Sexism in YOUR life?

[AmberTheHappyLuddite]

Just an idea.

I was asked this week at work, why I didn't have "an easier job for a lass - like in a hairdressers?"

I work in the construction industry and come across this kind of gibberish regularly. How many of you have experienced sexism in your real life? I'm not talking about stuff you've seen in the media, but instances in your real life. I'm wondering how prelevent this sort of thing still is.

Well, I'm white, middle class, thin, cisgender, forthright, a lawyer, if anyone isn't going to be on the receiving end of oppression it's me.

And yet.

I've been raped and had friends tell me that they didn't want to lose the rapist's friendship, sorry about that. And I've read a million opinion pieces about 'we're not blaming the victim, but...' which nominate the ways in which I behaved as the ones inevitably leading to the rape (short version: I knew and trusted my rapist not to rape me, my bad) and read a million comments threads looking for ways to blame women like me over and over and over again.
When I told my boss I was pregnant, he said 'I did think your boobs had got bigger'.
Women try and insinuate, all the time, that they'd feel guilty if they worked while their children were young because no-one but a mother can provide high quality care.
My friends talk about how frustrating it is trying to find a man who earns more than them.
I've been flashed, insulted, asked out a million times and ignored when I've said I'm happy in my own company. When I've asked men to leave me alone I've been called bitch, lesbian, or just told 'I bet you don't have a man with that attitude'.
My in-laws write to Mrs HusbandName HusbandSurname after 8 years of being corrected.
My friends who did keep their names still call their children by the father's surname without exception.

I could go on.

I work in property and like you I mainly deal with builders and sub-contractors. Sexism is absolutely ingrained in almost everyone one (er, every man) I have to deal with. Often it works to my advantage, everyone is polite to me, but sometimes I think they are a bit sloppier than they would be for a man, as they imagine I couldn't possibly know how to tile/plumb/whatever.

OTOH, my female architect has all but retired from her profession as despite being truly brilliant at architecture, she simply couldn't face the constant aggro from other competitive males who just assumed she would be crap.

It frustrates me that men don't go part-time as it is expected that the woman should (even if they earn the same; me and DH!). I don't know of any men working 3 or 4 days a week, but I know plenty women doing this. I think this knocks us back on the career ladder. There's no such thing as equality ...

This is depressing.

I think a lot of it does come down to the idea that children are primarily a womans responsibility.

Oh, got another one. I am a senior buyer at a Utility company. I went to a conference with a male colleague. We had badges on stating our name and company. It was so noticeable that the potential suppliers of ours at this conference made a bee-line for my male colleague and not me. I stood and watched while they chatted. I had to laugh though, coz I'm more senior than my colleague and have more influence. Even when my colleague said, you need to speak to Effjay about that, they carried on talking to him. Their loss, the idiots!!!

being told my brain would turn to milk when I got pregnant (by male line managers)
being asked whether I enjoy my maternity leave (DD is 8 mo, got back to work FT when she was 4 mo)
being introduced as "first name" when all male team members are introduced as "Dr A, Dr B"
being asked by the phone company people to pass the phone to my husband so they can chat to him about our contract (in joint names)
being expected to dress up with full make up for conferences, which I refuse to do

could go on...

Mum on a card? I don't get it.

My FIL talks to my husband about anything DIY or practical and expect him to make the decisions, when the truth is I do any DIY.

Actually forget examples.....my PIL's are the most sexist things in my life.

I can't think of any examples, fortunately. As my partner is female, we don't have any of this silly sexist nonsense about who goes part time or my job is more important than yours crap.
Looking for a bloke who earns more???? Why???? Learn to be emotionally self-sufficient, silly cows.
It's where we definitely have the edge over the other end of the dance floor. Most male/female couples we know fall into the same stereotypical traps.
Oh I've just thought of an example. In a meeting once, we were all talking about something. Then the two men turned to each other and started talking about football. My partner, knowing far more than football than them, was able to correct them on their inaccuracies.

Well my fiance earns over twice what I did so altho it's fine by me that I get the leave and will be working part-time, I find it disgusting that it is expected.

Now days it is expected that there are two incomes coming in, it is no longer accepted that there be one working parent and barely possible with the cost of rent, yet my fiance can only have 2 weeks paternity leave isn't entitled to flexible working and I can take up to a year off and have the right to flexible working.

should be our choice based on who is the higher earner/ most experienced with child care not on who carried the thing for 9 months.

seems to me equality means more work not less, instead of having the right to work instead of being housewives we are forced by the law to do both.

It is definitely worse in Australia than in England/UK - I was truly disgusted that a decorator who came to price a job on our house refused to discuss it with me, would only talk to DH, even though I am the one who knows what's what when it comes to decorating and what needed doing. I also strongly objected to him calling me "dear" in a completely patronising "little woman" tone (I don't generally object to it from little ol' ladies or anyone else). Have had it from a few other workmen type people, DH's uncle-by-marriage, the local GP (bastard), about half of DH's old mates....

Not everyone is so bad - my computer shop guys are lovely and treat me quite normally (i.e. as a sentient human being, not some halfwitted-because-I'm-female sub-species) and one of the solar heating company reps was quite happy to talk to me (the one from the other solar heating company fell into the first paragraph category here).

Fuckin winds me up!

I truly believe that this is the root of sexism - childcare.

We were interviewed once to be part of the TV ratings panel and the woman said, 'Now, we need the name of the main earner' and looked at my DP, waiting for him to give him his occupation. When I said actually, that's me she said, 'Really, are you sure?'

