Ooohhh..I hope a few more folks will contribute examples of misogyny in every day life! I mean, it gets old and all, but I rarely pass up an excuse to...bitch.
How bout this? At work, at a job that requires political savy, writing skills, quick thinking and long hours, your supervisor/coworker suddenly gives you lots of compliments...
..for losing 15 pounds!
The rest of the time he belittles your intelligence and touches your without permission.
hypothetically, of course.
For the uninitiated, this is misogynistic (even though its a compliment, and he really really likes me) because it indicates that no matter what I do or don't do in terms of my job, the most important thing about me is the way I look. It erases my humanity and fixes my worth in features I have the least control over. It lets me know that simply be sitting in the same room with a man, I've given him permission to judge, comment on and touch my body.
It makes me very moody and rude. Hah.
Offensive or not, you should totally download that program just to steal the icon.
Okay, Devil's Advocate time, but isn't the program about PMS, and haven't we established that we are all happier when nice fellows are aware of the existence of PMS and treat it with good humor?
I mean, the whole point of the joke is that women are not particularly unpredictable -- that, in fact, their moods vary predictably according to their cycles.
Where does it say "PMS" anywhere on that page? And is not PMS a medical condition that, if it is that severe, one should see a doctor for? And isn't it also true that PMS does not make women *irrational*: it merely makes us less willing to put up with things that are annoying or upsetting than we are usually?
Ooh, how about your boss hires you so that he can tell people that he has someone with your credentials on his team, but won't give you any work related to your professional/educational background?
And how about, when a project comes up that does utilize exactly those skills that you were supposed to be hired for, he announces that he wants to bring in a man with a "harder science" (no bullshit, that's what he said), but less relevant background?
And how about when you point out that you actually have an advanced degree and previous work experience in this subject, and that this man doesn't, and that you feel overlooked, how about when your boss tells you not to be a snob and flaunt your education so much? And he feels free to tell you that he thinks that your father, who is a well-known university educator, but whom he has never met, would be "ashamed" of you for said flaunting of degrees.
Tell me, is it ever considered appropriate to bring the parents of an adult (I'm over 30!) male employee into a discussion? And is it considered appropriate to conjecture that their parents would be ashamed of their achievements?
Oh, it felt good to get all of that off my chest.
If you scroll down on the page you linked to, you can see the user feedback. I think the first one says everything that needs to be said about this:
Just as a joke, please develop an analogous application to track testosterone levels and MMPI results in males so that women have advance notice of impending violence. And for added laughs, please include local addresses of emergency rooms and contact info for domestic violence shelters. Ha ha ha ha ha!! Gender bashing is so very funny and inconsequential!!
I was kind of reading it as a PMS subtext, what with the reference to menstrual cycles. Honestly I wasn't all that offended by it, cause it's really just dumb guy humor (and cause I'm not PMS'ing right now.)
My fiance' is slowly learning the rules of PMS in our house. If I'm in a bad mood it may or may not be PMS. He must never assume that it is, and even if he knows for sure that it is (because I told him) he must never actually ascribe any statements or behaviors on my part to PMS. In short, it's okay for me to say it but not for him. The only appropriate response is "I'm sorry honey. I was wrong. Can I do anything for you?" It's very simple (probably sexist) but it makes life much easier for both of us.
On the otherhand if my boss had this shit installed on his computer I'd have his ass hauled into HR in a friggin' heartbeat.
Where does it say "PMS" anywhere on that page?
I guess it doesn't, but why else would it care about menstral cycles? Anyways, I humbly refer you to your post of May 6.
The other examples on this thread seem more clear-cut to me. Or, of course, like when my younger sister got a poor grade in high school math and was informed that it wasn't such a big deal because "a pretty girl like you won't need Algebra."
How about a straight white male member of the faculty of our department being known to have said to another white male member fo the faculty that he knew this change was coming to the discipline (larger numbers of women and minorities) but he was going to do his most to slow it down as much as possible.
This was set in the context of a woman tenure-track professor that was up for tenure. She didn't get it. The breakdown of votes was almost white men 'no', women and minorities 'yes'.
One of the reasons heard "Her having three kids suggests a lack of committment to academia" which she had, and had gotten extensions (which are perfectly allowed and encouraged at the university) to get more published.
Not to mention of course that a lot of the older white male faculty had kids, but of course, the female member didn't have a wife at home to look after them.
And, of course, they got away with it because a) it was ultimately the department's call, and b) they claimed she hadn't published enough.
I think the example is a perfect example of misogyny. This wanker doesn't say his wife is having mood shifts thanks to PMS symptoms, but simply that "my wife is moody" making it an intrinsic category. Further, he sees this as a perfectly reasonable reason to play a joke on her.
Men's classification of women as moody, irrational, and emotional because of their PMS is misogyny because they are judging women on some male standard of not being hormonally effected. It's using a male default as the standard and then because (well, duh) women are different from that standard, we are found lacking.
Please. Also men get to be legitmately angry, upset, agressive. I'm moody, but my man is moodier. Its just not hysterical emotions when he does it.
I don't know how I feel about this. I track my own cycle for a number of reasons--attempting to get pregnant, managing PMS, etc. So I can't say I would feel offended if my husband tracked it as well.
HOWEVER linking the cycle to Terrorism Alert Levels makes it clearly sexist.
It's also all about motivation, right?
A tiny example of misogyny in every day life... I recently moved and had to transfer my prescriptions to a new pharmacy, and one thing had to be called in by my FEMALE doctor. My (lovely, normally) doc was taking forever to call it in and every single time I called to check on it, the staff person in the pharmacy that I spoke to said, "He hasn't called it in yet." Four or five people in a huge chain pharmacy all assumed my doctor was male.
I corrected them every time, to no avail.
Hey, when I'm in Firefox, the comments counter on each post displays as "0" for all posts, even with comments.
Just so no one thinks I'm a complete tool, good grief, that situation sucks out loud, Sarah in Chicago.
men's hormones supposedly fluctuate as much every 20 min as women's do monthly or something.
PMS may be real, but jokes that suggest women are uniquely and inherently irrational, moody and controled by thier girlie parts, its sexist and misogynistic.
ITs amazing to me how many women have responded "yeah, but I'm moody and irrational, so its fair."
Of course you are! You are human! So is everyone else!
Here's an article about the infamous Symphony Audition situation...from less than 5 years ago.
And it's a case of something the "there's no such thing as discrimination nowdays!" whiners would deny exists - after all, who would deliberately refuse to hire the most competent artists for your company, based on prejudice?
It's using a male default as the standard and then because (well, duh) women are different from that standard, we are found lacking.
This, for me, is the central "lightbulb" insight in Feminism that needs to be gotten across to them that don't get it. But I've never heard it put quite so pithily. Thanks, Sarah.
Why did he need examples?
Misogyny is a heritable disease, passed on by men. I was most recently made aware of this at a social gathering, where a six year old boy entertained us with this:
Q: Why do women wear make up and perfume?
A: Because they're ugly and they smell.
(Shocked silence followed, thank God)
He sure as hell didn't make that one up himself.
Here you go TD, take your pick... kid-less, middle-aged white-male boss says:
A) "you are not as committed to this job as I am because your husband is the breadwinner" (actually, I make more $$ than my husband eventhough I work part-time so I can be with my kids but my husband has the fulltime job, insurance, etc)
B) "My hope is that they will be so distracted by your beauty that they wont notice we're showing..." (this one I have in writing - sadly, he still thinks this was a joke...
I better stop or I'll have to start breathing into the brown bag
Oh yeah Kimmitt, it most certainly sucks out loud.
The unfortunate thing is that's it not an isolated incident. It's actually indicative of how things are here at the academy. Moreover, as funding get cut, such biases in hiring practises actually tend to emerge even more.
I have had numerous female faculty tell me (and these are the ones that even have tenure) that unless I really have to insane motivation to be a tenured professor, avoid the process like the plague.
I know this kind of misogyny and sexism is everywhere, but once my PhD is done, I am out of academia at an insane rate I hope (though, that said, it has the horrible ability to pull you back in regardless).
oh, and Wrye, you're welcome hon 
And Andy, misogyny isn't just a disease passed on by men, women teach it to the younger general too unfortunately, witness Michlle Malkin, the AMF (American Women's Forum ... Dr.B am I remembering their acronym correctly, I'm blanking here), etc etc.
How about when my dad told me I had to pick a major in order to go to college (he wouldn't pay for me if I went "undecided"), and when I chose psychology, he said, "No, you should pick something girls can *do*, like teaching."
Of course, he meant elementary school.
Kimmit, and all the Kimmits of the world, a simple suggestion:
Since you DO have a sister, when you're about to make a funny, ask yourself, "Would I want some strange guy telling my sister this funny?"
If so, then it's probably okay. But if not, then maybe it's not really so funny, and maybe it's better left unsaid?
And of course we don't have to sacrifice all sense of humor in this world -- there are plenty of funny things. But there are also plenty of things that aren't so funny when it's your sister on the receiving end -- and it's ALWAYS your sister on the receving end.
More examples of misogyny in every day life:
1) I point out to a male colleague that dinners with Famous Visiting Scholar have been arranged solely with other male faculty members, and male colleague says "Oh well. It's not like we have to impress this guy with our political correctness"
2) After a long and involved job search where I vocally supported the candidate I believed was the best for the job, a female colleague congratulates me when that candidate is hired by saying "Oh, so you went for the male candidate so you'd have someone to date, huh?"
3) I approach a hotel clerk to ask for directions, and she proceeds to give them to the man I was with (even though he didn't ask for them, and didn't need them).
4) A male colleague explains to me that I don't need to worry so much about teaching evaluations since "it's not like you have children at home to support." (True. I'm childless. Which I guess excludes me from the world where desire to excel can be taken seriously. And of course, if I did have kids, as Sarah in Chicago's story illustrates, that would ALSO exclude me from the world where a desire to excel can be taken seriously).
5) I'm almost too exhausted to type about the lecture I received from F*king Sears and Roebuck appliance salesman when I refused to give my phone number during a purchase. When I cut it short, I was rewarded with a nice condescending "Well, aren't YOU a little spitfire?" Do men get disciplined with names like "little" and "spitfire" when they express their desire not to have their phone numbers peddled out to every telemarketer this side of Bangalore?
Hardly the worst instances of sexism in this thread. Really quite minor compared to some. But I just want to throw in the examples that came easily, instantly to mind to illustrate to whoever asked for examples of misogyny that we get 'em so often, on a daily basis, that it's work just to keep track of one particular day's worth.
And you know what? It's exhausting to get up every morning and try to maintain your sense of yourself as an intelligent and reasonable adult when you can only expect to be treated as if you were motivated solely by hormones, and could never merit the same serious consideration a man naturally deserves. It just makes me tired.
I don't even remember where I heard this "joke," but it has always struck me as the single worst example of misogynist speech that I have ever heard:
"What do you call the fleshy part around the vagina?
The woman."
Some men tell these kind of jokes when women aren't around. And, yes, I've heard "liberal Democrats" do it, too. Some tell them when women they have power over can hear or overhear them. And some men (and even some women) will laugh, even if they find it as completely reprehensible as they should. A wonderful service that anti-sexist men can provide for the feminist movement is to never let this kind of shit go unchallenged when no women are around. They also owe it to women co-workers, etc. to stand in solidarity against it in the workplace and everywhere else.
Not only is it not funny. It's a violent act and an attempt to deny the personhood of women. It reduces women to objects that exist in order to perform functions for men, in this case sexual functions. I can only imagine how a man who thinks this joke is funny treats women if and when he can get away with it.
Male domination in the home and in the workplace also acts as a crumb thrown to low status men by a patriarchal society in which they themselves are often dominated. Challenging it is fundamental to any broader social movement against domination.
I actually heard that joke while I was in graduate school working towards a masters in cultural studies, if you can believe it. I was at a table in a bar with two of my fellow students (both male, one of whom I was intimately involved with.) Someone told the joke. I'd never felt so violated in my life because I was supposedly in the company of "enlightened" men. I immediately got up and left the table without a word and they both later reprimanded me for not "having a sense of humor."
This reminds me of a webpage I happened upon a few years ago, where a man had posted all the messages his desperate ex-girlfriend had left on his answering machine so that other people (mostly men) could laugh at her. The website was called 'psychoexgirlfriend' or something to that effect.
I was bored (and perhaps in an estrogen induced bad ~mood~ ) so I sent out a few carefully and rationally (believe it or not) worded emails to his advertisers and to cafepress, which was hosting his store selling psychoexgirlfriend mugs and t-shirts.
He was shut down within a day.
My college boyfriend & I were both the top students in our respective majors. He received intensive advising, advice on navigating the grad school process - just a boatload of help. My (all male) professors gave me jackshit, no guidance at all, even the ones who marked up my papers with the most glowing of praise. The contrast between our experience was shocking.
(That was just another example of pernicious everyday sexism.)
Okay, Devil's Advocate time, but isn't the program about PMS, and haven't we established that we are all happier when nice fellows are aware of the existence of PMS and treat it with good humor?
But you don't need to load this awareness up with fratboy jokes to make it helpful.
For instance, I merely put a repeating note in the calendar function of my Palm that reads "Be nice to Becky," which is a good idea in any event and a good thing to be reminded of just prior to the four days out of the month when she's more likely to act like a man.
Your boss, who is one of the nation's top medical ethicists, calls his 11 woman: 1 man research team his "harem".
The same boss tells you that because you are the Admin. Asst. that you need to be more "accessible" to the team and to do so you should think of yourself as "just another piece of office equipment."
Another boss, also in the top 10 elite of US medical ethicists, consistently awards his highest grades to men. You know this because you dug through years of grade reports in shock that anyone could be so blatent and not get caught. Less than 10% of all "A's" that were awarded went to women; class composition usually consisted of 55% women: 45% men. Women who sought his academic counseling were often called "blonde bitches" after they left his office.
