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.

Orangekipper - I assumed (can you actually confidently assume?!) a different scenario. It's not always easy to get the complete picture from a post and sometimes further clarification is needed. In my case, the further clarification was very kindly given by blackcurrants and I agreed that she made a good decision to walk out.

I wasn't sure of the complete picture, hence my questions after her post.

Actually investing anger in tackling injustice is often extremely effective.

Perhaps that's why you don't like it.

Anytime we challenge a stereotype, I feel it is a positive thing. I obviously have a different view of 2012 to you orange. You see something as tragic, but I see it as a triumph that a 7 year old girl will challenge an obviously closed minded martial arts instructor, just as you may have done all those years ago when you studied martial arts.

Equality is and will be an ongoing battle for the rest of my lifetime, I would imagine.

Discussing the Julian Assange case at work the the other day got us onto the topic of 'what is rape'. My colleagues were adamant that it couldn't be rape if you had already slept with them. enough on it's own.

But when I argued the point, i.e. what about husbands that rape their wives etc, is that ok? Female colleague argued back 'Oh, that's all a bit feminist for me'

Being at a large family orientated birthday party where there was a large buffet made by various women, and the women were all helping to set it up and then at the end clear it up. Meanwhile the men stood round the bar talking. Not one man seemed to see it as his role to help out too.

I guess it depends how we portray that anger. I have no intention of giving a man the opportunity to say, "Calm down, dear!" to me.

A dignified, clear and concise portrayal of the point I am trying to get across works best for me personally, and I've found that it actually makes people more receptive to the point I'm trying to make.

We're fighting for the same cause. How we choose to do it, and what we choose to call ourselves, is very individual, unfortunately.

ha ha ha ha "unfortunately"

In other words, florencejon, you deeply regret the horrible truth that you are not allowed to pull these unladylike people up on their lack of womanly grace.

It seems to me that throughout this thread you have been implicitly critical / disbelieving of those who have been treated unfairly. I am sorry that rude and unfair and sexist behaviour is bad for your health and your blood pressure (and you think it is healthier not to notice it), but actually in the grand scheme of things, this is probably one of the minor effects of several millennia of patriarchy on women's health. Still, get well soon!

Hi florencejon

How do you think a man angry about, say, homophobia should portray his anger?

So this is international and cultural, but made me laugh. DP in moscow recently for work, has a nasty burn on his arm, conversation as follows:
Russian woman: ouch, how did that happen?
DP: i was just cooking and banged it on the oven door
RW: but don't you have a baby?
DP: er, yes.
RW: so you are married?
DP: well, no, but my girlfriend and i live together
RW: so why were you cooking?
DP: errrr......
Other russian colleague (male): you should marry her, then you won't have to cook! (said with a note of triumph he had solved the problem)
DP: not sure my girlfriend would really go for that actually.....

If we have a way to go, there ate some countries with even further. All the more reason to love Pussy Riot.

mumtomoley 'Oh, that's all a bit feminist for me'

There was a discussion a while back on these boards which could make me understand that comment, had she read that particular discussion. (All very hypothetical, I know.)

How did you reply to that comment mumtomoley?

Vezzie - My expectations of manners are the same for men and women. I believe a debate can, and often should, be passionate, but when people start showing aggression, hurling insults, then the subject of the debate becomes overshadowed.

Trying - shit, that Russian woman had better come and talk to my DH then! I'm married, and he's just made me beans on toast (albeit only slice of toast , so I sent him back to make the other slice...)

only one slice

sod.

florence I agree with you that hurling insults is counter-productive. However, we should be careful about criticising women for 'hurling aggression' because there's a double-standard at play which silences women's resistance to bad treatment: men are often considered to be admirably assertive when they stand up for themselves, and women who do the exact same thing, using the exact same thing/words/body language, are considered 'aggressive' and 'pushy' and 'bitches'.

