Getting increasingly pissed off with sexist remarks from my dad about DDs

[VerticalBlinds]

Not sure how to handle this. My family are very closed off - we don't talk about things or do emotions or being open or anything like that.

My Dds are 7 and 10 now and in the last few months he has been increasingly saying sexist stuff, I think to wind me up.

Like, telling jokes about how with cars women are only interested in the colour and men are interested in how they work.

Or. just now, I was calling DD and he said don't rush her she's probably getting ready, she's turning into a "young lady", she's probably doing herself up. Women always take a long time to get ready.

Going on about how women are much more caring than men who are less good at emotion but very analytical.

On and on and on I can't remember them all now. I do think he's doing it to wind me up and it's working as I'm tired and stressed. So like just now when he said she was obviously "doing herself up" I said yes it'd very important for girls to look sexually appealing on the high street. When they're 10.

I mean FFS she lumps around in trainers, they both do lego, I studied science etc etc. It's like the stereotypes over-ride what he knows about people, even people he's supposed to care about? Or, he's just being a dick.

I can't be bothered with it any more. I don't get on with my mum either.

Maybe he's trying to do some corrective socialisation on them to counteract being brought up by me?

Why do people do this?

Hello. This is my first post, so I hope you don't mind that it is in response to your post.

I remember being that granddaughter. Although my Grandfather was much more.. regimental about it. (He was in the services until retirement. He frequently referred to it as 'training' and he used to check for dust when he came for a visit).

In the end, I was the one who broke the cycle. First time he came to visit me, and his first great grandchild, I told him if he did that again I would be far too upset and offended to allow him back. And I would do the same if he did it to my Mum again too. My Nan (god love her, she was one of the reasons I survived my childhood), had my back.

Not that he stopped it all, ever. Just that he learned that a woman could stand up for herself and reclaim some of the dignity that she'd been stripped of by being treated like that.

And that 'my house, my rules' cuts both ways of course :D

Take a deep breath. You'll be fine, I promise.

Challenge him every single time. Not in a "well, you have your opinion, I have mine" sort of way, but in a "your opinion is clearly ridiculous, and here's why" sort of way.

I have older relatives (who are for the most part lovely, and generally not sexist) who occasionally spout attitudes straight out of the 1940s in front of DS - which I challenge very robustly.

ALunarExplorer love your name! Thanks for that - I do try to stand up to him but it's all very wishy washy stuff rather than things you can say out and out, that's out of order.

So I do do as Prickly says - or try to - but I get very defensive and a bit upset so my voice goes all squeaky and I sound like a whiny kid. It's all very annoying.

Why do our parents have such power to upset us? Why am I so bad at challenging this stuff calmly?

Cultivate your best Paddington Bear death stare, then shake your head sadly and say "any time you want to join the 21st century, or even the 20th, let me know and I'll give you a few tips to help you make your way in what must be a very bewildering world for you Dad."

Say ' ooo great are we doing offensive outdated stereotypes? Great. My turn! Are you loosing your marbles you silly old man, you'll need putting in a home soon" and grin.

The only thing men have ever glorified about females are their bodies..
"are they ripe enough for us to maul yet?"

sad but true!

Part of the reason why it all gets so knotted up, I think, (and this is just my observation) is that our emotions as women are themselves denigrated. If we respond 'emotionally' that in itself is used as an example of why we must be 'irrational'. My grandfather would instantly react to tears and emotion with 'well that just goes to show why I am in charge'.

When I stood up to my Grandad, because I wasn't responding (apparently) emotionally (which I was, I was just channelling my emotions and anger so that what my emotions were about was given a more cognitive voice, if you see what I mean). But it was harder for my mother to do, because she didn't have that distance that I did. There's a sense of obligation to the people who 'made you' and brought you in to the world.

But you are not your parents. You are not an extension of them, but that doesn't remove the emotional need, as their child, for their approval.

That's why it's so easy to damage children: we treat them like extensions of ourselves, and the giving and withholding of our approval is one of cruellest ways we can abuse their own sense of autonomy and their own self approval.