I could be wrong about this, but I swear I read somewhere that when women are PMS-ing what that really means is that our testosterone levels are approaching the levels of a man? If this is true, then shouldn’t this joke program (crude as it is) be designed for women trying to put up for men?
If the testosterone level thing isn’t true than feel free to disregard.
Ooh, let me contribute some misogyny examples:
1) When your slave and slave away at finishing a brief for your boss (a brief that he should have been writing) and he takes it but rather than say ‘thank you’ or ‘nice work’ says, “Why don’t you paint your toenails? Women should always have their toenails painted otherwise their feet look funny” (swear to god, I watched my co-worker’s mouth drop open).
2) When you are the only female legal assistant in a group of 3 other male assistants and your boss. You’re talking about football games and the damm ESPN cameras that get in your way when you’re in the stadium. You mention that you sit in the section right behind the camera and how much that sucks. Then your boss turns to you and says, “They must turn to you for the babe shot” and then laughs as you clearly become visibly embarrassed.
3) At my former job, my boss was a real ass to his employees. He was arrogant, ungrateful, and just lazy. We were constantly doing work that exceeded what our job description (and pay rate). So finally, I decide to say something after my boss sent me an unjustifiable nasty memo. When I calmly, and in a very organized and clear manner tried to explain why I was upset, he asked me in the most condescending manner possible, “Is there something going on in your personal life? Did you break up with your boyfriend or something? Because I think I’m sensing some misdirected anger here and I here that women do that after they breakup with someone.” I quit shortly after this.
Oh and here is one more just for shits and giggles:
My boss had a black Labrador that he would insist on bringing to work. Despite being legal assistants (paralegals) he would have us walk the dog and make sure she was doing alright. I was in the middle of finalizing a brief that had to go out THAT DAY when he comes up to me and asks if I could take the dog for a walk. I told him it would be a minute. He says ok. He comes back 10 min. later and says “why are you still here? You’re neglecting your fellow black girl!”. And then the bastard laughs, gives me a pat on the back, and then walks off. Umm, yeah- I was so incoherent with rage that I couldn’t even develop a proper response.
If you need more examples T.D. I can just reach into my student organization days…..
Yeesh, Sydney.
You'd think attorneys would be a bit more careful about creating grounds for justifiable homicide.
“why are you still here? You’re neglecting your fellow black girl!”
sydney ... i'm so appalled. that just blew my mind. seriously.
I'm honored by everybody's real-world examples of misogyny (=sexism?) in everyday life. It's pretty sad. No, it's very sad what kind of subtle discrimination women endure. I could say I kind of identify with it to a degree being extremely overweight now in my 30s versus back in high school in my teens when I was an athlete and actually looked it. I'm (pre)judged very differently today when I go to play basketball or softball with people who have not seen me play before and are shocked somebody my size can actually run and play pretty well. It's hard to describe the discrimination, but it definitely exists. People just don't take me seriously at first and there's been times some arrogrant assholes never really do. They think they're better than me based on appearance alone.
But, I realize this a different. First, somebody doesn't choose their gender (normally) and weight can be lost (so they say). Obviously, our society has a long way to go and I appreciate the trails you're all blazing so that my daughers can grow up in a little bit fairer world and be able to do whatever they want that is fulfilling to them and makes them happy.
p.s. Martin, check to make sure you currently have JavaScript enabled in Firefox to see the thread counts
On the threadcount issue: sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn't. I'm using Firefox in Linux. I'm pretty sure I have javascript enabled. I think it's something going on on the haloscan end?
As for the stories of sexism, I'm appalled. I didn't realize the extent to which that goes on. I don't really have any personal stories like that. I consider myself lucky that I've been working and studying with men who are more conscientious of these types of issues.
On the threadcount issue: sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn't. I'm using Firefox in Linux. I'm pretty sure I have javascript enabled. I think it's something going on on the haloscan end?
As for the stories of sexism, I'm appalled. I didn't realize the extent to which that goes on. I don't really have any personal stories like that. I consider myself lucky that I've been working and studying with men who are more conscientious of these types of issues.
I hate hate HATE PMS jokes. Hate them.
For one thing, I do not get PMS regularly. But does this stop people from laughing off my concerns with "oh it's that time of the month, eh?" regardless of whether or not my period is impending? Oh no. Any strong emotions for a woman is called PMS and then dismissed as being irrational.
And for another thing, even if I AM PMSing, that does not mean that my concerns are unfounded and should be laughed off.
No, I find absolutely nothing whatsoever funny about this joke program, or about treating PMS with humor.
And of course, whenever anyone accuses me of PMSing, I get pissed off because they're dismissing me, and then they laugh and they're like, "See? She's pissed at me! She must be PMSing!"
ARGH.
(And no, for the jokers in the crowd, I am not PMSing right now. Don't even go there.)
Yesterday TD asked me to provide examples of misogyny in every day life
He sound try being a female teacher in Texas. He'd be able to write a book on the subject.
Forgot to add:
I'm less distrubed by the program (I've seen a worse verison of it before), than I am by many of the stories being related here.
I know only one PMS joke that I consider funny, but in deference to Denise I will not post it.
Sydney -- what the FUCK?!?!?!?!!!?
Here's my favorite misogyny example. No, this didn't happen to me, simply because I was told early on that I was no good at math and hard science because I was a girl.
It's 1995. You've applied to one of the top physics graduate programs in the country at a major Midwestern, almost-Ivy-League research university in the third largest city in the country. But you'll never get in. Know why? Because the chair of the admissions committee sorted through all the applications and tossed out yours and those of all the other female applicants without even giving them a second glance, saying it would be a waste of time to go through them. The male graduate student sitting on the committee has a spine like jelly, so even though he's probably one of those Sensitive New Age Guys, he's already invested in the system and doesn't have the cojones to stick up for you.
You should all try being pregnant and then have you actions and comments referred to as the effects of raging hormones.
well my boss (female) did just tell my co-worker (also female) that the potential hiring of another woman at our level would not impact our careers because "she is a mother."
that was a banner moment.
Re: Chris Clarke's comment: For instance, I merely put a repeating note in the calendar function of my Palm that reads "Be nice to Becky," which is a good idea in any event and a good thing to be reminded of just prior to the four days out of the month when she's more likely to act like a man. Brilliant! First, it's nice to see a positive and thoughtful (rather than negative and unsupportive) approach to the issue. Second, describing PMS as "acting like a man"—yep!
The problem with harmless "dumb guy humor" (as one commenter described this) is that it's so goddamned pervasive that it becomes conventional wisdom and informs a lot of misogynistic thinking. It is not just harmless humor. It's a dismissive judgment about the emotional lives of complex, thinking human beings who happen to be women. I absolutely love Prof B's initial response, and the first commenter on the site itself (thanks for posting that, Jeff).
I'm less distrubed by the program (I've seen a worse verison of it before), than I am by many of the stories being related here.
I would agree with that. While the program is a bit juvenile, and not especially funny, some of the stories related in the comments are appalling - truly vicious sexism causing careers to be derailed or ruined. That silly computer program - while it exemplifies some bad attitudes - is just not in the same league.
I don't know, I'd probably be pretty pissed about it if I were that man's wife...
How about this? Your boss asks you to do a seminar on sexual harassment for 50 managers from all over the company. You are two weeks away from delivering your 2nd child and have spent the previous night throwing up. You are still a little shaky from the vomiting and as your boss introduces you to all of these managers--many of whom you haven't yet met because they are new to the company--he says, "This is Michele." He then places his hand on your belly and says "And she's having my baby."
If you hadn't been throwing up all night and weren't feeling like death warmed over, you might have had the presence of mind to say "Thank you for so appropriately introducing our topic for today." Unfortunately, that thought didn't come until later.
This fits the topic of discussion quite nicely:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/
usatoday...aisespromotions
I particularly enjoyed the last paragraph's last sentence.
*rolls eyes*
Another manifestation of misogyny is what some have called the "mom drive-by's." Nasty comments on one's parenting in public from complete and total strangers. My husband, who spends about the same amount of time out with the child as I do, reports that they don't happen to him. They also don't happen to me when my husband is present. A few choice examples from myself and some friends:
She's so small! Have you been feeding her?
Is he retarded? (Yes, in front of the child)
Oh, joey doesn't want to share? That's fine, my little johny shares so nicely, but then we've been trying to teach him.
(In grocery line) Excuse me, I'm in a hurry. I have a job.
Oh, yeah - mommy drive-bys are all about mistrust of and hostility toward women.
Me: crossing street with toddler holding one hand, a package in the other. Car coming. TIn the middle of the intersection, toddler goes limp and starts to scream because she doesn't want to cross the street. I don't dare let go of her hand because I'm afraid she'll bolt into traffic if I do. So I'm sort of yanking this limp child across the street, and I start to laugh out loud because it's so ridiculous.
Man across the street, fixing car, hears me laugh and looks up. Doesn't come over and offer to hold my package so I can pick up my daughter. Shouts at me, face twisted with rage (in exactly the same tone you'd use with dog who just stole the roast off the table): "YOU LET THAT POOR CHILD GO!"
Don't think he would have tried that stunt on a guy.
New category - rather than "subconscious" misogyny I name it "UNCONSCIOUS" - at BigTertiaryRuralHospital all the decision making meetings of those at the top are at 7AM or 6PM - seems to exclude those of us with kids and partners who actually work... So whose voices are heard? I brought it up and got deer in the headlight stares. Very satifying, I think they heard me. No change yet, but still, drip drip drip I will not stop.
My college boyfriend & I were both the top students in our respective majors. He received intensive advising, advice on navigating the grad school process - just a boatload of help. My (all male) professors gave me jackshit, no guidance at all, even the ones who marked up my papers with the most glowing of praise. The contrast between our experience was shocking.
jenofiniquity:
Totally feel your pain -- been there, felt that. It's the worst form of misogyny because it is so invisible.
tully monster, holy crap! (not that that's the worst story on here, but it's the most relevant to me). applied to that department the same year (well may have been the following, it was 95-96). didn't get in. at least i ended up somewhere where there were 2 other women in my class...
I am going to rewrite a manual on sexual harassment (in health care organizations) in the next year or two, and this stuff is priceless. A few years ago I got one of my board members disciplined for harassment, so there is no messing around now, although I paid a price.
Story:
This morning my daughter was being moody x10 - wow. My wife ordered me to grab the grandchild and go for a walk, as it was "attitude adjustment time."
When the two of them go at it I'm reminded of King Kong vs. Godzilla.
By early afternoon they went shopping together. Best for me just to stay out of the way.
suburban misfit, interesting article.
However, just to play the devil's advocate, couldn't it be possible that the difference in salaries seen isn't *because* of the negative effects of flirting, but rather the higher achieving women didn't feel like they had to resort to it in the first place? Maybe they were smarter or more confident to begin with? Just because both groups were comprised of MBA's doesn't mean all MBA graduates are of equal ability, just as not all graduates of any field are of equal ability.
I don't have a child, but the "mom drive by's" happen to me when I'm walking my dog and is PISSES ME OFF TO NO END. My dog has a broken trachea (sp?) because his first owner put in in a to tight collar, so he coughs a lot. People always question me as if I'm not giving him water. I also hated the comments I got when I first got him and he wasn't used to walking on a leash.
I also feel that there is a phenomenon of general woman drive by's or walk by's. Have you had the experience of a complete stranger, generally a man, commenting on the expression on your face? I had this experience this morning. What compels a strange man to make a comment about a woman looking pissed off??? If I look pissed off, it's probably for a good reason and I PROBABLY DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT FROM A STRANGER.
TD, hon, again you are seeing this as the acts of (or acts upon) individuals that happen to be gendered.
Hence, you are providing possibilities for these acts that are similarly individualised, and degendered.
What you need to do is view gender not just as the attributes of individuals, but rather as a system, and like any system, one with rules, censures, and scripts that the system behaves according to.
Thus, these experiences that are being recounted here are not merely the experiences of individuals that happen to be female. But rather experiences that happen to individuals because of their social position within this gendered system as female.
Furthermore, those people that would commit these misogynies are not merely individuals performing stupidites *smiles* or individuals making decontextualised (ie an agendered context) decisions based solely on the individual characteristics of those they are committing these against.
Both are operating within a gendered system with particular gendered narratives that they are employing and enacting (as an aside, more wider, this is how we make sense to one another within a society). Think of it more as femininity and masculinity being dynamically and continually constructed, with power altering who gets to construct 'more'.
Does that make sense? (or am I lapsing into sociology lecturer here? It happens often ... errr)
"Don't think he would have tried that stunt on a guy."
I had a male co-worker today tell me to smile (again). While I do work retail, and being positive when you are on the floor is part of the job description, he isn't my boss and I wasn't upset or frowning, I just didn't have a 60 watt bimbo smile plastered on my face at the time (and there wasn't a customer in sight - it was, like 9:30 in the morning).
I then frowned at him, because my reaction to people ordering me to be happy it annoyance. Instead of dropping it he continued to try to "coax" me into smiling. I managed to refrain from throwing something at him.
The guys I work with never walk around with the 60 watt smiles most of the women put on their face when helping a customer. Most of the men simply put on normal "pleasant" expressions, but no one ever tells them to smile except for our managers - for whom it is part of the job description - and even they only do it when they are addressing a mixed group, never individual men.
I once had a random man on the street say "Hey Baby, smile, it can't be that bad!" Well, I had just had a wisdom tooth removed. When I opened my mouth blood came pouring out. The look on his face was PRICELESS!
^^^ That's a great story!
I once had a guy tell me to smile on the street.
I was actually crying. I was 19, had just moved to NYC that week, and believed i had just lost the only $600 I had. I had no job.
Smile my ass, motherfucker.
I stepped on his foot on purpose instead.
Which reminds me. Any good individual or collective fight back stories?
I hate to admit my best was close to 10 years ago. I was walking down the street in 100 degree weather on my way home from work with 2 miles to go. Frat boys in mommies white/white interior ford explored drove by, slowed down, drove at walking speed next to me and explained that the wanted to anally gang rape me--but the y didn't put it quite that nicely.
