We've had moments of obvious sexism, how about the reactions when you dare point it out?

[MurderOfGoths]

Aside from some of the frankly terrifying responses on MN, I once had to go to one of my line managers to ask why I was getting paid less than a male member of staff. The response? That I was being "deliberately antagonistic" and that I'd lose my job if I didn't drop it.

Reactions are always defensive - sometimes gaslighty 'stop imagining things', sometimes, 'arf... chill out, that was just banter'. But always defensive, as is to be expected when any sort of discrimination is pointed out.

What was your response to your line manager?

I was quite surprised at some responses I got on FB about the "drop the page 3 petition" aimed at The Sun. I consider FB a place for mates, not an open forum. I don't debate or antagonise on there and dont expect FB "friends" to have a go but two did. Both male. I only posted it to my timeline and invited those who wanted to to sign, I didn't invite argument.

I've been quite gobsmacked at the response to the petition from lots of people, or should I say men, who have quite vocally put this down and slagged it off.

The responses have been a mixture of "chill out" and "calm down" to "find a real problem to worry about," to one which I find actually more annoying, which has been some high profile male blogger/writers who decided that an intellectual take-down of the petition/petitioners was the way to go.

All of the ones who did this, did it at the same time as saying "of course I personally don't like page 3, but" which to my mind reads as "I'm not racist but..."

I didn't see any high profile women bloggers do this (even though there were some issues with the petition which could have been played differently). (Although it wouldn't surprise me if some LizJones-esque types did)

What gets me is ITS ALL MEN. All saying "calm down dear", as if its something that they have a right to decide upon. They don't. This affects me, my daughters, sisters, cousins, friends. How dare men tell me to calm down about it when they have no idea what its like to be a woman? It made me mad. You can probably tell.

I threatened to quit, and instead got moved into another store (ie. away from the bloke who got paid more) and into a job I'd been asking for. Looking back, I wish I'd dared fight it, but at the time I needed the job and was already worn down. :(

"find a real problem to worry about,"

Oh god yes. Or it's sister remark, "don't worry your pretty little head about it"

"What are you, a lesbian?"

I got frozen out when I pointed out to my manager that I was personally offended by 2 guys on the team who marked every female member of staff/visitor out of 10, and discussed how they'd like to do them.

They didn't say it in front of me any more, but I doubt it stopped. Oddly, a number of women in the office were much nicer to me afterwards

A former boss of mine wrote on my appraisal that I had let caring for my son interfere with my performance at work. To my great shame, nothing could have been further from the truth, as I often sacrificed time with him to be a (very successful, and ground breaking) senior exec at the company. The reality was that he found me too successful, confident and independent minded, and was a dyed in the wool misogynist to boot.

I was utterly furious, and my response (after I had mentally smashed his face in with a shovel) was to request a meeting with him and the HR manager and tell them calmly that he had 24 hours to rewrite the appraisal or I would refer the matter to my solicitor. They did so promptly.

I then left the company three months later and went and made substantial profit revenues for another organisation which I later discovered was no better when it came to attitudes to women so I got real and set up my own business

Polite horrified silence.

I move in refayned circles doncha know.

Re page three thing. I have been on the fb page arguing with all and sundry.. it really gets way more than its fair share of trolls.. and I just can't keep away.

One really important thing I keep repeating and no one has answered is would it be Ok to have a black man on page 3 in stereotypical dress with a blurb above his head laughing at the very fucking idea that he might have an opinion on current events. No one will answer me that.. It winds me up more than the tits to be honest. It's just so fucking patronizing.

Yes, I have noticed a lot of "well, this is worse" - about some entirely unrelated thing. So an objection to page three, met with "well, what's going on in Syria is really bad" - could someone more experienced give some comebacks?

Euphemism - I always say things like "do you tell people collecting for donkey sanctuaries that they should be sorting out Syria, or collecting for refugees that they should be concentrating on the rain forests? It's only women's rights that are supposed to go to the back of the queue, people accept that causes big and small can exist alongside each other and that there's room for both".

Not that it shuts 'em up, but hey, gotta try.

My response, is "you are obviously right, best you get to worrying about Syria and stop wasting your time trying to derail me doing something good.

But women are abusive too

*Yes, I fucking know they can be, but I'm not talking about them"

I put something up on FB pointing out that I had not taken dh' name. Lots of "jokey" comments, all from men.

Thank you for these, I kind of look forward to using them. I have noticed things have been hotting up on Facebook on women's issues, I would say some less political friends appear to be more emboldened lately.

• and when people say "oh it's only a larf" etc etc, I tend to do the po faced "really, well, it's not hilarious..." but does anyone have anything better?

I tend to say "Jim Davidson has nothing to worry about then" if it's a sexist or racist "larf"

Ooh, I like it - and the possible variations; jim Davidson had better watch out, there's a new comedian in town etc etc...
Unfortunately, some people would regard that as a compliment. Sigh.

Have you seen the thread in AIBU where someone is complaining that Cinderella is not a good role model for the OP's DD? It's full of 'FFS', 'Haven't you got anything to worry about' and so on.

Yes yes, plus the classic, accusations of over thinking. That tends to be from other women.

-( fortunately that one is nicely countered with "no, you're under thinking")

"You're overthinking"

"No, you're undereducated"

making out I am just looking for something to make an issue out of really annoys me. Silly over-reacting woman that I am. This was the reaction I got when discussing kids tv with a couple of male colleagues over lunch. I said, in a non-ranty way, that the lack of good female characters in preschool tv bugged me. The response was that I was looking for problems that weren't there, there is no gender inequality these days but women are just looking for an excuse to have a moan (see the irony there?!)

sunny If I'd seen that thread I might have been tempted to start a thread influenced by it

I do hate the responses about needing more to worry about, there being worse things, or it's not a big deal. As if you are only allowed to care about a finite number of things. Who knew caring had been rationed?

At the end of a cold call I had no intention of pursuing, and had said so, and been asked why, I said 'also, I do not buy anything from anyone who rings up hoping to talk to Mr Dp'sfirstname Dp'ssurname. Why on earth are you assuming that any woman who answers the phone must be the married wife of the man you want to speak to, and has taken his name and prefers to be called mrs?'

He absolutely didnt get it. 'it's just simpler',', 'it's logical to think its probably the partner' etc,... Yes you fool, I am his partner but I am not his wife and if I was I wouldn't be Mrs Hisname!

What I got in the end was 'I'm sorry if I've upset you'

I was called 'sad and pathetic', again by Facebook friends (strange how it seems to exacerbate this kind of problem), when I pointed out that I didn't like women to be referred to as 'wenches' to be 'smashed' by men, referring to a comment on the Lad Bible page.
(I posted a thread here about it on Friday if anybody wants to share similar stories)

Oh god, I saw your thread, and was actually lost for words!

I see things like that and thank my lucky stars that I don't know anyone like that