When I was going on maternity, people (read: men) at work kept asking me if I was looking forward to enjoying my holiday.

I'm the only female in a team of 5 and whenever there's a birthday or something they expect me to do the card. If there's an admin thing that needs sorting (we need more stationary etc.) they think I'll do it. You'd think after 4 years of hearing 'do it yourself' they'd get the picture.

When I first started work, when I was 17, despite not being in an admin role I was still expected to do photocopying and make tea etc. If there were no other females around. It got to the point where my manager had to tell people to stop ('my staff are not here to make you tea.')

I've been to many job interviews, where clearly they wanted a man. Question after question about how I felt I would cope in the male environment all phrased slightly differently (and all giving me the cats bum mouth when I say I've always worked in male industries and have done very well.)

When DP asked to reduce his hours after I came back from maternity he was told by his manager, 'can't your missus do it? Isn't that what she's there for?' (He told him he was a sad twat and did get his request approved in the end.)

About a month ago a guy at work send around an email full of wife jokes. You know, jokes from the 70s about battleaxes or bimbos and their hard done by men. Most of them were just a bit crap, but some were vile. When he asked me if I'd read it I told him yes, but I didn't tend to find misogyny very funny he called me miserable. I felt like asking him how he would feel if I sent him a load of racist jokes (he's Indian) but I didn't have the guts.

Everyone sees my DP as an angel for doing cooking, cleaning and childcare and I'm a lazy, lucky, cow for letting him.

Job interviews annoyed me too, it wasn't so much the interviews as the fact I wasted my time going there because they are not allowed to say they want a man, I'm talking about shop work here, I can fully understand them not wanting a 5'6 woman as a shelf stacker in a TV warehouse or something like that,but they are not allowed to tell the job centre that. leading to me wasting JSA money and time going to pointless interviews where they had to beat around the bush to try and say why they want me to go away.

Being referred to as Mrs J....O....... on letters really really angers me. Can I have my own christian name please!

Being approached by cold callers and canvassers in the street with "hello mummy". What about 'Madam' instead? I am not a generic term.

Once I had children, people's attitude towards me totally changed. I went from being a professional, respected secondary teacher to being a cute, sweet yummy mummy - even my family thought I must be sooooo nice now that I had 3 little children.

The glass ceiling is very much on the maternity ward. Men in general still do not want to do childcare, housework or go part-time'. Caring is still very much a woman's job.

I've experienced more direct sexism in the form of societal expectations of women with children, than I ever did in the workplace.

I feel enormously stereotyped into my role as 'mum'. I hate it.

To say that women have equality in Britain is an absolute joke. Just look at job roles, pay scales and expecatations of women. I have hated being thrown into a totally female dominated world of toddler groups, pre-school
women gossiping at the gate, the school run of mummy's talking about Boden, etc.

The whole thing does my head in! I so wish men were more involved in family life. I know some are which is great but we have a long way to go.

Just this month had a job offer withdrawn in favour of a male. I am older than your average mum and they had been all over me until - and I swear you could hear the tumbleweed roll at this moment - I let slip I had school age kids.

And my GP told me to have a sherry before bed to stop me worry about DS's constant vomiting when he was a baby. I had to take DH along to get GP to actually examine DS.

Had a female manager for 8 years, when she left she was replaced by a male manager who is not half as good at the job and is paid 10k more than she was.

My fiance's manager is the highest paid in the company and is completely useless to the extent that she actually costs the company money with her mistakes.

I don't know if thats good or bad is it good because she is the highest paid in the company and a woman or bad because she can't do the job, costs the company money but hasn't been sacked or demoted for some reason?.

i was paid 30% less than my collegue when i was more qualified and had more experience.

when bringing it up with the company (not uk) the HR manager said, 'ah yes, but you are married so we figured that in'..........

sometimes i wonder that i havent actually smacked anyone before now.

At a job interview (grey skirt, white blouse, black jacket, other candidate - floral dress, lilac jacket). 'May be next time you should wear brighter colours'

When I take dd to the GP, they give me the "loony mum" look. Yet if dh takes her to the same GP with the same symptoms, it gets taken seriously! I find this very hard to deal with, as it seems to imply that motherhood has taken away my ability to make rational decisions.

Early on my career I was told "well you're a girl so obviously you can type".

I was also told I couldn't come out on a night shift because I was a "girl" and "how would you get home?" double

Worked in engineering for years until I just couldn't bear the sexism any more.

Maybe I have the sort of face that does not attract these sort of comments

In my adult life I have experienced little direct sexism.

Working in my last job, the female boss was constantly trying to persuade me to let her make me over. I am not particularly feminine, while she dressed in short skirts, high heels, low cut tops and push up bras. She just couldn't accept I was happy as I am. It was annoying, but there were many things (non-sexist) that were worse.

I must be lucky.

Well, I also fall into the 'it was all going so well until I had a baby' camp.

I'm in the forces and went to see the HR types who hand the jobs out when I got pregnant with no 1 to discuss options for jobs when I returned to work. I thought the answer "Oh come on IR, we both know girls like you don't come back after they have babies, so why don't you do us all a favour and go home and tell DH (also serving) he needs to get promoted as you are about to be a single income family" pretty much summed up the general attitude. Girls are fine provided they aren't mums. Once you have a baby forget it!

I did go back though, and suspect the way I have been treated is a dramatic improvement on 10 years ago, even if some people have been unbearably patronising!

I assume the answer is to keep politely insisting on being taken seriously until people start doing it automatically...