Without looking at them, I tossed 48 oucnces of Iced tea in to thier open window, and all over thier car. The sped off, and I got to picture them taking the car back to mom: "Some crazy bitch just threw tea at us!"
Yeah right.
Well, I don't have a good fight back story for misogyny, all of mine are against antigay bigots.
I can remember another story though. At the university I did my MA at there was some major construction going on on campus, and it was close enough to my department that I couldn't avoid it each day.
The reason why I wanted to avoid is that while university contractors are better than general contractors because they know they will get their arses fired should they step too much over the line, they are not perfect. And so, you can definintely imagine the comments and whistles I would get.
One morning I was so pissed off I walked into my department admin offices and asked about how I should file a complaint.
The lead personal assistant, a rather large quite older women, looked at me and said "Just enjoy it, because in a little while you won't get it anymore."
I was so shocked I just stood there with my mouth open and then just left.
I don't have a child, but the "mom drive by's" happen to me when I'm walking my dog
That doesn't just happen to women, and it doesn't just come from men. My 15-year-old dog Zeke has always been greyhound-thin (though he's either a husky- or wolf-mix). He has food available at all times, is a very picky eater, and I have, over the last decade and a half, had about half a dozen women come up and harangue me about how thin he is and not relent when I explain things.
One of them went so far as to call a cop over in the park and ask them to arrest me for animal abuse. (The cop offered Zeke a biscuit, which he took politely, dropped on the ground, and ignored thereafter. He apologized to me and gently advised the woman not to go around bothering random strangers any more.)
Um, I guess I kinda took this off-topic. Of course the level of perceived threat is different when a woman decides to get in my face about Zeke's visible ribs. Maybe it's that old essentialist "men don't nurture good" thing.
One time I had lunch with two guys who wanted me to join their firm. They wanted me. But they both had to express their horror at the fact that my one year old was in daycare.
My boyfriend works as a server in a restaurant where he constantly encounters misogynist idiot types whom he is serving.
One time, a group of young frat boys came in and sat at his table. He asked what he could get for them and one of them pointed at a young woman at the bar (an acquaintance and regular at the restaurant) and said "I'd like her under me!" and laughed his ass off. That is, until my boyfriend embarassed him with his quick reply: "Sir, that's my sister."
the guy turned red and apologized the rest of the night. bonus: the boyfriend got a huge tip from the dumbass.
oh, i also want to echo the frustrations and people asking me to smile on the street, in the hallways, shit even around campus now...i've gotten that bullshit since high school and have always frowned harder when some dude inevitably demands me to SMILE!!!
a friend of mine shares this problem and recently burst out laughing despite herself when a dude on the street yelled "quit lookin' so mean, girl!!" that was a new one.
A graduate advisor saying, when it was pointed out that there were more men in an incoming class than in the previous one, "We're getting better students."
The one thing that hasn't been mentioned on the topic is how misogynist attitudes at work makes us feel... Despite being a very confident, career-minded 40-something, I, for one, feel physically ill not to mention the whack on my self-esteem.
TD, I really hope your daughters, or mine, never ever feel that way...
That is, until my boyfriend embarassed him with his quick reply: "Sir, that's my sister."
I thought I invented that comeback! Oh well.
My "favorite" Misognyny Moment was a few years ago when visiting my brother and his wife. They were living in a rented house that the owner was trying to sell. A real estate agent happened to visit while my sister-in-law and I were playing in the yard with my son.
The agent (a woman) kept directing questions about the house--number of bedrooms, type of basement, and so on--to me even after I'd explained several times that I don't live there and had no idea. Probably half a dozen times I said "I don't know, I don't live here, I know nothing about this house... ask her."
(There was probably some element of sizeism there too. My sister-in-law is very petite and young-looking. I mean, at 30 years of age, she still gets offered the children's menu at restaurants.)
But still. I found the event unsurprising (because I've seen a lot of sexism) but still incredibly annoying.
I think we all agree that Sydney wins (though there's some stiff competition) the "most shockingly offensive comment" award. Even though I am an animal lover, I have to admit, I would have been SORELY tempted to "accidentally" lose the dog in traffic after that remark.
And even though the anecdotes in the comment thread are, yes, *much* worse than the example in the post, the thing is (I would say), the little stuff is bad too because it's so subtle that it's easy to question yourself on: "am I just being humorless?" It's even easy not to see until someone else points it out to you, and then you realize how much those little things, the "smile, it's not that bad" from strangers on the street, make you feel constantly under gender surveillance...
Having said all that, I am thinking interesting thoughts about the crap boys have to put up with, which I hope to find time to post later this weekend.
Delurk.
It's late at night. I'm walking back to college along a bit of road where there's been a lot of muggings and rapes. There's a man walking nearby. I speed up, try to keep some distance between us. He tries to start up a conversation. I ignore him. He persists. I say "I'm sorry, but I don't know you." I do not mention rape or abduction or other assault, I just say I don't know him. He instantly gets angry, and shouts "How dare you accuse me of THAT?" And keeps following and shouting until I reach my destination. I'm instantly expected to give a stranger the benefit of the doubt and not 'accuse' him of being a potential rapist (but of course, if anything had happened, I should have known better.)
I'm showing a visiting friend around the city. He's male. I don't get any catcalls or spontaneous attempts at conversation. People's passing glances are different, and they give us more space. I'm partaking of heterosexual privelege, even though I'm a lesbian and he's about 80% gay.
I'm doing a music degree. My instrument is voice. Every year, there's one specialist session on professional presentation for singing students, to which only female students are invited, even though some of the male students have expressed an interest in being taught how to dress better, and even though the guest lecturer, an image consultant, sees men as well as women in her business.
I decide to lose some body fat, for the selfish reason that it will make it easier to get along in this society. Various people tell me to dress in a more feminine way... and predict that when I'm thinner I'll *want* to, presumably because I'll be less ashamed of my body (I wasn't - everyone else was.) (As it happens, I can now buy cool clothes from the boys' section of the shopping system, not the men's.)
A friend's buying party food for her 21st birthday. The guy behind her in the queue jokes "Don't eat it all at once!" She's a woman buying food in public - of course she was inviting comment, what did she expect?
Back to college. On the first day, the welcoming committee put signs on our doors making crude puns on our names. Mine was about my breasts; the girl in the room opposite mine got one predicting her ability to perform fellatio. I complained; they told me there was "no way they could know in advance who'd be offended." Also, we were asked to perform 'sexercises', pelvic thrusts, over the body of a woman from the welcoming committee, on our way out of the dining hall on that first day.
haven't had time to read he 72 responses to date...wow...that's a lot of reading (I'll get to it tomorrow). But WOW...what the fuck is this?
Had to delurk for this. It was just too engaging. Syndey I feel you. I am so sorry.
My first experience with obviouls misogyny was in highschool. With my councilor (female). She asked me why my attendance had gone down, along with my grades. Being naieve and thinking she is a councilor I could tell her. (Dumb me) I told her I had been raped, and I wasn't very interested in "school". She said and I quote. "With the way you look normally, you deserved it."
(I wore jeans and t-shirts, with a hat. never revealing clothing because I have a complex about my body) Where she got the idea that I deserved it? I have no idea, but that "YEAR".. Was my worst experience ever with Misogyny. The doctors at the hospital my mother took me to; spent 5 months in an attempt get me to admit that I deserved to be raped. Everyday my doctor (male) would come to my room, sit in a chair and ask me to "heal" to "admit" it so I could move on. And every day I told him to go fuck himself.
Eventually, It became too much for me, I was on suicide prevention, so I wasn't allowed anything that could be "used". I called my mother (I refused to call her because she put me here, but She was preferable to these idiots and I could put up with her bigotry compared to the doctors.) I called her and told her, I didn't ASK, I told her to come get me before I commited heinous acts on them.
I told a few people about this, and they called me a liar. They said no one would ever act like that. Doctor's especially. But they did.. and while I find that it was disgusting, disrespectful and scarred me for the rest of my life. It also gave me strength, to remember that I never admited it was my fault for being raped. Quite the opposite. Because they continually hounded me to admit it, it made me realize completely that it wasn't my fault. That I could not have provoked that response from someone. The rapist had the issues, I was just a bypassing object they took their problems out on. I knew him, he was my best friend for 3 years. I trusted him. I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know he had started on crystal Meth, I didn't know he was hallucinating, or that he was suicidal. He killed himself that year before I went to the hospital. Which also, prepared me to believe I didn't ask for it, nor deserve it. It just happened.
It's taken me years to recover. My mom taught me to "talk" about it. Or tried to, but when I did. No one would believe that kind of "hate" would come from anyone. And I was again a liar.
This touched me as nothing else has before. Because you asked me what was an every day misogyny that I have been effected with. Well, Dr. B. This changed my life. and sometimes, I feel like I can trust my SO and tell them. Then it hits them how horrible this was, and rather then accept the fact that this DID happen. My voice is taken from me and i am called a liar. My words mean nothing. If I needed counciling for ANYTHING in this fucking world. I need counciling to deal with people calling me a fucking liar. More then rape, more then divorce and loosing full custody. More then ANYTHING in this world I need help dealing with the loss of my voice.
Thanks for listening, and sorry for 'messin" the comments on your blog up.
TM
Misogyny in action, the very name of this company itself is misogynistic and repellent:
http://www.findacomputerguy.com.
So, no computer girls, eh? Guess not.
Where to start, where to start? Let's see, the job site where I was the only female there and when they hired a guy who turned out to be a wife beater, I got let go because I was a 'troublemaker'? He'd also been charged with rape and said that women asked to be raped---and that I, specifically, was asking for it. My boss' boss, when confronted over this, said, "Are you sure you didn't say or do anything that would encourage these guys to think that?" Word for word, that's verbatim.
The other guys threatened and harassed me, but I was the one who got fired.
This happened just yesterday. Think it's bad in acadamia? I'm working as a security guard in a bank. It's after three robberies in thirty days, and I'm wearing a uniform but no gun. Some guy comes up to me and says, "So what can you tell me about this cleaning equipment?" Some kind of promotion going on. I'm wearing a uniform, but all he sees is: tits/ass=vacuum expert. I'm a vagina to him, that's all.
One feature of security work is the need to label all female security guards fat lazy bitches. I get it all the time from men when they catch me sitting down--it's an eleven-hour shift, with nothing else to do. And I nail them for it every time. "Boring, huh?" They say.
"It's okay."
"NOt like working, is it?" They smirk.
I gesture them closer. "This is a nice change of pace for me."
"Why's that?"
"I just came back from thirteen months in Iraq."
And then you should see them scurry away. I just love plucking the smirk off their faces like that.
Nobody ever expects a woman to be a vet.
When you do run into another vet, a lot of the guys try and top your experience as a way of flirting. Uh, yeah, asshole, it's not a competition and the fact that you're trying to win a position as the boss of flirting just serves as a warning.
TM,
TM,
I'm sorry. For what it's worth, I do believe your story. Sadly, I've heard a similar story before. A close friend of mine was given rohypnol and raped at a party she attended in college. When she went to her family physician, a man she felt she could trust, to report the rape she was told -- before he took the trouble to examine her-- that he resented being used for EC simply because she didn't want her parents to know she'd been 'promiscuous.' It happened at a party, she was at the party of her own free will, etc. His attitude changed a bit after she showed him her bruising and asked, "Do you think I volunteered for THIS?!" But she had already learned by that point not to try to prosecute her attackers. Any accusation she made simply put her 'motives' for being at the party immediately into question, even in the eyes of a doctor who had known her all her life.
The word 'doctor' still makes many people forget their objectivity. Doctors are good and kind, period, in the eyes of most, regardless of evidence to the contrary. What they tend to forget is that, when one educates a jackass, the jackass doesn't change into a nobler animal, one simply hears multisyllabic braying.
TM, I believe you. What a crock of shit.
And people wonder why the stereotype of 'women lying' isn't harmless fun.
TM, I believe you, and I admire you so much for saying that. And I am so sorry that happened to you.
Some more mundane evidence of daily misogyny:
1)I went to a furniture store alone, and watched several sales people sitting around looking at each other until, finally, a woman salesperson took the time to ask me a question. When I told her the type of furniture I was looking for, she quickly deposited me in the area of the store that might have that sort of thing, before running off to fawn over a single man customer. I walked out of the store without buying anything, and wrote a note to its owner.
2) I went to a Sears to buy grass seed, and was left in the aisle, eventually calling out to the associates who passed me by to help with the male customers' needs. Again, I left the store without buying anything.
3) Ever see a JC Penney's commercial? Apparently, mother-daughter bonding is limited to shopping, men are completely incapable of taking care of their own children in the absence of the children's mother, and, when a mother is away from the home, she must be shopping. Isn't all that just adorable?
These are examples of the petty annoyance misogynies that women deal with every day, simply trying to live in this society. Work and school provide more frightening and infuriating examples:
1) As a non-traditional undergrad (read, "old"), I had a major in a small language department with two professors(male) and one lecturer(female). One of the professors was openly misogynistic, the other was a covert version of the same. The lecturer was supportive of female students, but as a lecturer, could not reasonably be included in a fight between professors and students, two groups far more protected than she. This department was the exact opposite of all other language departments in the university in that, while we did begin with far more women than men as students in the first year, we didn't keep the ratio. In fact, by the fourth year of the major, men outnumbered women in the department by 2:1, exactly. This was enough to have the first question the visiting accrediting committee asked when they arrived be, "Where are all the women?"
Still, when I complained of obvious, relentless, and audio-taped, misogynistic comments made by the one professor, I was called a trouble-maker, a borderline personality, and the topper: "We aren't *having* this problem with anyone else, so you are the problem." Of course, the same professor (covert misogynist) who said that to me, had said at an earlier time "He's *had* that problem with other students, there's nothing you can do about it."
