In this day and age! A thread for unbelievably obvious examples of sexism.

[blackcurrants]

A thread for "I can't believe that just happened to me! In this day and age!"

Yesterday we spent about 40 minutes in a Toyota dealership, looking to spend about $10k on a used car. The salesman only asked DH's name, only wrote down DH's number, and only talked to DH about the cars available. DH kept referring to me, asking my opinion, and generally looking uncomfortable. Eventually DH snatched back his license from the salesman and said "No, I don't think so. Let's go." And as I turned I added "Joe? Thank you for your help today. I work in sales and I wanted you to know that since I walked in here you haven't asked me a single question, or addressed me directly even once. At one point you walked away from me, talking to my husband about the next car you were showing us, so that I couldn't hear what you said. I just want you to know that I earn more than my husband (actually not yet true, but soon will be!), I know more about cars than my husband (v.true), and you acted like I didn't exist. Which is why we're leaving."

When I got into our car, DH was cheering. We drove 5 miles away and bought a nissan.

As we were doing the dishes last night, talking about this, DH said "I do hope you tell Mumsnet about it." he knows me so well.

and here

this is just medical doctors, though, I haven't found other doctorates yet.
(i hav a feeling the rule might apply to other doctorates)

atail that is hilarious!

nickel - oh, sorry, I'm an idiot, that would make more sense. I guess you have to be very careful about doctors and fake identities.

I was just getting fed up because my mum changed her name after she got her doctorate, and I get annoyed because she never uses it, so they get letters addressed to 'Dr and Mrs' instead of 'Dr and Dr', and it really annoys me. But it's possible she has a point.

(I will refrain from muttering she shouldn't have changed her bloody name!)

Ok...

1st week with the surgeons. They kept us in til very late every night. Not because there was anything to do. Just because that's what they had to do at medical school. Last day one of them gave me the choice to go home or see another patient. I said I would go home if that's alright, because I had not got home before dd was in bed one night that week. His reply "Welcome to medicine..."

Few days later in theatre a registrar who was on placement from Eastern Europe heard I had a daughter. He asked me what I was doing there. I asked him what I meant. He said I should be at home looking after my daughter. His wife stays at home and looks after his children like a good mother. I said she was home with her Dad who she loves just as much as me. He said it's not the same.

His poor wife and kids. Never mind that he has dragged his family half way across Europe for his career and is probably never home to even see them.

It was very telling that all the consultants on that take were going through divorces.

I would be annoyed at my mum doing that too.

I've just been looking on apostgrad forum, and someone said that they rang the registrar or births, marriages and deaths and they said yo ucan change your name even if your title is DR, but you have to have a good paper trail. (and others saying it's bad to because you'd lose your reputation and searches for papers etc etc)

but, she should use Dr and Dr is that's what she is.

Oh, good lord, mummy that is awful.

Can you make a complaint? Surely what he said is really, seriously not on?

nickel - yes, I wish she'd use it. It's relevant to what she does (she's a tutor in her subject) and she wonders why she doesn't get much respect, but she won't use it. Mind you there's a world of things I could say about my mum and how much she's been crushed down by things like that, so I pick my battles.

I'm not (just) being patronizing here, btw, she honestly isn't very happy, it's not that she's a perfectly content not-very-feminist type, she's an unhappy woman resisting feminism because it scares her.

Told my FIL that I don't like to be addressed as Mrs DHlastname and that my friends address me as my-firstname and the rest of the world can call me Dr my-lastname. Isn't that obvious? That's what happens to male PhD holders, is it not?

A long time ago I was a very young audit clerk, studying for accountancy exams, and on the point of getting married. The male FD at a company we were auditing asked if I would be giving up work to be a housewife. I politely said no, I aimed to qualify as an accountant - he was adamant that I would find out that marriages worked better if the wife stayed at home. I just bit my tongue - no choice, i was half his age, and he was the client.

