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Casual Sexism: do you speak up?

Discussion in 'Serious' started by boiled_elephant, 7 Feb 2014.

  1. David

    David μoʍ ɼouმ qᴉq λon ƨbԍuq ϝʁλᴉuმ ϝo ʁԍɑq ϝμᴉƨ

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    I run an office servicing a male dominated industry, and all my staff are young women - not by design, they were just the best candidates - and re-educating some of the knuckle-draggers we deal with is an endless task. My staff often give as good as they get, and most of the to and fro is good humoured. There are always some customers who push it too far though, and they are quickly challenged.

    However, I wouldn't challenge the types of examples described in the OP, blokes will always grumble about their wives and vice-versa. It's usually dealt with adequately in the banter.

    I think my point is, it isn't simply a one-sided affair, and treating my staff like precious little dolls who cannot fend for themselves is just as sexist.
     
  2. law99

    law99 Custom User Title

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    No no... You've got it all wrong. Physical abuse is fine as long as forever.
     
  3. hyperion

    hyperion Minimodder

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    It's not that I haven't experienced gender differences. I also don't want to judge people, only the behaviour in question. I know plenty of great people who also act like like this sometimes, and some posts in this thread that accept this behaviour are by people that I have come to respect for their views even if I don't know them personally, including you. I don't want to judge people.

    To clarify, I don't find the behaviour offensive, just stupid. I think it's not humorous and it doesn't really contribute to anything. Such behaviour seems to be a relic leftover from a time when women were treated much worse, which we inherited from previous generations. We should just get over it. There's also the mass media (especially men's/women's magazines) which gets off on promoting stereotypes and generalizations, because how are you going to sell an idea to everyone if not by convincing them that everyone is the same? By perpetuating this behaviour we give the mass media a foundation to stand upon.

    I don't like the argument that it's acceptable because the banter goes to and fro. "It's not one-sided so it's ok". If it cancels out then just skip it altogether. It's a waste of time. Often it's downright hypocritical, like a man complaining about his wife's shopping habits when he can't make ends meet, even though he spends £30 a week on cigarettes, £50 on alcohol and another £100 at the casino. He wont buy a chocolate for his kids at the supermarket but he'll go for 5-6 pints later on.

    I get it. Men and women are different. Women love clothes. I feel giddy when I'm in a hardware store. We're different, but probably more similar than we realise, let alone admit.
    I refer to the examples in the OP:
    "Me girlfriend's down in the car, I don't wanna keep her waiting, you know how they get."
    As if anyone at all likes to be left waiting in the car. It's something said in passing but it's really just arrogant. As if you were not actually supposed to be considerate of the person waiting for you, and only care to avoid the whining later.

    In every single example in the OP the responsibility or fault is with the person actually making the sexist comment. I want to say more, but I'm starting to rant. I will admit that I'm inclined to side with a more feminist view, so I'm not unbiased in this. My own experiences have shown me that for all the gender stereotyping and disparity in the treatment we receive, women usually end up paying for it.
     
  4. Carrie

    Carrie Multimodder

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    BE if I were you I'd do nothing and just ignore it. You risk p*ssing off the customers over something you won't be able to change and that'll only be negative for you.

    One point I'd make, bear in mind that in fact those missuses, wives, girlfriends or daughters may actually be the men who brought the knackered PCs in which is a much more amusing thought. It wouldn't be the first time a man's blamed a woman for messing up equipment when it was them all along. I had to reinstall Win7 on the PC I built my ex 3 times on the first day because he thought he knew what he was doing ;)
     
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  5. RTT

    RTT #parp

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    bloody men :duh:
     
  6. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    You know what they're like...
     
  7. Carrie

    Carrie Multimodder

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    Yeah, aren't they just :p

    Women? Yeah, a pain in the proverbial ;)
     
  8. Pliqu3011

    Pliqu3011 all flowers in time bend towards the sun

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    I personally wouldn't say anything about it. An imaginary "-1 respect points" would pop up above their heads and I would go on.

    If they said something like "my wife is bad with computers" I'd wouldn't mind at all, but I agree that the addition of the generalisations you talk about ("You know what they're like") is indeed very irritating, though not enough to possibly lose a customer. I think most people who make remarks like that wouldn't understand the problem anyway; you know what they're like... (joking, joking)
     
  9. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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    Yes and don't forget these PC illiterate blokes are coming into the den of geeks, they can't talk PC tech and probably think they are being a real lad by talking about girlfriends and wives because geeks of course never have them :rolleyes:
     
  10. Archtronics

    Archtronics Minimodder

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    I think most men use this in an affectionate jokey way rather than trying to be sexist, having a GF who can blast you right back with a witty comment is all part of the fun.