I could not get a professor(a member of a protected class) to back me in my complaints. The openly misogynistic professor had not lowered my grades, so I couldn't prove an effect of the behavior. (I wonder if other laws require a documented effect of the law's being broken, before breaking the law counts.) Because I had been "insubordinate" in answering this professor back -- also on the audio-tapes -- there really was nothing I could do about the constant degradation, except quit the department. And, frankly, I was far too stubborn to allow that to happen.
I want to clarify that my "insubordination" was always in response to something vile the profesor had said, and usually involved turning his metaphor around so that it applied to men.
2) When searching for a grad program in my second major, because you can't get three letters of recommendation when two of the three people with whom you have studied consider that women don't belong at the University anyway, I made a point of speaking to women professors about the climate in their departments. I was told by one woman scholar that she didn't consider my questions valid, that I didn't have the right to ask any question until I was accepted by the department, and that, since the department is so well-known, I'd probably never get in anyway. (My questions, by the way, were :"What would you say is the climate in the department regarding women as scholars? Do you feel supported in your work? ")
More from academia... As a high school student, I was offered admission to an exclusive private college far from home. My guidance counselor (a woman), who dealt all day with students with no interest in college, and very few who would have gotten into this school, had only this to say - "Won't you miss your mom?" I went anyway. At said college, my advisor (a man) tried to discourage me from taking an advanced math class b/c "Why bring your GPA down when you should really be taking classes that make you a good conversationalist at parties?" I took the class anyway, and soon switched advisors. When I brought him the A on my first exam, he told me that if I had taken the lower level class, it would have been an A+.
TM -
I just wanted to say; I believe you.
Not only simply because you say it did, but because it fits too well with what I have heard about other rapes
My first job offer, after graduating college, came with a starting salary that was well below the entry level salaries at that time. When I replied to the Managing Partner that I had been expecting something "a little higher" he responded tersely, "Lady, I'm not a used car salesman. I'll go $1,000 higher, but that's it." I was stunned and thought it was highly unprofessional, but didn't realize how misogynistic it was until a few weeks later when a co-worker told me his story.
The co-worker, Jim, was a buddy of mine in college and was hired at roughly the same time I was hired. He told me he had challenged the low salary and was told by the same Managing Partner, "You're right. We intentionally low-balled your offer to see how you would respond. We'll increase it $5,000 if you'll accept the offer."
Jim and I had the same degree and level of experience, but I had better grades. (FWIW, I also passed the CPA exam in one sitting whereas he took *8* tries to finally pass.)
I could list more, but I don't really want to dredge up the bad memories.
I'm not done reading all the comments but I just wanted to add this. I can't blog it because the perpetrator reads my blog. Anyway, my uberboss, two up from me was in the campus cafe. I was there with two of my male colleagues and we were all to be at a meeting in 1/2 hour. The uberboss was with his kids and waiting for his wife to show up to keep the kids while he was in this meeting. About ten minutes before the meeting, wife still not there, uberboss says: "Laura, can you watch the kids while I run over to my office?" My back is to him, the guys are facing him. I'm so flabbergasted, I don't know what to say. Both of the guys I'm with immediately are like, "What, why is it Laura that gets to watch the kids? What are we, chopped liver?" They say it in a way that's joking, but clearly indicates that he's being a sexist pig. I totally thanked them for it.
just wondering--what is the distinction between sexism and misogyny? Thoughts?
TM, I believe you, too. One of my clients had a (mild) psychotic break, really more like extreme depression, in her early 20's. Her mother had to call an ambulance to take her to a psychiatric unit. On the way to the hospital, while she was restrained, the EMS guys fondled her breasts and made jokes about how much fun it is to f*** "crazy girls." After she was well medicated she tried to report them but nobody believed her because she was officially "crazy."
“I think we all agree that Sydney wins (though there's some stiff competition) the "most shockingly offensive comment" award. Even though I am an animal lover, I have to admit, I would have been SORELY tempted to "accidentally" lose the dog in traffic after that remark.”
Thank you all for understanding that his words were extremely offensive. What was amazing about that comment is that he did not in anyway think it was inappropriate and neither did my female office manager. When I told her about it, she was like, “well he’s just being T.” When I tried to explain how his words might be construed as racist and sexist, she just looked really uncomfortable and told me that after working with him for so long why was I surprised? I had been working there for 2 years and in that time he had made numerous comments regarding my sex and race. But I put up with it because I needed the job and I needed a letter of rec from the bastard. This comment was made three days after I got the letter of rec. The “did you breakup with your boyfriend” comment was made two days after the dog comment. At that point, I pretty much said fuck it and quit.
T.M., being called a liar or being “believed with conditions” is one of the worst things a survivor can hear from supposed supporters. I believe you, and I truly admire you ability to stand firm and for stating that being raped was not your fault. It takes an incredibly strong and brave person to be able to resist all the pressure I’m sure you were facing from your family and doctors. Thank you for being so strong and thank you for sharing your story.
When asking for help with countertransference issues that she was experiencing with a client from her male supervisor, a therapist friend of mine was asked if it is was her time of the month. She replied in the negative (she was still in school and he was determining her grades as well) but continued to be questioned about possible hormonal reasons for the countertransference in her relationship with her client for the rest of the supervision hour rather than helping her learn to how best to deal with it as she was requesting.
But while I can think of many individual examples, I think it’s important to look at the larger ones. What about how medical research is using done using men then generalizing the result to women’s bodies? I am especially bothered by the differing height-weight standards for men and women. A friend of mine transitioned from male to female. In an instant, her body went from being read as dangerously underweight in her doctor’s eyes to almost obese. Same body yet the standard had changed simply because she was presenting a different gender.
I'm the vehicle owner and driver in my house - my husband does not drive nor is he interested in it.
About a year ago, I took my vehicle into the dealership to have some work done. I explained the problem I was having, made sure they had all my correct contact information, and made it clear they were to call me at my office when they found the problem.
A few hours later, I get a call from my husband. He said they had called him at home (he was a stay-at-home Dad at the time), explained the problem to him in detail and asked him what he wanted them to do. He explained it wasn't his vehicle and they needed to talk to me. They didn't call me. I ended up having to call and have a very exasperated service rep start with "I explained this all to your husband" and then proceeded to give me as little information as possible. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he thought I wouldn't understand. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt... until I picked up the keys to MY vehicle and found my husband's name on the paperwork and keytag.
TM-
I am so sorry that happened to you- and I certainly can believe it.
I was bullied throughout school, my frist visits to therapists and psychiatrists started when I was probably around nine at the oldest.
I and my parents were told:
1) I was actively encouraging bullying as a means to get attention.
2) I was lying about the bullying as a means to get attention.
3) I was just being a spoiled princess and manipulating to try and get more things 'my way'.
4) I was not trying hard enough to be a normal girl and fit in.
(Plus of course that utter BULLSHIT about if "You ignore the ones teasing you and don't react, they'll get bored and go away". Fuck that noise, if bullies get no reaction they try harder to get one.)
Same thing for the fact I got physically ill a lot. True, some of it might have been brought on by my absolute terror of school and facing my peers and teachers, but the doctors, if they could not find immediate proof that I had strep or something, even if I had been vomiting every damn meal up for one or two days running, or just unable to talk or eat:
"She is lying to get out of going to school/to get attention."
Now, I have no proof that this was sexism, since I never really had any way of asking boys in my age/position if they were fed the same lines-
But in general, other than maybe a small handful of teachers and one vice-principal from the ages of 8-16, I was basically believed to be engineering/encouraging my peers to disrupt classes by insulting me, threatening me, and sometimes actively PHYSICALLY harming me "because I wanted attention."
By 4th grade I had regular fantasies of suicide, and at least once a day wished I was dead.
At the Catholic school where I'd just gotten through fifth and maybe part of sixth grade, I was called into a meeting with the nun who was principal, and given a speech on how I was possessed, a demon child, a witch, and how everything that happened to me was less than I deserved and all my fault. I was told there had been no discipline problems before I came to that school, and that I was Satan, leading the children into cruelty by "making them" call me names, threaten me, and throw things at me.
I have to wonder if boys who had problems would have been given the same crap. Somehow I get the feeling that while the doctors and shrinks would have been quacktastic to boys, there may not have been quite the emphasis placed on a boy "Trying to get attention" by being different/lying etc. or being "too lazy to try and improve things themselves."
Here's a Media Watch report on how a current affairs show stalked a woman for two weeks in order to ambush her and ask her questions about her personal life, even though they had no evidence she was doing anything wrong.
She was a single mother. Their first question was who the fathers of her children were.
How about my father consistently saying as a 'joke' as I grew up, whenever a book was recommended to him, "oh, I don't read anything written by women", with this smirk that was supposed to indicate he was joking.
I finally said "then I guess you'll never read anything I write", and he looked shocked, like this had genuinely never occurred to him. He never said it again after that. (So far.)
neintales
I'm a woman, but both my brother and I got a lot of those "it's your own fault that people don't like you because you're weird," "you're bringing the abuse on yourself" etc. lines growing up. In retrospect, we lived in a small town and my father's family had been declared weird before we were born. We are both a bit odd, but that may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. In any case, there was no positive instruction in what we might do to improve our situation. It was assumed that we knew what we were doing. I always felt that everyone but me had been mailed scripts of the same play. When I got to college I finally met people who seem to have been sent the same script that I had been. So, I don't think this one is particularly gender based. Boys, particularly those who aren't good a sports, get it too.
Just to clarify. I'm not in any way trying to justify the way you, my brother or I were treated. If we are/were weird that is absolutely not an excuse to abuse us. In fact, many of the things that I like most about myself probably got me beat in grammar school.
TM's horrific story reminds me of something that happened, not to me, but to my sister. She was date-raped at 14, and didn't tell anyone for 4 years. She told me, and said that she thought she had been given some kind of STD. I told her that I was sure she hadn't (I was trying to be reassuring, but obviously in retrospect I was being an asshole). Eventually she got the guts to tell my mom, who made an appointment for her with Mom's ob/gyn.
The ob/gyn *lectured* my sister for having an untreated STD.
Ever notice this? If a male political blogger writes about controversial issues, it's because he's concerned about the issues. If a female political blogger writes about controversial issues, it's because she's an attention whore.
Here's one:
I went out on a date with a man (I use that term loosely) who also was a friend first. After the date, he told me he'd call me over the weekend. Later in the week when I told him that I was hurt that he didn't keep his word about calling (because...#1: we were friends and I wasn't just some random piece of ass he picked up at a bar...#2: I'm a big girl and if he didn't want to call he didn't have to make empty promises) he said, "Oh, I thought you were the last woman who would be bothered about something like that, but actually, you're just like every other woman & YOU JUST WANT TO FEEL PRETTY."
I'm still stunned that he actually had the balls to say something so disrespectful!
Jack's earlier comment went uncommented on, and I just wanted to respond to it:
""I'm less distrubed by the program (I've seen a worse verison of it before), than I am by many of the stories being related here.""
"I would agree with that. While the program is a bit juvenile, and not especially funny, some of the stories related in the comments are appalling - truly vicious sexism causing careers to be derailed or ruined. That silly computer program - while it exemplifies some bad attitudes - is just not in the same league."
Here's the deal -- the program obviously doesn't register on the misogyny Richter scale with the same intensity as Bitch's sister, or TM's (my god, TM, I'm so sorry you had to live through that) or Sydney's (which left me spluttering in anger).
BUT THE COMPUTER PROGRAM NORMALIZES THE IDEA THAT WOMEN ARE ONLY THE SUM OF THEIR HORMONES, AND ARE NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
The computer program isn't a distraction from the "real" injustices we should "really" be concerned with. It makes socially acceptable (because it's just funny, right? ha ha) the idea that lies at the base of TM's trauma, and Sydney's horror, and the job loss Sarah in Chicago reported.
Medium Dave - classic story of woman reinforcing status quo, daughter not buying into it, that i'm sure you'll remember fondly:
---
It was supposed to go like this: the child was always struck dumb and the attendant mother would lean forward and catch the Hogfather's eye and say very pointedly, in that voice adults use when they're conspiring against children: "You want a Baby Tinkler Doll, don't you, Doreen? And the Just Like Mummy Cookery Set you've got in the window. And the Cut-Out Kitchen Range Book. And what do you say?"
And the stunned child would murmur "'nk you" and get given an orange or a balloon.
This time, though, it didn't work like that.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR HOGSWATCH? said the Hogfather hurriedly.
Mother took her economic cue again and said briskly: "She wants a--"
The Hogfather snapped his fingers impatiently. The mother's mouth slammed shut.
The child seemed to sense that here was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and spoke quickly.
"I wanta narmy. Anna big castle wif pointy bits," said the child. "Anna swored."
WHAT DO YOU SAY? prompted the Hogfather.
"A big swored?" said the child, after a pause for cogitation.
The Hogfather reached into his sack and produced--
--a very large model castle with, as correctly interpreted, pointy blue cone roofs on turrets suitable for princesses to be locked in--
--a box of several hundred assorted knights and warriors--
--and a sword. It was four feet long and glinted along the blade.
The mother took a deep breath.
"You can't give her that!" she screamed. "It's not safe! And she doesn't want all that other stuff!" said Doreen's mother, in the face of previous testimony. "She's a girl! Anyway, I can't afford posh stuff like that!"
I THOUGHT I GAVE IT AWAY, said the Hogfather, sounding bewildered...
Well, I read all 99 of the preceding comments. I'm rather depressed now because a) I'm a guy, so it's a little like being taken on the tour of the gas chambers in your home town, knowing that you didn't actually work in the camp but..., and b) I have two daughters who are 12 and 15.
Oh, and I have a coworker who's favorite joke is "Q: What do all battered women have in common? A: They just won't listen!" Ha. Ha.
I think the comment tally was 101 when I started reading, but I'm going to add another everyday example anyway.