Neither Gandhi or Martin Luther King thought that the oppressed were morally obligated to politeness and demure behaviour. Non-violence, yes, but some people considered marching for civil rights to be aggressive, threatening behaviour - and it was, because it threatened the unjust status quo

I'm not going to politely ask someone to take their foot off my neck. I will tell them to remove it. I won't do it rudely, because I'm not rude, but nor am I going to cringe and scrape while I assert my right to fair treatment. I was scrupulously polite to the salesperson in the car dealership, but some would call the fact that I said anything to him aggressive or rude. So terms like 'aggressive' are loaded against people agitating for change.

florencejon, I think you are answering thedoctrineofsnatch's question, not mine.

Anger has nothing to do with manners. You can be angry without being rude. You can even express anger without being rude, or hurling insults.

In all seriousness, I respect your right to do whatever you need to do for your health, but you should respect others too, such as: a. their rights to do what they need to do for their mental health, including recognising the truth as they sincerely see it rather than suffering the psychological effects of cognitive dissonance which include depression, and b. in fact you should be grateful that people are prepared to do tough things, including making themselves unpopular, to achieve benefits for all women, including you.

florencejon no she would not have read mumsnet. I understand the concept of something being 'too feminist'. But not the idea that a husband can rape his wife is a radically feminist notion.

I think we agreed to disagree at that point.

blackcurrants is my new hero.

I worked in a mobile phone shop quite a few years ago, and used to do routine repairs regularly on phones which had ongoing issues because of the model.

I was standing at the counter with a trainee (young guy, 3rd day) when a man walked up the counter. Trainee was serving someone, I wasn't. I asked if I could help, and the man told me he had a problem with his phone, so it was probably better that the young man took a look!

I told him that if he was having a problem with the speaker on his phone, then he was more than welcome to wait for "the young man" but as he was a new member of staff, he was likely going to be able to do no more than ask me to fix it.

At which point he silently handed the phone to me, which I fixed in about 2 mins.

I was raging!

DD came home with a set of leaflets from school this week about extra classes she could do, after hours.

Except when I looked at it, just boys can do football. Boys who are not very good, boys who are ok, and boys who are great at football. Three classes.

That's it!

I mean, I guess if I asked, they'd have to let her join in, but they only used the word boys, and all the pictures were of boys. So I expect girls joining isn't normal.

I wouldn't expect her to go be a trailblazing feminist, changing attitudes, at four years old, so I just won't say anything.

I thought it was a shame. She likes football!

Hi TheDoctrineOfSnatch "How do you think a man angry about, say, homophobia should portray his anger?"

I'm trying to put myself in his position. Feeling an internal state of anger on a permanent basis is unhealthy and will not help the cause. He can be angry all day and every day, but ultimately, it will be his health and life which will suffer. I guess a similar comparison would be to be in a permanent state of 'fight or flight'. Producing so much adrenaline for a long period of time is damaging to a person's physical and mental well being. When a person feels angry, the physical response is very similar. Anger is not the best long term response to a long term injustice.

I've just re-read it and hope that I make sense. Please feel free to ask for clarification if you need!

mumtomoley Thanks for answering. I think you made a wise choice. Maybe, just maybe, you planted a seed for her and got her thinking though.

More on the sanctimonious lecturing on courtesy, and why I hate it:

• I am not rude. I can be passionate, but I don't insult people, especially people I don't know online. I resent my passion being conflated with rudeness.

• This is partly because reminds me of school (an environment where courtesy was talked about a lot, but within a rigid implicit hierarchy in which the requirement of courtesy was strictly asymmetrical);

• Courtesy can be a terrible waste of time when someone is deliberately pissing about with your resources in favour of the status quo. they are tripping you up deliberately by throwing extra hoops to jump through in your path. Sometimes.

• It feels to me (and this is only a feeling but don?t my feelings matter?) that only certain people?s feelings matter. It seems to me that some of the things which people say, which are offensive, are recognised as such, and other things, which are equally offensive, are mainstream enough to be acceptable. It is very tiring to be always on the receiving end of such things. This butts up against the point about messing with people?s resources. Sometimes I feel very Marxist about the fact that everything could be translated into a matter of how many minutes or joules or pounds or dollars you have to spare, and how many of them are being squandered by people who arrogate to themselves the right to dispose of them for their own convenience, and how inequitable this business is, and how people who have plenty of joules to spare make out that ?politeness costs nothing? when what they mean is that it costs them so little it is negligible because their circumstances are so easy and they come across so much ?free? politeness being poured in their direction in life, that they don?t notice the miniscule costs to them associated with reciprocating a little here and there.