Skipping on about 6 years I was then running an accounts department in a commercial environment, and had a vacancy for a purchase ledger clerk. There were lots of applicants, including, guess who, this FD, who had recently been made redundant. Sadly I didn't think from his application, that he was suitable for the position advertised

quietly arrgh that must be a bloody nightmare! Have a friend who is a surgeon, early 30s, yes, young-looking (damn her, she's barely aged in the 9 years I've known here.. not like me!) but the one standing there in scrubs talking to the patient about cutting out their cancers.... She says if she had a quid for every time she's been called "nurse" and asked "Nurse, when do I see the surgeon" her DCs would be going to private school!

Blackcurrants, the male half of a couple I know well changed his name to hers when they got married. He took great pleasure in the confusion from banks etc when he tried to change his name on accounts.

During my teaching years I would make a point of telling students not to call me Miss. The classroom conversation would go:

"Miss"
"Miss!"
"Miss!"
"Miss!"
"Miss!!"
"Miss!!!"
"Miss!!"
....
"Slug"
Me: "Yes?"

Presumably the not changing your name to a different one from that with which you got your doctorate is the same for men too? So it's not strictly sexist, just likely to affect women more than men. As with so many things.

When I worked at a fuddy-duddy office in London, one of the women there told me that when she first started there, there was a rule that once married, women could not work 5 days a week - they had to work only 4. To look after hubby, you see. She still never worked on fridays, regardless. She told me that in those days it was common for married women to be chucked out of their jobs straightaway, so the office was actually very forward thinking!

This is the same office which - when photocopiers came in, so not that long ago - had someone whose job it was to check the original against the photocopy, word-for-word, for errors!

I was listening to a Radio 4 documentary the other day about family life in Italy and particularly why the birthrate has fallen so low there. One of the participants said that it is still common for women starting a job to have to sign an undated resignation letter to be kept on file for when she gets pregnant. No wonder the birthrate has plummeted.

But then, when I had a job where I sent out a lot of emails to people whose gender I didn't know, my (male) boss told me men will be offended if referred to as 'Dear Mr/Ms Smith' but women won't mind 'Mr Smith', so better to go with that option.

I'd imagine many women would mind very much!

I struck a small blow today....

DCs and I were at the local softplay, where they have lots of themed rooms (supermarket, vet surgery, construction site etc). A small girl was bouncing up and down saying 'I'm a man building a wall!' and I told her that she could also be a woman building a wall. She looked puzzled yet thoughtful.

Hopefully she will post on a thread like this in 20 years' time noting the incident as her introduction to feminism :)

Nice one, Herrena :)

Is that really true about the doctorate name thing? I got married last year and after much thinking decided to change my name to my husband's (and maybe I made the wrong choice but I'm not flaming changing it back now!). I got my Ph.D 2 years prior to that and have been calling myself Dr marriedname- bit worried now! I'm sure some of the women in my old department (chemists) used their married names too. I know about the publications thing but thought I would be ok since I no longer work in the field.

In fact one thing that swayed me towards changing my name is the fact that DH is a medical Dr so I liked the thought of us being the same. Also that 'Dr Jones?' scene with Indy and his dad in Indiana Jones

Actually I'm now almost finished my accountancy training amigababy and I want to qualify in my new name to avoid confusion later.

I don't see how the Dr thing can be true for PhDs. Dr isn't a protected title in the UK. If the awarding institution wants it could decide only to confirm awards under the names they were obtained under. But that doesn't mean you can't use it, only that you'd have to explain to people who checked.

slug, my dad was a primary school teacher and the kids used to call him Miss :)

Can I mention the time I arrived at a new office to join my new team, as a software engineer, and the Receptionist (on being asked where could I find the x team) asked me "Are you their new secretary?".

I have a unisex name, is that the right way to say it?
One of those where it sounds the same but spelt different dependant on gender

Every time I sign up/ in to anything I will later get the paper work etc. addressed to Mr Unisex name, I have ranted about this before, I?ve been puffed at, well it is a male name too. .

I get that, what I don?t get is most of the time I will have spoken to them, clearly female, spelt my name out etc. And why is the default here to male anyway?