    Eg My other half works in a bar anyway barrel just been changed so she poured a pint of froth jokingly gave it to me, I made a joke about women not being able to pull a pint everyone laughs. She blasts me right back with a small ding dong joke.... GF 1 Me 0
     
  11. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    'You know what they're like...'

    A little sexist, but has more than a little truth to it. Out in the big wide world girls who can build PCs or debug an unstable system are as rare as hens teeth, although you go into a hospital and at times 95% of the clinical specialists are female - and I know which requires more skill.

    Why is this? Because as much as it annoys me at times there are fundamental differences between the genders. It's true that girls are drawn into the caring professions more easily than men are.

    I'm a gay female into running through thick mud, climbing mountains, everything 'tech', creative writing, making everything from clothes to furniture, play fighting with my son and braiding my daughters hair. My gf shares many of the same likes, but being a practitioner of genuine space 'rocket' science adds a few of her own. Short skirts, makeup and tight tops don't feature much in either our lives, but that's more to do with our age, sleep fatigue and parenting demands than anything else.

    We can chat with the mum's at the school gates, and with the dads too... but sheesh at times it's had to find something in common with some of the mum's when their range of conversation topics starts and stops with 'Where shall we have coffee this morning then girls?'.

    Mum's of school age kids... you know what they're like.

    "You know what they're like" is a phrase that can be used against every subgroup of humans you care to mention. I don't think it means much.

    Young male gamers - you know what they're like.
    Script kiddies - you know what they're like.
    Lads on the lash - you know what they're like.
    Girls on a hen night - you know what they're like.
    Ranting lesbian tech heads on web forums - you know they're like.

    Sexist? Prejudice? There's a lot of sexism, homophobia, racism, classism, prejudice, injustice and outright misogyny in the world. I don't think the examples given in the OP are worth worrying about personally
     
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  12. Lance

    Lance Ender of discussions.

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    Sometimes I feel that we're soulmates separated by gender and maybe a generation or two. Ikea cabinets, mud running and play fighting that's me.

    (If my actual soulmate reads this i.e the fiancee, you're the only one babe)
     
  13. Guinevere

    Guinevere Mega Mom

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    Ouch! I'm not that old.
     
  14. Lance

    Lance Ender of discussions.

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    Added for comic affect.
     
  15. Umbra

    Umbra What's a Dremel?

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    Sounds like an ex g/f of mine, monstrously intelligent, two degrees (physics and electronics) without hardly trying, we met when she interrupted me when I was down the pub trying to give a friend some PC advice, she corrected me (rightly as it turned out :duh:) she now works as part of a very highly skilled/trained team who maintain the UK's nuclear power stations, possibly the only women doing that job.

    She can build a PC with her eyes shut and climb a 100ft pylon but she is very dismissive of the majority of women, especially the 'Where shall we have coffee this morning then girls?' type of clique, she prefers men for friends because some of them have similar intellectual interests where as most women don't, she was probably the smartest person I have ever met and also quite practical as well, I bought her an oscilloscope for her birthday and she was ecstatic :hehe: you wouldn't find her running through mud but we both rode motorcycles and at six foot tall and not of a slender build in biker camo she looked the part :cooldude:
     
  16. NIHILO

    NIHILO The Customer isn't always right!

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    im generally a very non sexist person. But when i start hearing sexism towards the male gender is what really grinds my gears. Women fight for equality, yeah sure i get that, but when i witness or experience the(and im sure some of you have seen the internet meme) "equality means special treatment for me" crap i cant handle it.

    Now if i say that if a man goes to work all day, and his wife stays home, then i expect that wife should clean if she has no other plans.
    Alot of women would probably crucify me. But Im not saying the wife has to clean because shes a woman, im saying that she should clean because shes home all day with no plans.

    If the wife was working and the husband was home all day i would expect him to clean. Basically i see it as pulling your weight for the household. If youre not earning money to pay the bills, then you take care of the house, its only fair.
     
  17. Ending Credits

    Ending Credits Bunned

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    My mum has a masters in Computation and yet still relies on my dad for anything technical related. In this case it's "Silly mother, conforming to those outdated stereotypes!" :duh:

    You do have to be careful about what you say as it does have an affect on people's perceptions, however, this sort of conversation is part of being social which is important. I think for the majority of people making these offhand comments, they mean it as a relatively benign way (after all, it's one of the oldest jokes there is) of making conversation. Of course, for some there are the elements that you describe (indeed, these may be the ones you're specifically referring to).

    If it really bothers you, just reply something like "I dunno, nowadays most the stuff I get is blokes ****ing things up." in a jokey way. Defuses any attempts of overt sexism while staying friendly to those that were just trying to make conversation.
     
