front of 'real ladies' but wouldn't condemn men who gave uppity bitches a slap when driven to it.

I've hogged this. I'm really interested to hear other experiences of how benevolent sexism holds you back. Not for an article, I promise, but it's always angered me.

limitedperiodonly - the examples you gave of overt and benevolent sexism in your industry make a lot more sense to me than the academic paper cited in the article. Its obvious how the examples of benevolent and overt sexism you describe are interlinked. DW faced similar when she worked in The City.

You should write about it.

princehumperdinck it would get in feminist-friendly media but it wouldn't get in mainstream newspapers and that's where it should go - because it's the practice in mainstream papers. And let's go round again...

To explain the sick reasoning: Years ago a friend was covering one of Jack Nicholson's jaunts to London for a tabloid. He attended a lap-dancing club accompanied by a baying entourage of paps.

At the end of the night he left for his hotel suite with two dancers. The next morning one of the women ostentatiously posed for photos pulling open the curtains of his suite naked.

My friend got chatting to her and it transpired that Nicholson took the bed and ordered them to sleep elsewhere in the suite. He couldn't get it up. Not that bad for a tired 60-something in a big hotel room but the horrible thing was that she said he'd stiffed them over their payment for the night (negotiated at a modest rate owing to his celebrity) and told them to fuck off when they argued.

My friend thought it was laughable that a billionaire Jack the Lad was not only impotent but bilked sex-workers over their cut-price fee. Her news editor disagreed and tiring of her arguments said: 'Jack Nicholson is a fucking legend. People (meaning the news editor and his fragile, limp-dicked ego) don't want to read from a fucking whore that he can't get it up.'

MoreBeta that's why I was motivated to post. I would have liked it if the authors of the research had concentrated on the stories of people like me and your wife rather than concentrating on vague stories about opening doors that are ripe for ridicule. However, seeing as you knew these things happened, it would have also been nice for you to have told of your wife's experiences.

With her permission, of course.

ps MoreBeta Those police officers and my production editor believed they were being benevolent and protecting me from nasty men. Nasty in different ways, more like.

When pressed about their obstruction of my right to do my job, they professed bafflement at my attitude and when pressed 'jokily' expressed the opinion that I was over-reacting and a 'feminist' ho-ho-ho. I believe that was their way of warning me that I was in danger of becoming unattractive, man-hating and unnatural in their eyes.

I've no idea whether that was their genuine view. In truth, I think they were too muddle-headed and threatened to hold any coherent views.

Probably a bit obvious.

But how to interpret if a man opens a door for another man?

I mean what's the hidden symbolism behind that?

Or is that supposed to be some kind of subconscious gay emotion in play?

Or is it just because, hey, its just helpful, and being humans who live in a society, sometimes, just sometimes we all act...well human.

If a man opens a door for me, well that's nice. But I will open the door for a man, a woman, watch men open doors for men.

Do I need some kind of spreadsheet to work out what all the possible permutations mean? When or when not to feel insulted, betrayed, a victim of the 'patriarchal system'.

I open the door for my cat. How should I interpret that?

The 'symbolism' of things is taken a little too far on occasions; trying to find meaning in everything.

And then, before you know it, you tip over the cliff and end up in a David Icke world, similar to the American loopiness linked below, with the 'patriarchy' sounding horribly similar to SPECTRE from James Bond. When that happens (and regrettably I see and read it a lot) every, absolutely every single interaction between females and males is determined to have some sort of hidden meaning with an associated conspiracy theory.

Lady Gaga?s ?Alejandro?: The Occult Meaning

swallowed Print works were scary places in the '80s and before. My managing editor and production editor dressed it up as chivalry but their biggest fear was a walkout if they dared to discipline a printer.

This was pre-Wapping when the NGA was incredibily strong. Not only was printing a closed shop but they wouldn't allow women. Ostensibly it was because they said women would depress the wages. But in reality they wouldn't allow anyone who wasn't a white, working-class male.

The NGA was destroyed in the Wapping dispute and though I'm pro-union I don't miss those particular bastards at all.

A closed shop was where membership of a specific union was a condition of employment. That made unions very strong both in the public and private sectors.

It was changed along with other laws relating to union membership under employment legislation in the early '80s. Some I agreed with, some I didn't.

Union membership and the image of unions can be said to have gone through the same trashing as feminists and the image of feminism and by the same people - those with a vested interest in portraying both as bad, shameful and irrelevant in order to keep power in their hands.

I've got to work now. I'll probably be back. It's a pet subject.

Obviously, that condition was imposed by strong union branches, rather than the employers themselves.