We get the pint/ half pint thing regularly, and was out with some of OHs work colleagues, asked what we wanted to drink, Cider (as we were in a cider famous area heaven), person came back with a pint and a half.

Because my hands are too small, being girl hands, to hold a pint glass, I shit you not, this was the reason given. I didn?t challenge him one of the other men did calling him a tightwad before I noticed.

Same with the wine as people have said above.

The common assumption that the reason we?re not married is because he hasn?t asked me. .

Normally asked by women and accompanied by a head tilt, Oh doesn?t OH want to get married?

I used to say oh yes, he does but I want to do xyz etc.

Now I say yes he does and?
If I?m in a good mood I might say yes he does but I?m holding out for someone richer/prettier/ taller. .

The general shock that I can not only cook, sew and knit I can also change a plug, regularly fix washing machine etc., change a tire even though I don?t drive. Apparently my interest and ability in baking means that I can?t put a wardrobe together, fix the boiler or be informed about current affairs.

OH and I have a company together, I do a lot of the day to day stuff, mainly because OH travels a lot, recently had to use an new accountant for various reasons, went along to sign some paper work, it all need the company directors signature, all of this was presented to OH, first time fine, the co. name is a play on his surname.

We smiled and OH went oh no Smells is the MD, he then did it again and again and again. He also found reason to comment, he said that he hadn?t encountered this situation before, fair enough, what was annoying was him going on and on about how odd it was and did other people not see it as odd and he couldn?t work with his wife.

I did reply at that and point out that OH did not work with me he worked for me (honestly we work together, but sigh) and then carried on to say that I saw nothing odd in it as my Father had worked for my Mother.

Thankfully our usual accountant is now back, he may be an unpleasant rude git, but he?s not in the least sexist about it, rude to everyone.

In my real job, we have a 80/20 female/male split in the team, none of the men have line management responsibility recently went to a conference with one of them where male colleague was given all bills etc to pay all these had to be passed to me as he is too junior to have company credit card. All question were directed to him even though I have ?Senior? in my job title and we all had our titles on our IDS, even though, several of these people will have meet me several times before.

One particular delight wanted to ask a techie question, did random small chat with me while colleague was at the bar. Now this person knows that to have the title Senior you have to be very knowledgeable about the techie stuff, he also knows that all the seniors in the team are female, confirmed in the small talk. So he was either being a sexist twat or taking delight in highlighting someone?s lack of knowledge.

And for some good things, when my Sis and I went away recently Sis is married and has 2 DC, older DN was asked at the school gate who was babysitting them. DN looked a bit and said no one. was asked well who?s looking after you while Mummy is away? BIL said DNs face was so very confused, and he replied Daddy is, but that?s not babysitting.

Different DN aged 5 stated to some of her GPs friends that she wants to be either a solider or a or a farmer or a race car driver, was told by GPs friend that girls can?t be race car drivers,. She snorted at him and told him not to be so silly, of course girls can be race car drivers, girls can do everything. My Sis said she felt she should tell her off for being rude but when the kid is right shes right

Sorry. .

think I might be a bit more annoyed by this than I realised. . .

That would drive me mad!

My MIL came to visit us the other day and both my children walked in with stickers from school/nursery.
MIL: Oh, DS, did you get that sticker for being so clever? Oh, DD, did you get that sticker for being so pretty...
But, IL related sexism probably doesn't even count..

Dh and I have had the bartender give us the wrong drinks too . I can't help it if dh drinks cat's piss and I drink proper beer.

Best one ever was in Germany. I ask for directions (in German) and the man totally turns and gives the directions to dh. Blanks me. Gives several minutes of elaborate directions to nodding dh. Who understands fuck all no German.

Wigeon

Of course that is sexist, but in the example given it was not clear tat that had happened.

Smellslikecatspee
That can be a problem the other way round. One of my uni lecturers used to get a lot of things referring to him as Ms or Miss.

And I want to give your DN a hug.

Can I recomend you all eat at Chiquito - they bring the bill to whoever asks. Or if they are not sure they put the bill in the middle of the table. They also offer me the wine because I'm the one who orders it.