And sometimes, I think these things are cyclical, in part because we ourselves internalise and normalise these things. One of things I did as a parent, in order to try and consciously break some of those cycles, was to learn that sometimes as a parent you are wrong, and you have to be able to show your kids what humility and accepting being wrong looks like too.

It takes a long time to come to terms with those things about our parents that we wish were different. I would imagine your parents had similar feelings about their own parents. Its true of just about every family I've ever known.

In terms of challenging it, yes, do if you feel you can or want to. Try and do that as calmly as you can but don't be afraid to verbalise your emotions. It hurts for a reason and your feelings are valid and real.

I'm glad you like the name :) It took me ages to think one up! Have a lovely Christmas.

AsMen I think you got teh wrong thread!

That is all very true lunar!

My other worry is that the kids will get all eye rolly about it and say they don't care - the older one is getting to the embarrassed of parents stage! It's really hard as this stuff is important to me. And weirdly he always encouraged me to do stuff outside gender role - my parents were very much in the "girls stuff is crap" school of thought which is sexist in itself of course but I was a sciency tomboy and that made them happy.

So where all this "girls like to look pretty / are rubbish at thinking" stuff is coming from is anyone's guess.

That's interesting actually: on the one hand they verbalised to you that not conforming was okay, on the other hand (possibly without realising why) they are verbalising a desire for a girl child to be... girly, for want of a better word.

Sub-consciously they had internalised more old fashioned ideas and whilst they had sought to be more modern with you, they have returned to the 'safety' of more old fashioned expectations.

As my Nan used to say, people are strange and complex. But they're still people. I remember a friend at school. Her parents were immensely 'unconventional', she was brought up to believe that she could be anything she wanted and she went to university and got a first in English Lit.

Then she got married, had kids and spent the next 25 years loving every minute of being a stay at home mum, much to her own mothers horror. She even joined the WI.

One thing I can tell you, is that grandparents rarely treat their grandchildren the same way as their children. They are almost always much more indulgent with grandchildren, and some of this may simply be rooted and a grandparents delight in 'indulging' a grandchild as they felt unable to 'indulge' you, so that you received a similar upbringing to your peers. To you, its strange because they didn't bring you up that way. To them its what they think a girl 'really' wants, and they are indulging her accordingly (regardless of whether its welcome I know).

I know there is a social convention that we are supposed to 'like' our parents and parents are supposed to 'like' their children, but when that isn't the case, it can be difficult to navigate.

@VerticalBlinds
I don't think so..

When I told my father my friend had moved in with her boyfriend, he told me.. "You do realise if that relationship fails ,she will then be classed as used goods?" : (

I'm with you OP. I don't buy that these older people don't know better, they do, they're just being dicks.

I have one of each and luckily I surround myself with people who aren't sexist but yes you can't help who your family are and my mum drives me mad. She visited recently and I can't tell you the amount of times I had to ask her to stop referring to 'being ladylike' to my DD. And then when my son (who is not yet 1) was doing very normal baby things like pulling DD's hair, Mum would say "he's just a boisterous boy, that's what they do" FFS, yes DD just accept pain because he's a boy.

My mum and I don't talk about a lot of issues any more due to butting heads, especially when it comes to men and women. She thought the school girl who was kidnapped by her teacher a few years ago was a "silly girl ruining that teacher's career" . Then again she is married to a vile excuse for a man who's cheated on her with teenaged girls and sexually harasses people - she thinks he's great 🙄

I find telling them to shut up helps. They think it's very rude but I don't care.

I would start shouting hashtag everyday sexism! Dds people who spout this kind of nonsense arent worth listening to. Or make a bingo card of his favourite sayings and then shout house! I win I win!

This is exactly like my dad. I just got back from a visit yesterday and I was treated to such gems as "it's appalling that rape victims get to be anonymous and the men don't. Most of them make it up" and his favourite topic of how my brother is downtrodden and under the thumb because he "has to" put his own daughter to bed occasionally!

I spent my childhood listening to this shit and believing it. My parents banned any girly stuff from the house because it was worthless and I desperately tried to please my dad by being an expert on trains and clocks and canals!

I rebelled in the end, did a
Literature degree and I now work for women's aid!