  18. wolfticket

    wolfticket Downwind from the bloodhounds

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    @OP

    If it's aimed at me, affecting someone I know or someone I feel needs help to defend themselves then I'll speak up.

    If it isn't then I won't actively agree but I won't usually respond with what I think or argue the case either.
    I'll generally just write them off as another boorish **** and maybe get a bit depressed about human nature :)

    As much as a bit of me would like to challenge every lazy and stupid (imo naturally) comment I hear, I think you have to pick your battles.
     
  19. boiled_elephant

    boiled_elephant Merom Celeron 4 lyfe

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    Thank you for all the comments, folks. (Special credit to Guinevere for being the most interesting/unconventional character on the forum to my knowledge!) A lot of good points made, but I want to call out a couple of things:

    1. - I don't think it's a given that these comments are purely in jest and no longer worth discussing. If real sexism were universally done with, a type of thought that no longer caused anybody real problems and was only the subject of light-hearted, self-parodying banter, that would be the case. But sexism is still a huge, life-altering negative force grinding down a lot of people, whether we see it as readily or not (a lot of it's moved behind closed doors or is only visible to certain people). That's why I still consider these remarks noteworthy. Most of them probably are just in jest, but some of them give me the distinct feeling that they're not, that they reflect real bigotry just below the surface.

    TL;DR: If there's a real possibility that an off-the-cuff gendered jab is the tip of a larger iceberg of deep-seated discrimination and prejudiced beliefs, it's still worth talking about, and believe me, that's still a possibility. Sexism isn't "over" just because we don't see it on TV any more.

    2. - the "women do it too, so it's okay" argument is terribly misguided and doesn't hold water, and I'm surprised so many people reiterated it. Just as racism against whites doesn't legitimize or 'cancel out' racism against blacks, if women are becoming sexist, demeaning and prejudiced in response to the prejudices of men, that's two problems, not none.

    Remarks like the ones in question might not represent real sexism t all. I know that's a possibility. But if they do represent real sexism, women producing them wouldn't make it okay for men to produce them. That would just be people in both genders perpetuating something ugly (which is also a definite possiblity).

    3. - Some suggested that these comments might not be as gendered as I assumed - that they might be talking about spouses in general, or kids in general, or just their particular partner but not all women. I can only say that my examples probably don't adequately convey the full range and definitely gendered tone I actually hear at the time. Many of the customers in question are most certainly implying things about all women everywhere. In lieu of better powers of recall or description on my part, I just have to ask you to take my word on that :)

    4. - Guinevere and others pointed out that, really, women kind of do suck with computers, so maybe they're just being astute, not sexist - in short, that stereotypes work, so it's understandable for people to reiterate them. But it's important to remember that a stereotype being accurate isn't a good argument for its preservation: the damage stereotypes do is proportionate to how entrenched they are, (a) because they make it harder for exceptions to the stereotype (like your partner, Guinevere) to be understood and accepted readily by society or by subcultures and (b) (most importantly) because they're self-fulfilling.

    People constantly saying "girls are just bad with computers" and working from that assumption means that girls perceive IT as a hostile and tedious environment for them to try and enter and participate in, so they don't. This is how "boy's club" subcultures are maintained, and it's the best possible reason to try to deconstruct and avoid stereotypes - once you consciously reject a stereotype, it starts to break down and become less and less accurate, until you marvel that it ever existed to begin with. That's how change happens, and it doesn't happen if everyone just sits around shrugging and saying "but it's true, so why fight it?"

    edit - oh, and
    I heartily agree, and I dread living in a world so PC that we can't have inappropriate banter - roughly half of my conversations with friends are punctuated by terrible, tasteless jokes - it's fun and we know it's harmless because it isn't speaking of actual harmful beliefs, just a fondness for laughing at everything. The important thing here, though, is that these are men talking about their partners while their partners aren't present, to a pair of total strangers in a business setting. The difference in implied attitude is enormous. I love having friends who can call me things like "Jew ***" in jest, but if I found out that they were calling me that to the bar staff, or their work colleagues who I didn't know, in my absence? Yeah, that's a whole other thing.

    edit - and also,
    I know that's probably tongue-in-cheek, but in case it isn't: thinking you have a handle on what anybody "should" be because of their gender is the cause of a lot of problems for a lot of people, and it's awful.
     
    Last edited: 8 Feb 2014
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  20. theshadow2001

    theshadow2001 [DELETE] means [DELETE]

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    I sort of made this point. Although the intention wasn't one of cancellation (everyone does it so whats the harm) It is that similar comments can be made against men by women. As a man I don't find such comments sexist or demeaning, just light off the cuff remarks. I would think that women would see things similarly. I don't see it as sexism either way. I see it as a non issue either way.
     

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