"Micro" acts of every day sexism...

[GunpowderGelatine]

...you know the kind of things that, if you didn't look for it you wouldn't even notice?

For example, I'm at hospital today for an outpatient appointment. I noticed that when the staff (Male and female) would call out for patients for their appointment, they would use women's full names (e.g. "Emily Dixon?") and for men they'd use their salutation ("Mr Roberts?"). Every. Single. Time.

I feel like if we look out for things like these we'd notice a lot more? Is it just me going mad or do other people have things like this happen?

DH reading a book about animals to our child
Book:'the most noticeable thing about lions is their mane'
DH : 'erm...only 50% of them!'
Too bloody right!

At work I get asked a lot of questions (often interrupting me while I’m at my desk) about where certain people are, where are the toilets, what time is the meeting starting etc. I think it is assumed that the men are too busy and important to be interrupted.
I reckon male administrators must have an easy life with no one ever bothering them!
If I go out for a run I will often get encouraging comments from men. They are perfectly nice ( I know some receive unpleasant attention) but I think they wouldn’t say that to a man.
I also get the meals and drinks thing, DH is very health conscious but it’s assumed that I’m the one having salads and Diet Coke.
If you all have to pile in the back of the car the man gets to sit in the front because his legs are one inch longer than the women who have to squish in the back with their wider hips.
Having loads of comments about my outfits, again nice things are said, but no one seems to notice what the men wear.

MIL was driving. I was in the passenger seat in front. We stopped to ask directions, I asked a man. He stuck his head up to the window to lean it into the back and tell my partner the way

I've started playing Patriarchy Chicken after noticing males just assuming I'd be one to move aside on the pavement. It's quite good fun.

Also Patriarchy Chicken: Aquatic Version. Males who assume I'll let them go first in the swim lane even though we're about the same speed. Denied.

Why is it worse on your decree absolute to be Mrs?

Anyone can be a Miss or Mrs. You don’t have to be married or unmarried to use them. I use Miss, Mrs and Ms as and when I feel like it.

A lot of these aren’t very micro!
When selling our house, I arranged for the EAs to visit to do a valuation, and showed them around on my own. They asked who else owned the property and took DP’s name. One then sent the quote addressed to him only. They didn’t get the business.

Yes, not micro, just sexism!!

Aroundtheworld for one vaccination appt for my child the letter said the mother had to bring the child. I was really cross about this and when I went I made a point of saying how awful I thought it was, surely fathers should be encouraged to take a hands on role etc. They said it was because the mother automatically has parental responsibility and the father does not necessarily have it. As I pointed out, they would just need a few extra sentences to explain that whoever brought the child must have parental responsibility and who has this.

They smiled and nodded. I doubt if anything got changed.

@elQuintoConyo "Giving me the salad and my husband the steak - waitress or waiter, doesn't matter. Every. Single. Time."

^THIS, but with us it's me who gets given DHs veggie/vegan meal (because why wouldn't a MAN be eating meat?)

iheartspiders it's extremely annoying and very frequent. I live in Spain, so everyday sexism is rather ramped up!

From my perspective things are slowly changing. By no means fast enough however.

I first joined the Civil Service over 30 years ago as a junior grade. There was me and about 5 blokes on our team in the MoD. All the same grade, all equally qualified. It was me that was always asked to make tea and serve refreshments to one of the Directors and his guests. I dutifully did so, was polite and respectful, but got more and more pissed off. I complained to my Manager that it wasn't fair that only I was expected to do this and was told that the clients expected a young lady to serve the refreshments. This was 1985 of course!

I had a job to do and wasn't given any dispensation for not doing it because I was poncing about making tea, coffee and arranging biscuits on a tray with a doily several times a day! I had to spend my own time catching up on my work. Not the blokes no, they could just crack on with their work.

Then one day the Director came to see me and my boss to tell me that he had been so embarrassed that all the drinks they had been served the day before had been clap cold and that the biscuits hadn't been presented 'properly' and that he had felt it necessary to apologise to the clients. I should be utterly ashamed of myself for letting him down. This was clearly all my fault and my Manager happily agreed with him.

Until I pointed out that I'd been on leave that day and had asked a male colleague to take over the refreshment duties. He hadn't even noticed it wasn't me who had gone into his office to serve the refreshments.

Somehow it was still my fault though for not giving him the most explicit instructions as to how to serve drinks whilst they were hot and the art of presenting biscuits, but from that day on the Director used the company catering service for all his client refreshment needs. He was an old dinosaur though. A nice bloke but just not equipped to deal with equality in the workplace.

Funny thing is that I'm now more senior than he was back then. Although he had a wanky Director title, I don't. CS grades have changed a lot since then. He used to use his very much post wartime rank - Major - as he was in the TA, as he thought it impressed his MoD colleagues. My equivalent rank is Colonel. I hope it pisses him off.

It's a long time since I've gone to a meeting with a junior male colleague where the interviewee has responded to my male colleague rather than me. Although it certainly did happen. It is good to see that many of the senior managers I meet with these days are women. And all are equally encouraging to every junior colleague I take with me, whether they be male or female.

Bitter, me? A little maybe.... I do still laugh at them glugging back on cold tea!

Similar to the OP, was getting an EasyJet flight and when they checked our boarding passes it was "thank you Louise, thank you Mr Brown" etc.