My class was meeting at the campus library for a session of library instruction. One of my students stopped at either the circulation desk or the reference desk (not sure which), and asked if the employee can tell him where Dr. [Name]'s class is meeting. "No, I don't know where his class is." My student (newly sensitive to such issues as mine was his first gender studies class), responded,"Actually, Dr. [Name] is a she." The library employee's response: "Oh. I thought you said doctor."
my best friend and i both worked for the same professor in college, she as his teaching assistant, and i in the office of a foundation he started. she transferred out of school our junior year, but was coming back to help us out with a summer camp we ran. every time i would mention how excited i was to see her or how great i thought she was, my boss would say "and she's so thin! how does she stay so thin?" (easy: she's an athlete and runs 5-6 miles a day). she was probably one of the most brilliant math students to ever pass through the department at that school, but all this professor could comment on was her appearance.
"prefer not to say" at 7:42 is spot on.
Justice is not a zero-sum game, and being aware of small injustices adds to, it does not detract from, the fight against large injustices. Broken windows theory, much?
It is especially discouraging -- and thus to be especially fought -- when the injustice is in the academy, which is supposed to be this great liberal bastion. I hope the abundance of academic horror stories is cuz of who reads and posts at this blog, and not because the academy is always especially heinous.
I really appreciate this thread for validating my anger agains the small injustices. We shouldn't accept accusations of being "humorless" because we are legitimately angry. I never saw the "smile!!!" comments as examples of sexism (I don't know if it really qualifies as misogyny) but now I have a new interpretation - idiot man comes along and sees a woman as an ornament who would be prettier smiling, not realizing she is a complete person who may have reasons to not smile. What should we say back to these f*ckers? I feel like an angry response won't get through to them since they don't respect a woman's emotions anyway.... Obviously acting happy would encourage the behaviour. It happens way to often to just ignore it. Arg!!!
To everyone, thank you for sharing your stories. I'm really sorry to everyone who has experienced trauma, and yes I believe you all.
Val,
That's a wonderful question. I thought of suggesting a quiet matter-of-fact response as to why a woman isn't smiling, but that seems like a justification ... "oh, I should be smiling, let me explain why I'm not."
Maybe better would be a confused but polite, "I'm sorry, have we met before?"
Him (probably still smirking): "Oh, no, I just--"
Her, still confused but pleasant: "Oh. If we haven't met, why do you care if I'm smiling?" Followed by walking away without further conversation.
Though perhaps that would be too subtle. I don't know.
The key to such an approach, I think, would be in sounding genuinely confused and not sarcastic.
Smartalek, why would who reads and comments at this blog represent people who are *more* likely to encounter sexism in the academy? Do feminists draw more sexist fire, somehow? I think the only difference between feminists in the academy and non-feminists would be that we are (1) more likely to recognize sexism when we see it; and (2) less likely to explain it away.
Val, re "what to say to the chowderhead who commands you to smile?" question, my preferred responses are (1) an incredibly dirty look; (2) a very arch "excuse me?!?" uttered in that Miss Manners tone that clearly means "fuck off"; (3) to the "it can't be that bad!" folks, "how would you know?" and (4) a lie: "I've (or "my mother") just been diagnosed with cancer, thank you very much." Mind you, I've never used that last one, but I have always wanted to.
Val -
it's even more than that, as the question of "why wouldn't a guy say that to another guy?" readily reveals. Because if it's just about a smile, then he should say it to anyone.
I would argue it's a) he feels like he can look and assess openly women, while he can't do such with a guy, b) he feels he has the right to tell a woman what she should do in regard to her apperance whereas he would never feel such in regards to a guy, and c) he knows he can get away with it, as a guy would not respond so neutrally.
Oh, and if I were a snarky person I would also suggest d) she's just a woman, so any feelings she may been having to produce said lack of smile aren't as important as his appreciation of her appearance ... good thing I'm not being snarky, eh?
Okay, time for sleep, I need to be up at 5am for cycle marshalling for a half marathon ...
no, wait, make that 3am ...
may I second (third?) that "prefer not to say" is spot on?
I hesitated at first in posting my smile!dammit story because by itself it is nothing compared to most of things others have written (God, TM, you must be one amazing woman to have it made it through that). I also almost wrote a qualifier saying that I could see my story being classsified as sexism rather than misogyny.
But you know what? To answer curiousgirl's very good question, the only difference between sexism and misogyny in a patriarchy is matter of degrees. In the end they are the same idea: women and feminity are of less value than men and masculinity. Even when sexism says supposedly positive things about girls and women, all the things girls and women are supposedly naturally better at are the things that society undervalues: childcare, emotional care, homemaking, etc.
When dealing with misogyny and crime one can argue that "broken window" policies can too easily turn into focusing on image rather than substance, but that doesn't change the fact that excusing the "little" forms of sexism makes it easier for the more overtly damaging misogyny to continue to thrive.
The part that makes being told to smile!dammit misogynistic is that it so pervasively upholds the idea that a woman's thoughts and feelings are subservient to men's. If this idea was challenged on a daily basis, fewer women would have to go through what TM did.
One of my (academic, again!) colleagues is a man who has for a good number of years been very highly regarded as a "feminist sympathizer" and is lauded in many places for having raised people's consciousness with respect to the marginalized and oppressed. I told him, as an example of the complicated lives some public university students lead, of a young woman in a class I taught who told me she'd been having trouble in school since her (male) roommate got into the habit of beating her and persuaded the rural Pennsylvania police that she was the aggressor, which resulted in a restraining order forbidding her to enter the house, leaving her without a roof over her head.
My older colleague, hearing this story, said, "Hm. I wonder what really happened."
That's easy to explain away by saying, the guy is cynical and suspicious of students who give excuses to teachers, or is such an elitist that he despises students in general (Indeed, his response once when I sought sympathy on a day when I'd had difficulty getting through to a class was, "My friend Tim says, 'Never try to teach a pig algebra. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.'" I don't teach algebra . . . ).
But I don't think one can ignore gender in such situations, any more than I can say that people on the street have come up to me and told me to cheer up by way of response to the experiences above. Because we are all influenced by the misogynistic discourse that's everywhere around us, because a person with that guy's background can choose to resist it, responding in that way to a story of a woman whose testimony has been discounted is a misogynist act. The fact that the discredited person is in another class the guy holds in low regard (students, patients, "crazies") compounds the problem but doesn't obviate the sexism.
It took me years to work out my response to the "Smile!" command -- which I got more than once on my way out the doors of the hospital I worked in, believe it or not. A sweaty, um externally-fluid-enhanced nurse dragging herself out the hospital door at 8AM, goodness gracious, why wouldn't she be smiling? Unfortunately, I am usually gobsmacked enough by extreme stupidity that I'm left silent.
But I have found a use for the fact that I'm homely as a mud fence -- acne-scarred, snaggletoothed, and what I had by way of lips seem to be a casualty of menopause. I can smile back at them with such a dreadful rictus that they sometimes actually back up before scurrying off.
Damn, but it's fun. Anyone can do it, with practice. Shuts them the fuck up about being "humorless" too.
I know your comments are now enormous, but I'm adding an experience that has annoyed me for years.
When I first joined the junior management ranks of my company, I was the only female actuary (and most junior) in a group of about 10. We had a monthly management meeting, that was started every time by the man in charge "Jennifer and Gentlemen". I hated it, as it clearly pointed out how much I stuck out like a sore thumb, and how much he didn't think I belonged there (OK maybe I was being paranoid). But nobody else in the group could understand why it annoyed me.
But the most annoying thing was that when I was joined by another woman, the man in charge didn't say "ladies and gentlemen" (which he should have done to be consistent), but just stopped saying anything at all and went straight into the meeting.
A pretty subtle and minor point compared with some of the horrendous tales in these comments.
Wrt: "That's my sister!"
This comment merely changes the object of the insult from the woman who is being degraded by comments to the man who is making the claim. Although superficially it appears he is rescuing her, he is instead claiming ownership of her, and thus her insult. The commenter backs down quickly from his insults because he wouldn't want to degrade a man that way. The woman still isn't getting any respect -- indeed, she's been written out of the equation -- although the man claiming ownership is.
How bout this for misogynist AND racist?
http://www.hoslap.net/
I once had a random man on the street say "Hey Baby, smile, it can't be that bad!" Well, I had just had a wisdom tooth removed. When I opened my mouth blood came pouring out. The look on his face was PRICELESS!
This one cracked me up enough that my husband asked me what I was laughing at. After I finished reading it to him, he said that he thinks everyone should carry around blood capsules for just such occasions.
I stumbled across this cartoon shortly after reading all the comments here. It seemed appropriate.
http://images.ucomics.com/comics...05/
nq050807.gif
"It is especially discouraging -- and thus to be especially fought -- when the injustice is in the academy, which is supposed to be this great liberal bastion. I hope the abundance of academic horror stories is cuz of who reads and posts at this blog, and not because the academy is always especially heinous."
Smartalek,
I wrote a much longer response to you earlier, but you are to be spared that because the cookie failed on my first attempt and I'm too tired to go through all that again.
The condensed version of my argument is this:
1)The conservatives, in an effort to prove how "liberal" the academy is, will tell you that it is made up mostly of ex-60's radicals, they will fail to tell you that conservatism is also made up of mostly ex-60's radicals.
2) You need to remember that the anti-war, civil rights, and women's movements were separate and distinct efforts. While some people were involved in all three struggles, the majority were not. It is disturbingly easy to find a 50-something white male who was opposed to the war in Vietnam, the oppression of black men, and equally opposed to women's rights in the academy and elsewhere. To quote my least favorite professor,"Everyone could agree that the black man was given a bad deal, but the women were, and ARE, out of line."
3) The struggle is not as old, or as settled, as you might think. Most of these ex-60's radicals who are currently professors attended sex-segregated universities. ( At only 33, I can clearly remember when Columbia University admitted its first 'coeducational class" -- in 1983!)
4)It may seem that those who are threatened by self-determining women display their misogyny more openly towards women who declare themselves feminist, but you can't imagine that the misogyny isn't present, if lurking menacingly under the surface, when they are dealing with any woman. ESPECIALLY when they are dealing with women who are "caught in the act" of educating themselves, expressing ideas, and working diligently towards career and self-fulfillment goals -- something University women should be doing most of the time, regardless of their rank.
The last time someone told me to smile, I scowled at them and said, "My mother just got murdered, asswipe."
So, bitchph.d, I'd reccomend it. He turned white.
I have an example of a type of sexism in the academy that has not been addressed on this board. (And again I refer to my recent re-undergrad years. I assume that the sexism existed my first time around, too, but that I just didn't notice it as much.)
I took a 12-week summer course in sociology. It was an introductory sociology and technology course taught by a woman ABD. She structured that class so that for the first six weeks of the course we studied sociology from a "standard" male perspective, and the second six weeks we studied the same issues from a feminist perspective. By week eight of the course, many of the male students had walked out during a lecture, or had simply stopped attending class. They stated that they felt abused by being forced to study an issue from a woman's p.o.v., and that women should "understand that equality will take time, and stop making such a fuss about it." The entitlement issue that was exposed in those men during that class astounded me. I also experienced great frustration in my own inability to get them to understand that women are taught nearly every discipline from a predominantly male perspective all their lives, and that six weeks of studying women's scholarship could hardly be considered abusive to men, unless those first six weeks were also abusive to the women in the class. I also suspect that the men in the class would not have felt entitled to walk out on a lecture had the same course been taught by a male ABD, but I can't prove that.
Yes, I'm a woman. Yes, I'm appalled....mostly by the institutionalized crap that apparently goes unopposed.
Yes, I've been raped. Of course I didn't report it, since I let him into my apartment and talked to him in friendly fashion before he started doing things and ignoring the fact that I was telling him to stop. (His word against mine, right?)
I was treated like a four-year-old child by my "father" for most of my life, and of course he said it was my fault that we "couldn't get along", because if I just took what he handed out and came crawling back for more like a whipped puppy, everything would have been hunky-dory. Instead I have disowned him. (I took my husband's name mainly to be shed of my father's, and now that the divorce is final, I've taken my mother's maiden name as my surname.)
1) an incredibly dirty look; (2) a very arch "excuse me?!?" uttered in that Miss Manners tone that clearly means "fuck off"; (3) to the "it can't be that bad!" folks, "how would you know?" and (4) a lie: "I've (or "my mother") just been diagnosed with cancer, thank you very much."
5) "Sure. Just let me imagine you getting hit by a dumptruck." [followed by closed eyes, with a brilliant smile following a second later.]
But I have found a use for the fact that I'm homely as a mud fence
Ron, you are such a braggart.
my first hygiene teacher, in intermediate school (so I was, I think, twelve)
him, to the class: basically breasts are important because they have lots of nerve endings
me: you can also feed babies with them
[class: fidgets. that part made them uncomfortable. they were fine with the statement preceding]
him (clearly annoyed): oh, yeah, that.
One factor which bothers me tremendously is still the internalization of sexism; I tell the old "Father brings his son to the ER, surgeon comes in and says 'I can't operate on my son!'" story and there is simply no gender difference in how many folks figure out that the surgeon's his mom.
Anyways.
Turn to today's (Sunday, 8/7) "Non Sequitur" comic in the newspaper for a depiction of misogyny in the corporate context. For those of you who do not get the comic in your Sunday funnies, log onto the WASHINGTON POST; complete a quick, free registration; and then go to the comics.
there was the time that the man behind the counter at a convienence store asked, "don't you have a smile for me today?" No, I didn't have a smile because I had spent the night on a cold floor because I had missed the last train back to my house. No I didn't have a smile for him because I had to walk in the 40 degree weather in a thin skirt and shirt for 20 minutes without a coat. No, I'm not going to smile for you because I am not here to make your day better by being some barbie doll. That really kicked my feminism into gear because I knew that he would never ask a guy in a suit that question.
there was the time I was on the train with some friends and I had my feet on the seat. the conductor told me to take them off or put them in my male friend's lap because "he would really like it."
