So, not everyone's a feminist

[Vivacia]

Plasterer arrived today for the first of four days. I am working from home but everyone else is out.

So far we've had,

"You're not one of these modern women are you?" - don't know, not sure what that means.

"Are you a feminist?" - "Of course I am, aren't you?".

[Vivacia]

When we started looking, we found a female trades-person, but she was out of our price bracket. We only found the one.

[CKDexterHaven]

Given that most people having to deal with workpeople in the house will be women and a lot of those women will be more comfortable with a female labourer in the house I'm surprised more isn't done to promote this angle. I saw a group of female builders from Yorkshire on a television programme a few years and I thought they looked fab but the information on female labourers online is scant and you have to kind of seek it out when people should be marketing the hell out of it.

[forago]

i have to resist the urge to garb and shake any woman that says they're not a feminist and bellow in their face " yes you are, you live in the West in 2014, you are a bloody feminist, unless you are actually being held prisoner in a basement overnight that i don't know about!"

[JudysPriest]

As a future joiner, yes please choose female tradespeople!

If you feel in control you don't have to fire him. I'd go for condescending politeness, the way you'd deal with a 14 year old teenage thinking they were edgy.

[Vivacia]

Phew!

I haven't been to see him since before 11 when he made his porn comment.

[Glovender]

It really can be quite tiresome having to deal with the working classes can't it? Such primitive attitudes!

I should let the fellow know that you will be keeping a rape alarm about your person at all times; you really can't be too careful with these people.

[7Days]

[hmmm]

sexism cuts through all classes. Did you know that?

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I think he sounds like a twat, but I totally get that there's not much you can do if you need him to be finished in time for the electrician in time for the plumber etc... Have had a lot of this with recent building work!

Not because they were offensive but because the house was disrupted and not good for working in, I just didn't work at home when most of the work was being done. In the interests of him getting finished and you getting your work done, I would at least just stop engaging in chats with him and possibly consider not working at home for a bit if you possibly can. I don't mean this to sound as though I think that women should have to vacate their own spaces to accommodate shitty male attitudes, but just because working at home is never much good while work's being done, and especially if the worker is a bit of a twat.

[Glovender]

Possibly, Buffy, possibly.

Alternatively - given that we have no real context and only one person's version of events - it could be that this is a situation where a nice middle class person is suddenly confronted with the rather more robust and earthy attitudes of one of the great unwashed. Obviously, because this is FWR and everything is looked at through a narrow telescope, it falls into a rather stereotypical 'nasty sexist man' situation. However, there's no denying that the wider world suffers a rather large gap between, let's say, those that read the Guardian and the Sun. Where does bigotry end and snobbery begin? This is the liberal dilemma isn't it?

Or maybe he really is an offensive moron... but we're only interested in the possibilities that suit us here though, aren't we? So let's ignore that 'maybe'.

[DocDaneeka]

Yeah, having worked in a 'trade' on sites and at clients homes with loads of working class tradesmen, I think most f the ones I worked with would be pretty fucking offended by the implication that they are all uneducated and mysoginist.

Most of the guys I worked with genuinely didn't give a fuck about gender or sexual orientation, just what kind of person and values someone had. (And if it was someone working on site, how skilled and or committed they were)

[Glovender]

No bunfight sought with you Buffy; I find your posts to be relatively balanced and, indeed, reasonable.

But there are such things as personality clashes and sometimes people deliberately set out to needle. Sometimes, say, a plea for equal opportunities from someone claiming to be a working Northerner despite having the obvious privilege of an obligatory higher-level humanities qualification of the nouveau-appropriate class whilst sitting behind an Apple laptop in a North London Victorian townhouse sipping Camomile tea can irk our honest tradesfolk who, themselves feel rather less adorned with opportunity. This is pure conjecture, of course.

But, yes, I do think that there can be a rather large gap in the day-to-day outward persona of people that is only felt - and felt jarringly- when they are forced into social interaction by virtue of situations like house renovations or taxi rides. How else does one explain the popularity of UKIP, for instance?

[TeWiSavesTheDay]

Talking about porn in front of a stranger has fuck all to do with class, what a ridiculous stretch.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

How else does one explain the popularity of UKIP, for instance?
By an alarming proliferation of racists?

[FunkyBoldRibena]

'cracking the whip'

'You do realise that I am your client, and will be writing the cheque for your work? And unlike you, I do know how to use a computer and if you don't shut the fuck up you might find reviews of your attitude all over the internet which will fuck up your ability to get any further work with men and women alike?'

[scallopsrgreat]

Buffy, you are reasonable. You must be so pleased

But he was a sexist (slightly creepy) man. Looking through any lens. Or do you have some argument that he wasn't Glovender?

[scallopsrgreat]

Those nasty feminists that look at things through such a narrow lens, I suppose

Although I'd argue that feminists actually expand the lens and don't just look at things from a mainstream, patriarchal point of view. That is probably for another thread though!