The big problem growing up was that my mum was a people pleaser and just went along with him and never had my back.

I've always been very careful not to let his shit influence dd. A few years ago (dd was 10) she was eating her own birthday cake and my dad said "careful or it will go to your hips and you won't get a husband."

My mum jumped down his throat before i could even respond and told him to never talk like that again. It really affected me because she would never have done that for me, but equally I was so pleased that she had the bottle to do it for dd.

I've realised now that dd is 16 that the impact he has on her is miniscule compared to what it did to me. We only see them a few times a year and she just smiles and ignores him, just like I did to my racist grandparents.

Loads of really interesting stories here thank you all so much for posting them. It is a really difficult one to navigate and it seems I'm not alone! After the shopping yesterday he didn't come back with them as he'd gone on home to do something and I said to my mum to tell him to put a sock in it as it really upsets me and there's no need for it. She said "I think he got the message" but the thing is actually we are all very gung-ho in our family, none of us think before speaking and we are all a bit overly confident in our own opinions being the right ones who properly holds forth at the head of the table on occasions like xmas day after he's had some wine, and he doesn't like to be challenged. He turns into what he is - a well of white man who has had a pretty easy time of it and was in a career that was very respected. And he simply expects everyone to treat him with a certain amount of deference - not in terms of bowing - but in terms of not saying he's talking rubbish when he is.

There is a bit of an issue as well that my parents seem to take it in turns to be nasty to me, and are much much more pleasant when there is only one of them there, but that's probably one for the relationship boards!

I'm really pleased for all of you who are handling this with a well placed "shut up".

The points about parents who treated us in a certain way (trying to be more equal which in practice seemed to mean saying anything "for girls" was shite) treating their grandparents in different ways is fascinating.

And the thing with DD. Obviously lots of teenage girls do spend a lot of time getting ready. But so do teenage boys! And my DD is not into that at the moment - she's too young, she is getting teenagery but she doesn't wear makeup or anything yet. She's 10! It's the casual stereotyping I hate. I need to get better at reacting calmly with a good comment that puts a stop to it rather than invites a "debate". "Shut up" might just do it!

Ooops seem to have managed to delete a bit. We are all a bit gung ho but my dad most of all esp after some wine and when at head of table at celebratory meal, the position seems to set him off a bit!

We females must learn, we need male guidance on all these things.!.
I mean, what are we here for if not to please men and be eye candy for them and run around after them cleaning up all their shit?..
Mummy does it all for them and when they get married, men expect their wives to carry on where their mothers left off..
Great expectations!

I’d probably just say “Don’t be so silly” much in the way you would to anyone coming out with something stupid and then ignore.

I have this kind of thing with my parents and I think it's really important to challenge it. It's so damaging.

My dad will say stuff like "some girls are sluts" and my mum actually agrees with him! It find it really insulting and I always call them out on it.

They also disagree with me on stuff like rape and domestic violence. They actually think that "some women are asking for it." A few years ago, I had a long conversation with my mum and her friend in which we talked about the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and they insisted that she seduced him and that some girls are just "like that". Still makes me fume remembering that conversation.

I've stopped talking to my parents about feminist stuff in general because we completely disagree and it makes me so angry but if they do say sexist or misogynist stuff I call them out on it.

That's awful Chocolatecake . But I'd handle the classic everyday sexism of the OP's dad with advanced piss-taking, 'Hey it's daddysaurus rex - the 1950s called, they want their attitudes back' etc etc and I'd encourage my DDs to do the same. Every time he starts, you all start chanting "men good, women bad" or something similar that satirises his views.

It's pointless engaging in arguments with someone who is trying to wind you up - it rewards them. Refusing to engage or to take them seriously is the best way to deflect and deflate them.

The way I tackle this with my dad is as PricklyBall suggests. With a jokey rebuke

My dad's like this. He was like this with me and now he says the same shit to my DD. I barely talk to him anymore (he did worse than this though).

I do sometimes say "That's a bit sexist" but he takes stuff out on my mum if I challenge too much and says we're picking on him . It's depressing. I talk to my DD about it though and as a PP says it doesn't seem to affect her in the same way as it did me.