I am very very overweight which because of beauty standards and my own emotional issues made it more difficult for me to feel beautiful or sexy. Despite being 100 and some pounds overweight I still get cat calls, people trying to get me into their cars and show them my breasts. I am currently trying to lose weight mostly to be healthier and partially to be more attractive(it makes me cringe to write that) but if there is anything that makes me scared to be thinner is that there will be even more men gawking, licking their lips and treating me like a pussy with legs.
I remember traveling to Europe one summer during college and meeting and traveling with a dear friend who had spent the academic year at a university in southern France. She told me that, based on her experiences traveling around Europe a little, some young men from predominantly muslim countries would consider a young woman traveling alone as insane, or insanely promiscuous. Some such men would at times either offer to help, or make sexual advances. But the concept of an independent young woman, a single and alone woman, was supposedly so foreign to them as to be incomprehensible, except as aberrant, except as a slut, as a woman asking for it, as a woman unprotected. As such she was glad to have me as a jerk repellant, despite the fact that I was a jerk too.
Later I spent some time working in Saudi Arabia. I was disgusted with the, to me, blatant and extreme sexism. The inferiority of women's position in that society. The blatant and violent enforcement of men's superior position in that society.
Back in the states, it is harder for me to spot, sometimes, but it is clear to see we are not so different. The lone woman gets cat calls. She is walking without a man. She must be available. She is asking for it. She is either slutty or bitchy, so whether she appreciates the cat call, or resents it, either way she deserves it.
And this is not to say I can play holier than the next jerk. Parts of what goes on in my head are not always good or right. I remember walking behind a woman on campus at night when I must have been around 20. I realized that she was aware of me, that she did not know who I was, that she was altering her pace to try to shake me. That she thought I was stalking her. That I wasn't was irrelevant, it gave me a sick thrill, the kind I suppose the director intends the (male) audience to feel in those killer point-of-view horror movie scenes. I would not have felt that way, I am sure, had she been a man. I knew then how wrong that all was, but it didn't stop the thrill of it.
I do not know what makes this possible in the oppressors, culture or genes, or just being a jerk. What makes people think women are inferior to men? That they are sexually subjugatees? It is unacceptable. It is sick. And, it is widespread in the USA and in the world. Our cultures should counteract this type of behavior to a far greater extent than they do.
well, as someone who spent the first half of her life as an object of derision by men and boys because I was poor, wierd (i liked to read and I was smart) & 'ugly' and the second half objectified for my beauty and body, I have felt both ends of the sexism spectrum... once when I was about 16, I babysat for a single father with two children... he ended up letting me go because, as he confided to a male friend in my building, he couldn't trust himself around me... I always wondered what he was going to do when his daughter got older... When I was in high school, instead of being teased for hanging out with the geeky crowd, I mostly heard blonde jokes (which I freakin hate!!) The father of my kids (whom I have not been with for years now) told me he didn't want me to go to college because he didn't want all the guys looking at me!! oh and the classic statement used by a man ... It's not that I don't trust you honey, it's that I don't trust them...*argh* when I was a kid my aunt's abusive boyfriend told childrens aid that he walked in on my grandmother fondling me (who was staying with them at the time) so not only did he humiliate both my grandmother and aunt with the resulting police and social worker questioning but I *also* had to visit social workers who had no interest in helping me with my real problems, they just wanted to hear if my grandma touched me... It makes me mad and a little sick to really think about it sometimes... and sadly, I don't feel better knowing that I'm not the only one... in this case, it makes me madder, damn it!!
I couldn't resist commenting again after reading Mr. B's comment.
I lived in Paris when I was 22, and 5 out of 7 days a week, arab men would walk up to me and grab my tits or my ass.
One time a female friend and I were crossing the street and 2 North African men peddling new papers cornered us between 2 parked cars and grabbed our tits. They laughted maniacally as they walked away.
The first time it ever happened to me was New Years Eve 1995 and we were on the Champs Elysees. Packs of arab men were walking in the opposite direction to everyone else & they were just randomly grabbing women's tits and asses. I turned around and punched one guy in the kidneys after he grabbed my tits & he came after me & punched me hard in the face. After that, when these men sexually assulted me, I just walked away. I learned that night that women are worth less than dirt to these men and they won't tolerate a woman fighting back.
This was a NEAR DAILY OCCURENCE for 6 months. I guess because I looked American, these men felt entitled to grope me.
I hope the abundance of academic horror stories is cuz of who reads and posts at this blog, and not because the academy is always especially heinous.
smartalek | Email | Homepage | 08.06.05 - 10:20 pm
Smartalek, why would who reads and comments at this blog represent people who are *more* likely to encounter sexism in the academy? ...
bitchphd | Email | Homepage | 08.06.05 - 11:10 pm | #
My take on it was that if there were more academic readers posting here, and if we assume that misogyny is spread evenly across society (which I'm not sure is, in fact), there would as a result be more examples of academic misogyny than non-academic, giving a skewed impression that it's worse inside the academy.
fwiw
Just before I turned 13, I was raped by a bunch of boys at my school. I think I spoke to the vice-principal about it -- a lot of the details are fuzzy; it was about 15 years ago now -- and complained, many days after the fact.
*I* got detention, for 'causing trouble': nothing happened to the boys. I'd been harrassed at school for a while before that, which also hadn't been taken seriously, but wthout the detention, and I had half-wished that something worse would happen so that it would be taken seriously. I'm still not entirely capable of not blaming myself.
Rana, I think you're right, and I was reading (and responding) in too much of a rush. I owe Smartalek an apology.
No name, I remember getting groped in the halls in 7th grade. My girlfriend that I was with at the time said merely "oh those boys always do that." I said, "should we tell the principal?" And she said, "no, they wouldn't do anything."
I also had the experience of being groped in middle school nearly every day. They would grab my ass and sometimes my crotch. Sometimes it happened right in front of the teacher, during class. No teacher ever did anything and I had no idea that I shouldn't have put up with that kind of thing. This was shortly before the phrase "sexual harrassment" became widely used because of the Anita Hill case.
I think we can agree that some things are worse than others, but at some level this becomes very subjective. Within our own cultures, within our own institutions, we are all somewhat blinded by the status quo which we are often told is an ideal lack of sexism, or practically close to it. It is very easy to look at other cultures, other institutions, and say gotcha, what "they" do to women is really bad. And sure, some cases are indisputable: executions for adultery, lack of the vote, lack of property rights, lack of human rights (as in husbands may legally beat wives). But here in the Western World, in our culture, we are numbed against seeing sexism because (1) it is harder to be objective about ourselves, and (2) we think we've got it so good here : "You've come a long way Baby" 
and all that. Given this, I'm not sure whether one could really be sure a whether sexism is worse at Walmart, in the Universities, in banks, or within NASCAR, the Democratic party or whatever. Now comparing these different institutions and what sexism, if any, one could find in each probably has some real value, but I think that would have to be done by professional sociologists to be worthwhile. But in general, and for the layperson, given the subjective and varied nature of the institutions, aand the cultures and subcultures therein, what does it really matter that one person may think sexism is more prevalent in banks than in schools? I think about how the good Doctor talks about abstracting sexism (or the ideal lack thereof). I think that if we were to compare sexism in the academy to some other societal institution we'd be engaging in abstractions to the point of meaninglessness. What matters more to me is that all people be more informed and that they treat this as a problem to be confronted wherever they find it.
I was working at a company and we got a new manager, old colleague and presumably friend of our division's vice president. This guy was going to examine our processes, work to make us more efficient ("we" were lower level managers). So, I was in a meeting, chaired by a woman colleague of mine, and the new guy was there. He generally acted as if the the woman in charge was insignificant. He would address me instead of her, and it was her deal. I boiled. He basically railroaded the meeting. Afterwards, I talked to the woman about it. I said "I can't believe how he treated you in there." She agreed that yeah it was pretty bad, but what could we do. She felt that by complaining we'd only make waves that would hurt us, especially her. Later that week we heard from another woman colleague that he had grabbed her from behind after sneaking up on her in her office. She really felt that the "good old boys" in upper management wouldn't like to hear her complaining and she feared being the only complainer. I said I would complain too, and thereby both women felt that they could make their complaints with less fear of repercussions. HR got three complaints against the sexist behavior of the new old-guy in 24 hours. He was fired the next day. I sorta felt both like I was the little bit extra that tipped the scales, but then, I also felt that if I as a man had not sided with these women, their complaints might not have even been made, and if they had been, they may not have been taken as seriously. So the sexist jerk got fired, but the system that may have required a man's input to take sexism seriously, remained.
Whether that workplace was worse than another, or one on the other side of the world seems less important than the fact that sexism was there and to some degree remained there. Imho every little bit of sexism in any part of our society contributes to a pervasive generally subconsciously perceived and continually reinforced inequality. Many people feel they can treat women as inferiors and that women deserve it. I see it as contributing to the extent and frequency of extreme violence against women as well as generally enforcing a second-class status, especially by its making the victim of discrimination or worse seem to be the deserving instigator, the complaining bitch.
I also feel that the person doing the discrimination almost always feels that they are not being sexist, that they are, rather, judging a woman based specifically on the faults they perceive in her (as a woman), rather than some bias against all women.
"there was the time that the man behind the counter at a convienence store asked, "don't you have a smile for me today?""
God, yes, it's even worse when the person who is offended that you aren't all sunshine and light is also someone who is actually paid to be pleasant themselves. The ticket taker at the local theatre did this to me the other day. I just frowned harder at him.
Having had rude customers myself, I do sympathise with other people retail when they feel as though they are being treated as undeserving of common courtesy. However, I'm also not the most social person in the world either, so having to smile at people all day isn't always easy. It's nice when customers bother to acknowledge me by looking at my face* but I don't expect them to be gushing with good cheer.
*ahem, my aunt's mother once failed to realize that I was the one ringing her purchases up because she never bothered to actually look at the nonentity that was working the cash register.
Well, apparently they will do lots of things, just not things that involve getting the boys who are just being boys into trouble or doing anything to stop it. I mean, the girl will not end up doing much, so why bother? Among the things which happened, pre-assault, was groping, and the teachers saw it, because it happened *all the time*.
On a much less obnoxious example, I had a friend who was urged by the career counsellor (at an all-girl school) to become a hairdresser, because "she has such beautiful hair".
Well, apparently they will do lots of things, just not things that involve getting the boys who are just being boys into trouble or doing anything to stop it. I mean, the girl will not end up doing much, so why bother? Among the things which happened, pre-assault, was groping, and the teachers saw it, because it happened *all the time*.
On a much less obnoxious example, I had a friend who was urged by the career counsellor (at an all-girl school) to become a hairdresser, because "she has such beautiful hair".
The last time I was told to smile on the street, it was worded as: you can smile. I nearly said yes, and I can also knee you in the groin, but how about I do neither?
It's all subtle and insidious. I get told to smile, and most of the time I do, because it's easier than fighting, because it seems appropriate. Which exacerbates the problem, since if telling women to smile *works* . . .
But in another sense, I think it also contributes to my tendency to keep how I feel about things hidden, to keep fake face on through any sorts of misery. And this is not healthy, for anyone.
I believe TM, because I've seen similar things happen. I've seen high school girls committed and told that they needed to learn what they did to cause boys at their high schools to rape them (the boys were not punished). At the time I was committed because I had chosen to report a sexual assault and the perpetrator claimed that I was suffering from false memory syndrome, and that my report was the result of psychotic delusion. He chose my psychiatrist, who agreed. To add insult to injury I was told that this psychosis was the result of not embracing my femininity, and that when I chose to do so, and act like a girl, then I would no longer be psychotic.
Since then I've met several women and former women who have told me similar stories or have told me about psychiatrists and other professionals who went as far as to sexually assault them (sometimes with the help of others, including parents and orderlies) in order to help them accept their gender or other 'therapeutic' goals.
(Not about a born-female, but about a child who was assigned the gender after a circumcision accident, As Nature Made Him details an example of such 'therapeutic' sexual assault, where the psychiatrist/therapist uses the child's twin brother to mimic copulation with his twin in order to get 'her' to accept 'her' gender. Oddly, while I've read much debate about this book this particular aspect of it is almost never mentioned)
And this is another one of those places where different oppressions collide. Those who have had the misfortune of being labled with psychiatric diagnoses (particularly 'severe' ones. It's less of an issue with depression and a few other, more 'socially acceptable' diagnoses), regardless of the details of the diagnosis, are more likely to be mistreated and *much* more likely to be ignored when they attempt to report mistreatment. In fact, if no one attempts to claim that I am either psychotic or making things up because I have issues, I'll be surprised.
The only defense I have against such charges is that I have lived for ten years since escaping hospital, psychiatrist and perpetrator. I have been examined by several psychiatrists since (at my choosing) and have been assured that I have no psychotic nor personality disorders whatsoever, nor in that ten years have I evidenced any signs of psychosis.
But girls and women, in particular, are at greater risk from psychiatry than men. They are more likely to have physical causes of distress overlooked in favor of psychiatric diagnoses, psych meds (like all meds) are tested on men first and then the results 'generalized' to women, so they are more likely to have adverse reactions to medications and when they complain of adverse reactions they are more likely to be ignored by psychiatrists as exaggerating or being 'hysterical'.
And of course, a century after Freud decided that his eighteen patients with memories of childhood incest must have made it up, since sexual abuse of girls could not possibly be so widespread, there are still psychiatrists, therapists and other mental health professionals who are willing to work on making girls and women 'admit' that their reports of abuse and rape were lies or that they brought the abuse and rape upon themselves.
On a less horrific, more everyday note, because I haven't seen it commented upon yet: Clothing.
Women and men in the work world are expected to conform to dress codes, but they are not generally expected to conform to the same dress code. Even when the official, written dress code says the dress code is the same, in many places the unofficial dress code, the one that decides who gets hired, fired and promoted, is still different. I have personally been told that I was not hired because I chose to come to an interview in grey dress slacks, a man's dress shirt a tie and jacket, at a company whose written policy claimed no gender distinctions in dress code.