As a waitress I'd say about 95%of the time it is the man eating the mixed grill/ rump steak and the woman eating the salad/veggie meal.
It's also just about always men drinking Guinness and the woman drinking pink gin.

I always ask though, I never just assume and plonk it down.

@LadyLooLaa is it because cave women know that humans didn't evolve until many, many millions of years after the extinction of the dinosaurs?

Santander. I started my own business in 2010 and opened various Business accounts with them. Current account one sends me statements every month or prenotification of charge letters for the monthly fee. Apparently no way to turn that off for business accounts. For 9 years those letter arrived like clockwork address to .

Earlier this year i was advised by my accountant to add my DP to the accounts as a co signatory. He is an employee of my company. I am the sole director.

From then on the letters now come to Mr and . Despite repeated phonecalls to complain and various reassurances that it would stop, it hasnt. Really winds me up and makes me consider switching banks.

I look androgynous. I went into a 2-floor barber/hairdresser, once. Before I spoke, a member of staff looked at me apologetically and said 'Oh, sorry, it's upstairs for men, sir.' So I went upstairs. Before I spoke, a member of staff looked at me apologetically and said 'Oh, sorry, it's downstairs for ladies, madam.' So I walked downstairs and straight out the door. I don't care if they think my hair is male or female, but I won't be sent (literally) all over the shop, before I've even opened my mouth.

My daughter got her head pushed into a window, the teacher told her ‘that’s what you get when you play with boys’. My daughter’s father and his wife came with my husband and I to ask her exactly what she meant and the head asked her to apologise to our daughter. That was a good day.

I was trying to fill in an online form and couldn't progress beyond the first page.

After calls to the company I finally worked out that it was because I had entered my title as 'Ms'.

I have been a Ms on all documents since I was 18 and didn't change my name on marriage. The form had a section asking for previous names and counted it as an error if a 'Ms' didn't input a previous name.

Apparently all Ms' are divorced women who changed their name when they married.

Crashed my car. Bastard recovery driver was refusing to take me and the car home (despite my RAC policy specifying this). Trying to work out what to do. Recovery driver: ‘Do you need to ask your husband?’

It is called the pink tax. We pay more for haircuts as well as other products and services despite the fact that it is discrimination on the basis of sex.

I remember trying to book a hotel for my friend & I, were both female & she’s a doctor. The on line form wouldn’t allow me to put her title as doctor. I tried with a male name and it worked :/

Forgive me @Kit19 but I don’t understand how this could happen. How would the form know whether the name you’re inputting is male or female? Unless there was a drop down menu for male names and a drop down menu for female name?

All the animals in Dear Zoo are male.

At baby groups, when three little monkeys are jumping on the bed, they're always boys (one fell off and banged "his" head).

Safestyle representative knocked on my door yesterday, I’m interested in a new front door. Said they would only come back for a quote appointment if both DH AND I were there. Refused to speak to me alone, as apparently they’ve spoken to women before, and then the husband looks at the wife’s choices and everything gets changed, and they have to come out again. I told them I’d find another company who were happy to deal with a woman on her own. What utter bollocks!!

I've said this numerous times on here, my dad used to sell central heating in the 1970s and 1980s. I would sometimes make appointments for him. If it was a couple then I would ask that they were both there, because every time it was just one person the other always thought of a question the person buying has not thought of so it did take two appointments.

BUT even at 14 year old I would say why he wanted them both to be there.

If they genuinely said that about 'the woman' yes go elsewhere but if they request you are both there then don't just dismiss it.

On the restaurant food / bill. I go to an Italian restaurant, not often, 2 - 3 times a year.

One time it was my birthday and my male friend was paying as a treat. They gave him the bill.

Another time it was me, my dad and a female friend, they gave my dad the bill.

The last time I was there it was me and both the male and female friend but they gave the bill to me.

I think they give the bill to who ever asks for it.

Oh and female friend and I were the ones eating steak.

One huge piece of sexism from my mum. I went on holiday with a boyfriend but I knew my mum would not approve (I was in my 30s and living hundreds of miles away but she treated me as a 10 year old until the day she died) so I told her, truthfully, that I went on holiday with a nurse I worked with. I did not say 'he' or 'she' but my mum assumed it was a she.

I had two uncles and a brother who were nurses so its not as if nurses being men is unusual in our family.

@plantainchips
He went to have bloods taken in his second appointment. The protocol was the same for him as for me. It was sexism whatever you think. And the (male) nurse, who examined me and told me I didn’t have a big fuck off incarcerated hernia and would not be sending me for a scan wasn’t sexist either. The man didn’t mention recent surgery btw so he just had unexplained distention. Unlike me.

By the point I presented at a&e I had a good sized incarcerated hernia at the top of my incision with mini hernias down the length. This is an incision, which runs a couple of inches above my umblicus to the pubis. I got a private scan and was transferred directly from my hospital appointment post scan to the admissions ward for surgery. But no, I didn’t get sexist treatment from the nurses.

All the animals in Dear Zoo are male.

We were away a few weeks ago. Dd watched a CBeebies programme twice called at the zoo or something similar. It was a guy doing a bunch of animal voices. Mainly talking about poo. On the first episode every single animal was presumed male, the presenter was male and all of the keepers were...... male. On the second episode, there was a slight female influence with a female keeper making a very brief appearance in comparison with the males, some of whom were show cased and I think there may have been one animal presumed female.