• Similarly I notice, and I kept saying this, and I kept being ignored, that: usually on bunfights on mn there is a continual reference by MNHQ to the usual guidelines (which do not allow personal attacks and a few other woollily but reasonably identified things) ? the implication being that when the guidelines are not being breached, people who are getting offended need, frankly, to just deal with it. With the feminists, this was not considered to be enough. There was a huge soul-searching looking for further restrictions on the discourse, and inventing new places to have it, because people continued to get offended although the guidelines were not being breached, and this time it was considered to be the fault of the people saying non-guideline-breaking-things, not the people getting offended.

• I suggest that this is because there is a cognitive dissonance about the status of feminism within mainstream society. People, especially women, don?t want to be seen as sexist, or think of themselves as so, or anti-feminist (somehow ? however problematic it is to actually identify as feminist) but actually to be normal and mainstream is to be pretty sexist. People really lash out against it. It?s a problem. It?s a really prickly problem that people hold certain beliefs that they don?t want to be exposed, even to themselves, as holding. It means that pretty much anything you are going to say on the subject, however much you refrain from blatantly offensive things like swearing or name-calling, is going to offend them, and it?s not fair to make that the fault of the person doing the ?offending? when the cause is that the offendee is so preciariously and illogically balanced in an uncomfortable psychological position.

• I have to admit certain personal things as well though. For instance that I come from a culture that is particularly violently repressive and sexist (and its immediate representatives to me don?t admit it, but that?s another thing). (I would like to write more about this, but another time). It is possible that English mainstream culture is not quite as sexist as the holding culture of my formative years (remembering also that I am now middle aged). I don?t think so though. I think it is just sexist in different ways. (Again, more to be said about this, sometime)

• Here is another personal thing to admit: I just personally (almost aesthetically) loathe all that overbearing ?reasonableness?. I experience it as repressive. It is a style that does not suit me, it is a suave blankety logic-less overruling of dissent, it unfurls deadeningly straight from the powerful class to suffocate and obliterate. It strikes me, on a personal and emotional level, as unfair to outlaw my personal weapons of choice, in particular, rationality in a way that those normally pro-logic suddenly purport to experience as too logical, brutal, because it is turned on them. Suddenly this is not allowed because somebody's feelings are hurt by it. When do my feelings matter? Why are the hobnailed boots of Goliath, who have crushed generations of Davids, technically classed as "footwear" and David's lethal, accurate, clever slingshot confiscated and tutted over?

• Something else to add about polite discourse and the limits of liberalism:
  There is no such thing as absolute liberalism ? it always butts up against someone else?s sphere in which they wish to have autonomy / control. Making these rules supposedly in order to protect the individual?s freedom to express oneself without receiving abuse in return ? attempting not to drive away those who have thin skin ? drives away others, those who are intolerably frustrated by the dim witted being allowed to interminably rehearse pernicious received ideas

• Also it is a liberal mistake to think that rational discussion is what is always, or usually, taking place. there are other agendas here

Let's all rejoice at these opportunities to enlighten

Did you not know Vezzie? If you do feminism wrong you just aggravate misogynists people and that's not good for anyone is it now? Much better for you to sit down with some camomile tea until you've regained control of yourself.

I remember booking into a v.posh restaurant - we were treating my parents and on phoning, I specifically asked for my parents to be given the un-priced menus as I didn't want them flapping over how much the dinner was costing us. On arrival they gave the un-priced menus to my mum and me. The food was fabulous so I'll forgive them.

When out I am always offered the wine to taste, though to be fair, usually the sommelliers are clued up enough to ask "Who would like to taste the wine" rather than offering it straight to the nearest bloke.

I didn't buy a car from the garage that tried to persuade me a certain model was "a lovely colour with plenty of room for the shopping".