And regardless of whether the job is blue or white collar, regardless of what the actual dress code is, there are several common traits that disadvantage women.
Ease of movement/safety: Don't tell me that a long, full cut skirt is easy to move in. I know. I used to staff fight in them. But long, full cut skirts are generally not career or work wear. In fact, wearing them can get you attention from your boss that you'd rather not have. I personally have been accused of, amoung other things, being an evangelical christian and a prude, which I'm not but even if I were it would not particularly affect my ability to fix computers. Computers aren't interested in my religion, my sexual openess or lack thereof. Some bosses, OTOH... Appropriate skirts are generally shorter (knee length, more or less) and less full cut. Ones ability to run away from danger (say, if accosted in the parking lot or walking home from work) in such is very much impeded. While pants are much better for this, there are still workplaces in which they are not allowed or are looked down upon, affecting raises, promotions, hirings and firings.
The expected shoes also often disadvantage women. Heels are certainly difficult to walk in and nearly impossible to run in. Flats are often not much better, thus making women an even easier target.
Health:
Heeled shoes and flat dress shoes without appropriate support take their toll on feet and legs. It's much easier to find men's dress or work shoes with appropriate support than women's dress shoes or work shoes with appropriate support. As a female born/appearing person who refuses to wear heels I am still surprised at how often this is overtly used as a tick against me and can only wonder how often it is non-overtly noticed.
Nylon hose can cause yeast infections in susceptible women, even if cotton underwear is worn underneath them. This is another item of clothing that, because I did not wear it, I was denied a job and this was admitted to me by the interviewer, as well. This occured at a completely different company than suit incident described above.
Makeup is often also non-negotiable, and to my surprise apparently the ADA does *not* apply if you refuse to wear makeup because it gives you hives and eczema. Sure, I can special order pure mineral makeup that would not give me hives and eczema (we think, I still haven't tried it) but why is it that important? (I'll get to that in a second, actually.)
Quality:
Women's ready made clothing, on the whole, is of lower quality than men's. Men's clothing is more likely to be made of natural fibers (which generally look good and last as fabric longer than synthetics), is more sturdily made and stitched and usually lasts longer.
The same is true of men's and women's shoes. One very concrete example I can offer: through my teens I bought reebok classic hightops, the women's version. They tended to last six months to a year before the sole either peeled or broke off (or both) and I replaced them (yes, I'm boring, but no one blinks when my father does this with his shoes) with the same thing. Then I started shopping on the men's side of the store, and buying the men's version of the same reebok classic hightops. The difference in the way they are made is pretty obvious to begin with -- the sole on the men's version wraps around the sides, whereas the women's version stops where the bottom meets the sides. And the men's version lasts me two to three years instead. The very last pair I bought I have made last four years (through the copious application of shoe goo to the hole I have worn through the bottom of the shoe) because I've been having difficulty finding a replacement, but the sole still hasn't peeled off the way the women's version would do in less than a year.
A trip to the shoe store will show that this generalizes to most women's and men's shoes.
Price:
Despite being of lower quality, women's clothes are more expensive, overall, than men's clothing. This is true even if all you are in the market for is a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and continues to be true through high end suits and in the middle as well. Not only that, but a man can get generally get away with buying fewer clothes. As long as he is clean and neat and appropriately dressed, no one will pay attention to whether he wore those pants or that shirt (or even that tie) yesterday or last week. People often will notice these things about a woman, and will judge her for it. So she's expected to buy more clothing, at a lower quality and higher price than her male counterpart.
Also, nylons are notoriously fragile, often only lasting a few wearings, and sold at a ridiculous markup.
In addition, makeup is not cheap either. And a woman's haircut is almost always more than a man's (sometimes as much as twice as much) even if her hair is the same length and styled as a man's. Ditto dry cleaning for blouses. Even very plain blouses will cost two or three times as much to dry clean because the buttons are on the other side. I have twice gotten in arguments with dry cleaners who wished to charge the blouse price for men's shirts because they were *worn* by a woman. Once I lost, the next time I invented a boyfriend to whom the shirts belonged, or so I claimed.
Time:
Shopping for clothes takes time and contrary to stereotypes, not all women love shopping and even those who do may not find necessary shopping to be fun in the way that recreational shopping might be. Women must spend more time shopping for work/career clothing because they are required to have more clothing and because their clothes, being less well made, are likely to wear out and require replacement more quickly. Caring for synthetic or less sturdily made clothing that requires handwashing (finding men's clothing that requires handwashing is difficult. Finding women's clothing that does *not* require handwashing can be similarly difficult) takes time. Nylons, s
(oh, that's the cutoff length..continued)
Nylons, stockings/tights and bras pretty much have to be handwashed, if you want them to survive very long at all, so that takes time as well. Men are not required to spend as much time on clothing aquisition and care as women are.
Women are also expected to spend more time on grooming activities, including several that men are not expected to do at all, such as eyebrow tweezing, leg shaving (yes, it takes longer than shaving one's face and is pretty much required if one wears nylons. It is possible to get away without it with dark opaque stockings, or maybe light ones if there is not much contrast between the color of one's hair and one's skin), putting on makeup (ten minutes every morning adds up), and styling one's hair.
So dress codes favor men, and women are expected to spend more time and money on clothing, makeup, shoes and accessories (something which I'm sure could be worked into this rant if I could figure how they were supposed to work at all). Every day. And people rarely notice this in any manner.
Wow, that was a long rant. Blame Ginmar, she pointed me here.
^^^ My only disagreement is that I have on regular occasion sprinted two blocks to catch a bus in stiletto boots. It makes a big difference that they are boots. And I happen to like heels, but that's just me. I'm used to them and I think I walk faster in them. I absolutely agree that if someone ~doesn't~ like them and finds them uncomfortable, she should be expected to wear them.
I absolutely DESPISE nylons and WILL NOT WEAR THEM.
Anon, do they actually expect you to wear foundation? Or just to give the appearance that you're wearing make-up? How can they really tell? I personally WILL NOT wear foundation or lipstick.
Anon - the argument about women's clothing is that "women don't keep their clothing as long, you're always buying new stuff to stay in fashion, so why should it be made the same quality as men's?"
IOW, it's not discrimination, it's just the free market/common sense.
At which point I usually point out that then it shouldn't cost as much let alone more, should it, if it's cheaper made and they sell more of it, AND that it's a tautology - you have to buy new clothes faster if they're made worse and wear out - and this is why many of us, who need sturdy clothes, shop in the mens/boys department - and get inarticulate shuffling from the guys defending this, who don't want to admit that The System is stacked in their favor...
("stacked", huhhuhuh, she said "stacked"!)
In my province there is a male politician who has noticed these discrepencies in pricing (for drycleaning, haircuts, etc.) and has proposed a bill that will make such price gouging illegal... now this is all well and good and I applaud the effort but I honestly think that if a woman politician initiated the same bill she would be seen as bitching and/or whinging and it would be ignored... I just don't have the energy to convince myself that I am just being cynical today...sigh
I want to thank Mr. B for his comment. One problem I often have is that I fail to recognize blatant sexism and misogyny because I *can't* believe that the man in question *really knows* how he is making me feel, and that it must be down to his insensitivity. You know, that inherently male inablitity to empathize with other human beings.
But, turns out, that of course I'm being an idiot. Usually, he's a smart guy, and he DOES know he's making me uncomfortable/scared/pissed/or thrown off. Thats WHY he does it.
ARG.
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be overwise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!
Paul Laurence Dunbar, African-American writer, 1872-1906
i've carried that poem around since high school, long before i admitted I was a feminist, as describing my own sense of what it was to be female in our culture...shuck and jive, smile and nod, and never, ever make the boss men feel threatened, or there'd be hell to pay one way or another.
What Anon said about the clothes reminded me of one of my early summer jobs. I was working as a stockroom clerk at one of those discount clothing stores, a job that involves a lot of bending, lifting, wheeling racks around, etc. But, because I was young and female, the managers considered me as a back-up for the changing room attendant and had me be the person bringing the racks onto the floor. This meant that I had to dress like the floor clerks. In nice clothes and nylons. For a physically demanding job for which all of the other people (men and women) in the stockroom wore t-shirts and jeans.
I blew through about ten pairs of cheapo nylons a week while I was working there, and boy did I resent it! (I was "lucky" in that I was able to wear flats instead of heels. Can you imagine lifting 30 pounds of sweaters and polo shirts over and over, wearing heels?!)
On the other hand - not to defend jerks - a lot of men are so emotionally shellshocked at end of a work day, all they want to do is crawl away into a hole and lick their wounds. Really. There are some things which don't get better the more you talk them out.
I'm not saying that wives should be waiting at the door with a martini and a beatific smile, but a little realism is in order. You really want to hear about how his boss belittled him in front of the entire office that afternoon, for the umpteenth time? And really - if you marry a CPA, don't expect the most emotionally aware of husbands...
hi Kevin--i've read all the posts, perhaps I missed one. What are you responding to? The "smile" thread?
Sorry if I've overlooked something.
Part of me sort of wishes that this was a joke, but somehow I don't think so:
http://minneapolis.craigslist.or...w/
89644890.html
Certainly seems like an example of misogyny in everyday life to me.
WH -
You know, I don't know what's scarier, the fact that a guy would actually think he'd get responses to that, that he'd consider that reasonable, or that the possibility exists (however remote) that he would actually get responses.
I sincerely hope it's a 'joke' post *shudder*
I'd say, at least the guy is letting you know what you'd be in for in advance. There are folks who like it like that, of course. Most i know, however, would probably draw the line at the "no intellectual life" bit.
i agree w/curious girl, at least he's honest - all too many women have found out, after they said "I do" that this is what they were promising to love, honour and obey...that's what the guy meant but would never state outright (sometimes not even to himself) by saying he wanted a "traditional" family. Including women I know personally some of whom are divorced now others still in abusive relationships.
i've also met guys who wanted to get itno such a relationship with *me*, only one of whom I was able to push to admtting that what he wanted was not a wife, but a slave...
This happened to come out yesterday:
http://www.ucomics.com/nonsequit...tur/2005/08/07/
(Sorry about the ads...I read it in the actual newspaper).
It's a bit late for me to follow-up to the response to my comment but I think this was a very good point:
The computer program isn't a distraction from the "real" injustices we should "really" be concerned with. It makes socially acceptable (because it's just funny, right? ha ha) the idea that lies at the base of TM's trauma, and Sydney's horror, and the job loss Sarah in Chicago reported.
Someone else mentioned the "broken windows" theory which is also spot on. It's not that the computer program which sparked this discussion is "harmless" - it's just that there are many, many examples of small things like it, and thankfully fewer examples (though still far too many) of the more aggressive, pernicious sexism that we have seen. It's probably a power law distro. And sometimes the small things are what pile up and are most upsetting.
When some mook gives the wolf whistle or the "smile" comment and receives a reaction out of proportion to his action, he doesn't get schooled by that, but instead can label the woman as a "hysterical bitch" or similar, and remain confident that what he did wasn't so bad. He didn't see the ten other times that it happened that week, or that she was passed up earlier that year for a promotion because she didn't dress sexy or dressed too sexy or whatever...
Nakitsura ni hachi, as the French say.
Re: Smile for me baby comments
I always knew it infuriated me to the point of murderous rage when a man said this to me on the street, I never got precisely what about it (other than the presumptiousness of the commenter that I need to smile for him) that was that made me want to punch Mister Smile fo' Me Baby until I read this passage from Anna Fels' book Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives(p.134)
"Smiling conveys a reassuring message of accommodation to others; it is the facial equivalent of speaking softly and tentatively in order to appear pliant. Animal ethnography has raised the startling possibility that frequent smiling may actually serve as a stereotyped gesture of subordination. Studies of rhesus monkeys foudn that when nondominant monkeys worry about an attack by a dominant animal, they convey their nonthreatening, subordinate status by lowering their bodies to appear shorter and smiling--an expression known as the "fear grin."
The "command" to smile is reminiscent the alpha baboon demanding that the weak baboon present its ass in submission. I never knew this was the case, but since we are all primates, I guess it fits.
Are some men really so insecure that they need deference and submission from some random woman on the street who looks a little bit crabby? How strange.
RE Jack's post, above: Are some men really so insecure that they need deference and submission from some random woman on the street who looks a little bit crabby? How strange.
Thanks, that was funny!
As for misogyny, here's my favorite from my own life.
I was 22, managing a retail electronics store with the word "shack" in it's name. A misogynistic man (MM) walks in, and I ask if I can help him. His reply - "No, you won't know what I need. Is there a man here?" Stunned, I point to one of the two associates I had hired a week earlier. (Really nice man, but electronic parts sales were not his strong suit.)MM says "I've got this fuse, see here (holding it up) and I need to replace it. It's different, because it's got these two tits on it, see?" Sales associate smartly says, "I have no idea if we have that or not, you should talk to my manager" and points to me. MM, not embarassed in the least, comes over to me looking annoyed for having to ask the question again, and repeats the "fuse-with-tits" question. My reply - "Sir, I am sure we don't carry that fuse". MM says "How can you be positive?" I say "I am positive that I am the only item in this store with "tits" and we will NOT be able to help you today". MM finally gets that he may have offended me, looks at Sales Associate for backup (who gives him a "dumbass, you should not have said that" look) and turns and leaves the store.
And that was at the electronics store. It just got better when I moved into management in the "intimate apparel" leg of retail. Ahh, those are good stories!
Thanks for the great post and blog. Just started reading, and already feel a kinship with many!
Stacey
I remember walking behind a woman on campus at night when I must have been around 20. I realized that she was aware of me, that she did not know who I was, that she was altering her pace to try to shake me.
I'm always at a loss as to what to do when this kind of thing happens. There's a hiking-bicycle path between where I park and the train station, and in winter, it's dark when I get there, usually around 6:30-7. It's by no means deserted, but there is a bit of a street crime problem in the neighborhood. And once or twice a month I'll find myself walking relatively briskly (my normal pace) ten yards behind a woman, and I'll notice that she's doing that "looking behind her very slightly with peripheral vision trying not to look alarmed" thing.
