Comebacks?

[allthegoodnamesweretaken]

It's my first time posting here, and I'm afraid it's nothing particurlarly groundbreaking, sorry!
My copy of the female eunich arrived in the post this morning (Trying to read through the top 50 fem books). Unfortunately my OH's grandad was there to witness this and it set him off in a right ranty rage, apparantly in his superior opinion, second wave feminism was stupid, and all it achieved was that women have to retire at 65 instead of 60.......... I couldn't tell if he was just being deliberately obtuse to get a reaction out of me or if he genuinely is that stupid, I have come across some sexist idiots in my life of course, but I was so baffled by his ridiculous outburst that I just ignored him.
I think he enjoys coming out with misogynistic crap to wind me up, so I need some good cutting comebacks that shut him up without making me seem as if I've lost control IYSWIM. Any tips?

Tell him he doesn't know what he's talking about.Second Wave Feminism hasn't led to the retirement age for women going up to 65.It's actually 67.

Just yawn at him...

Seriously as someone with a DF that likes to wind me up at any given opportunity just to "get a reaction" I can tell you that you are wasting your time trying to reason with him.

If you take what they say seriously and react to it they will just come back with the classic "Can't you take a joke?" line, thus allowing themselves to come out with stupid sexist crap without taking responsibility for it, without realizing that the fact that it is socially acceptable (even encouraged) to make sexist jokes and rip the piss out of the feminist movement is in fact PART of the problem. My DF has chucked people out of his house for making racist remarks but sexism is fair game...

Don't waste your time on him, let him know he's boring you and then block him out.

Thanks for the replies, I'll stick to ignoring him then, though I think it will be hard!

With someone that old you have the advantage that he really has had to put up with seeing great progress and achievements made by women, so all you need to do to irritate him is to mention stuff along those lines that has happened recently - 'Oh, I see the Royal Navy has just put a woman in charge of a warship!' 'Ah, the youngest person to sail round the world is now a woman!'
Don't refer to bad things happening to women or stuff that is holding women back, just the good ones. You have to behave like you think women will be running the world pretty soon and dinosaurs like him will be extinct so you are quite amused by him. (Even if you don't and you're not.)

'Nice to have a female Home Secretary for a change, isn't it?'
'Younger women are earning more than men now, I see....'

"Women have achieved so much in the last 40 years, and it all started with this book!"

(Waving it at him in a threatening manner)

On the retirement issue I find it useful to say that I am so glad they have finally realised that women are not so feeble that they have to be pensioned off as useless at 60! Of course I speak as someone who has been working past the current 65 male retirement age and thankful for the freedom and independence to do so.

I don't think women were pensioned off at 60 because they were feeble. Wasn't it the case that, with most women being married to men slightly older than them, women were pensioned off earlier as they had to stay at home and tend to their pensioned off husbands?

Sorry, not quite finished. It could be argued that women no longer have to drop their employment earlier to tend to the menfolk. Which is a good thing insofar as it recognises that men and women are equal, and women aren't maids for their husbands.

As women live longer than men it never made any logical sense to make them retire earlier.

I love the thought that women were pensioned off earlier to tend to their pensioned off husbands - ah poor loves.

You're probably right Giyadas. So logically, a woman who was older than her husband (my mother would have been an example) should have been made to work longer then......

But then logic has never been known to intrude on the way women are treated....

Perhaps look at your watch and say, "shouldn't you be dead soon?"

Okay, maybe that's a bit much.

I think most of my relatives got to the point of minding their p's and q's when around me since the older I got, the less likely I was to just brush off or ignore racist, sexist, homophobic, disablist, etc. remarks. Either that or eventually they started getting a clue (I actually think that's been the case for some.)

I fortunately inherited the most evil withering look from my mother - you know, the sort of thing that makes milk curdle, babies cry and lemmings leap over cliffs. If you don't have one, I recommend starting to cultivate one. Practice in the mirror. I find about 20 seconds of that, with or without a tongue click, eye roll or dismissive gesture of your choice does the trick. Sometimes, you don't need words at all.

Unfortunatley KRITIQ when I have used that sort of look at work I thereafter get comments of "look at the face on her" "wouldn't want to take a burst paycheck home to her" and such like. Sometimes it feels that you just can't win.

Another option is to leave the room. I did that once with some particularly vile relatives of ex inlaws. Made my point and didn't have to hear their snipey comments either.

Is "fuck off" entirely out of the question?

Last time my uber sexist FIL tried something like that I nodded knowingly to DH and said "See, this is what they were talking about, when the older generation actually knows about feminism and resorts to claiming it's bad for women, that's when things are really changing for the better. Oh you've made me so happy FIL!"

Poor old FIL was so I helpfully said, "Well, FIL, 20 years ago you would have said women don't need any more rights, that we already had everything and you would have felt secure in your belief that women can be palmed off with the barest of human rights. But now, even you, even died-in-the-wool old-school sexists, are seeing the real changes that are happening and are starting to feel so threatened that you've actually resorted to acting like you care about women, like you think feminism might be hurting us. It means you're just running out of steam, that your kind are finally hitting the wall. You finally realise feminism is real and here to stay and you're feebly hoping to turn women against it, under the guise of protecting us from it, because you know you just can't stop it any more." . I really thought he was going to vomit. It was bloody classic. He doesn't say a word about women around me any more.