My default is to drop back a bit, which sucks when it's raining and in many cases doesn't seem to make the person any less nervous. Sometimes I just hurry up and pass, which might make for ten seconds of increased alarm on her part but at least it's over when I pass. Once, without really thinking it through, I noticed the person ahead of me look back slightly nervously and I just waved and said "harmless." Fortunately, that woman just laughed and said "phew," and then we chatted for the next block or so. But starting a conversation is certainly going to be a bad idea a lot of the time.
I suppose I could take the objective viewpoint, which is to say that my presence as a witness and a male makes the woman significantly less likely to be confronted or attacked, regardless of whether she knows I'm safe. But I hate making people feel that way. Absolutely hate it.
Chris, I think the answer is what you've already said: slow down, stop to tie your shoe, cross the street. If the weather sucks and there's no overhang to stand under for a minute or two while you pause, then do like you did: smile, wave, say "hi" or "harmless." You could do like the guy on the subway with Sarah did: turn the overture into an opportunity to say, "hi, I'm sure you're fine on your own but I'll feel better if I just walk with you because sometimes there's a bit of a street crime problem in this neighborhood." If the woman says "piss off," then hey, you can always say "ok, sorry to have bothered you" and walk on. But I know that, like you, I usually feel better when someone who I've decided is harmless is also there on the street with me after dark: a witness is a good thing to have. Not being afraid is good, too. Surely it can't be too hard to strike up a conversation and take care of both problems at the same time.
“I say "I am positive that I am the only item in this store with "tits" and we will NOT be able to help you today".”
Stacey that is awesome! If only I could think of such clever rebukes when confronted by complete idiots!
But thinking of that makes me wonder- has anyone here ever tried to explain to a friend or family member about how a sexist and misogynistic remark and then received a “well why didn’t you say something about it/quit” response? Because I remember telling a peer about my ex-boss’s sexist behavior and all I got was “well you should just quit”. And that was so frustrating to hear and I siad “no shit sherlock, I would love to quit but my finances (or lack thereof) don’t really permit me to”. And then I was told that I have to learn how to deal with the situation if I was choosing to stay in that environment. So by the end of the conversation, it was my fault for putting myself in a situation where I would be the target of sexist behavior. It took me a while to understand that it really wasn’t my fault because I couldn’t quit- it was his fault for being an asshole.
Surely it can't be too hard to strike up a conversation and take care of both problems at the same time.
It's never hard for me to strike up a conversation. I'm just reluctant to annoy people. I mean, aside from commenting on their blogs.
But you're probably right. I suppose I can risk being told to "piss off" as partial reparations for the male privilege I enjoy every day.
Complicating things is the fact that I'm usually walking along listening to owls, watching the stars, mentally composing my next blog entry, etc., and I don't notice people around me until I've already been walking twenty feet behind someone for a couple dozen yards.
And wouldn't it be nice if the women on the path could safely do the same.
Well, this won't make you feel better, but it might put things in perspective: you're *already* annoying her simply by walking on the same path at night (which, of course, isn't your fault). In saying something like "nice night" or "did you hear that owl" or "hi, I'm not a stalker, I'm just headed for X destination" you're not being annoying--you're being reassuring.
I guess it's kind of "payment for male priviilege," but I'd think of it more as the flip side of male privilege: the women are "paying" by being afraid, and you're "paying" by "having" to reassure them (and maybe deal with hostility as a not-unusual fear response). It's not so much quid pro quo as just, well, that's the way it is, and it sucks.
Re: differing prices.
At some point in my college career, one of the businesses across the street from the small women's college I attended was replaced with a dry cleaners. The price list only listed "dress shirts" not "men's dress shirts" and "women's blouses" and in general was pretty evenly priced. We all thought it was great, and pretty funny (and logical) considering it's location.
Here is an example of misogyny that caused me to terminate a friendship. This might be a lengthy but I don’t know how else to relate this story.
I knew this guy who I was cool with despite his insistence on being a die-hard republican. He liked to debate me on various issues and one day he mentioned sexual harassment. Now, he knows my position on issues concerning women and knows that I’m very well informed so he shouldn’t try to bullshit. But that day he decided to be an ass and began to construct an argument about how sexual harassment was in the eye of the beholder and how he had been sexually harassed more often by gay men then most women ever were by men. Mind you, this guy is the kind of guy that absolutely screams “avoid at all cost” to my gay male friends. So I basically called bullshit, and proceeded to explain to him the many blatant and subtle ways women experience sexual harassment. He then argued that the only people who experienced the types of incidents which I was describing were “hot chicks” and since most women weren’t “hot chicks” I was blowing matters out of proportion. My response was, ‘leaving aside the utter stupidity in that argument, I have personally been sexually harassed in many of the manners which I’ve described to you.’ His response? “Come on, no one would ever harass or attack you- you’re as big as most guys and face it, most guys won’t mess with black girls.” Well my size (and he was alluding to the fact that I’m 5’11) has not stopped me from being attacked before, and you can check here for how I feel about the idea that most guys won’t mess with black girls. Both points just reeked to me of sexism and completely exasperated me. The worse part of this is that he told this to me as if it were a compliment- as if he hadn’t just implied that I a) wasn’t sexy and b)incorrectly assumed that my race gave me some sort of protection against harassment. I honestly didn’t quite know what to say except, “we’re done.” And I haven’t spoken to him since.
What I find is that the sexism and misogyny that I face is frequently mixed up with racism. People use my race to slip in sexist comments which I’m supposed to just laugh about. They assume I won’t take offense because I prefer not to lash out with an angry response and instead patiently explain how they screwed up. But I’m starting to think that maybe I should lost the patience and start lashing out because I get so tired of getting the “your fellow black girl” and the “most guys won’t mess with black girls” comments.
Sidney,
I wish I could say I was astonished by your ex-friend's stupidity. Unfortunately, I've seen/heard enough people make ridiculous comments like that, thinking it's a compliment.
Well, this won't make you feel better
Actually, it's a very helpful point. Thanks.
I'm coming to this late... but how about going to the professional meeting in your field, and the first thing someone asks you is: "When are you going to have a baby?" And then asks you that every time you see them...
If I had a bat, I would have used it.
Sidney,
OK, I tried to be brief, but it seems that's not a talent of mine. I'm absolutely certain that racism and sexism are inextricably linked, and your ex-friend's comments just managed to efficiently express both racism and sexism in one neat little idiocy combo. Whether intending to express racism, sexism, or both, the tendency is to attack in terms of sexuality. Either the people to be denegrated are asexual, or hypersexual -- whichever best serves the argument at hand.
As far as height is concerned, I have been asked by women friends if it's "hard finding a man when you're so tall." Considering that I was thoroughly convinced that boys had cooties the last time I could be classified as either short or average, I don't feel qualified to give an answer to that. Still, the possibility that I might be able to physically fight back has not eliminated the threat of sexual harrassment from my life.
Sweden recently made it illegal to have different prices for haircuts based on gender - I think it's in compliance with EU sexual discrimination law.
I remember going into a music store, looking for a new needle and/or pickup for my record player. I'm a 22-year-old woman. I was told to go downstairs, and stood there for fifteen minutes while an employee bantered with a battered middle-aged man. He never acknowledged me. Finally, he said "Ok, well, let's get this all upstairs", walked past me, looked me straight in the eye and kept walking.
He had no idea what I was there to buy. Had I, for instance, been planning on investing in thousands of dollars' worth of studio equipment, he would have been out a hefty commission. Even a simple "I'll be right back" would have made me feel less like a bimbo.
You know what I hate even more than the people who don't see misogyny and sexism and patriarchy? The people who say there is no such system, pattern or structure and use one individual or event as proof. "There isn't a patriarchy because I [a woman] was made president of my ping-pong club." (True story.)
On the walking behind someone on a dark street thing, my preference is for that person to cross the street and move ahead of me. That way I'm not made anxious by the quickening steps behind me (I'm about to be attacked!) nor the lingering trailing (I'm being stalked!) and I'll be able to keep an eye on the person and whether or not they are watching me.
I hate that I think this way, but, as I realized one night while watching yet another of my favorite crime dramas, that there's a very good reason I feel this way. In all those shows, and in much of the media, women are prey.
Over and over again you see this message: women are prey. Women will be hunted and raped and killed, and it is because they are women, and women are prey.
It's like the sick adult version of what I remembered from the books I read as a kid; you could either identify with the boring wimpy girl characters, or with the bold, funny, adventurous boys. Watching these shows, I realized, my "choice" is to either identify with the victim, or to adopt the viewpoint of the predator or the people hunting that person in turn. That the "good guys" frequently include women does not negate the repeated message: women are prey.
Even the ones with guns, or Ph.D.s, or strong friends.
This is part of the reason why I can't watch horror movies.
>>I'm coming to this late... but how about going to the professional meeting in your field, and the first thing someone asks you is: "When are you going to have a baby?" And then asks you that every time you see them... >>
Well, you could use some of the suggestions I've heard for when some clue-challenged stranger asks that question of large women.
"Nothing in the works yet, but hell: the night is young!"
"Oh, my God, right now! I think my water just broke!"
And then there's the Miss Manners All-Purpose: "Why do you want to know?"
There was a terrifying article in Entertainment Weekly (of all places!) a couple of weeks back about the upcoming crop of fall police procedurals. Apparently, a sizable number of them deal with gruesome, sadistic crimes against women. The article acknowledged the violence in shows like Law & Order and CSI, but described these new shows as different: whereas in the L & O/ CSI franchises, the violence occurs briefly, either before the cops show up on the scene or in flashback, these new ones focus on the occurrence of the crimes. And they described plotlines like a man raping a woman who was slowly dying after he had released venomous spiders all over her body. What. The. Fuck.
The studio executives' explanations? 1) Aw, shucks, but the bad guys get caught in the end, so this is really empowering, ladies!, and 2) Ever since Janet Jackson showed a nipple on television, we can't show sexy stuff, so this is the only way we can get skin into our programming. (Because people are only offended by sex when women are getting off instead of getting horribly punished, I guess)
I shit you not. A friend of mine saved this article for me, since I don't watch a lot of television, and she knew that the outrage would keep me going for weeks.
I read the same article, Erin and had the same reaction. I'm just surprised that Entertainment Weekly wrote an article about misogyny in crime dramas.
The article's author, Jennifer Armstrong, seemed like she wasn't buying the network execs excuses either as she says, "In a dismal attempt at humor, exec producer Mark Gordon (of the upcoming show Criminal Minds which features the women with the spiders all over her) later joked, 'There was actually a mandate from the network saying "We want only shows that perpetrate violence against women" We're just trying to get on the air." Cute.
I wonder if Jennifer Armstrong was fired after writing this article which actually expressed dismay at graphic violence against women?
I also would prefer to have a guy walk in front of me, if I were nervous on a dark street; I have also been de-nervousfied by someone who started whistling, so I could tell he was still well back. He could have been covering the approach of an accomplice, of course, but that didn't seem really likely.
I think I'd usually distrust someone who wanted to talk to me.
About smile!dammit; I cut my eyes at the person and straighten out my posture, which must be Basic Primate for 'not inferior to you, dude'. I try to look tiredly tolerant rather than sneery as I do it, so's to not turn it into a fight.
Erin, I wrote EW a letter about that article, praising them for bringing attention to the issue. I mentioned that I never watch these shows and don't plan to for precisely the reasons in the article.
Sorry, I refreshed and there were more comments I hadn't read.
I wonder if Jennifer Armstrong was fired after writing this article which actually expressed dismay at graphic violence against women?
I wouldn't think so; they greenlighted the article, after all. Execs might not like it, and it stuck out in my memory, but I don't see it as a firing offense.
Rana - that's exactly what inspired Joss Whedon to come up with Buffy...
bellatrys, you've just refrenced my favorite t.v. show of all time, and I must thank you for it! I was in high school when Buffy came out and grew up, if you will, with the show. It gave me a love of seeing ass- kicking woman and in a lot of ways provided a positive female rolemodel.
I also would like to point to ALIAS and the character of Sydney Bristow who also is a strong woman who dosen't take shit and marches to the beat of her own drummer. J.J. Abrams is a writer who was strongly influenced by a strong mother and wife and wanted to write a show which reflected this.
sorry for the aside here, but any mention of Buffy or ALIAS sends me into super geek mode.....
Sydney, you were in HIGH SCHOOL when Buffy came out???
Good lord you're a youngun.
hehehe- yeah, I know. CLass of 2000!
Actually, I was a high school freshman the first season of Buffy (where she was a sophomore. So I literally went through high school at the same damm time as she did.
My friends joke that right when Buffy ended, I was able to graduate to a much more 'mature' show in ALIAS!
I was in tenth grade. I remember how shocked everyone was that a show about hot teenagers battling supernatural forces could succeed. I didn't actually start watching it until I hit college, though.
Everyone here already knows about Television Without Pity, right?
Class of 2000? Wait, then maybe I was a ninth-grader, too. I remember her being older than me, but that might just have been because the actress is what, thirty?
On the other hand - not to defend jerks - a lot of men are so emotionally shellshocked at end of a work day, all they want to do is crawl away into a hole and lick their wounds.
Kevin M--I totally understand this because THAT'S HOW I FEEL!!! How come no one ever expects me to come home to a hot hubby with a pretty smile and a martini?
(Aside from the fact that I'm between husbands at the moment and don't drink).
Not quite, but close - Sarah Michelle Gellar is 28 - like me.
Which means she probably graduated from high school a year before the show started.
I always had that feeling about high school/college shows and movies thoughout high school and college too. The characters always seemed like they were older than me rather than my age because the actors were always at least two years older then their character.
piny, Sarah Michelle Gellar was 18 during the 1st year of Buffy.
Jenny, I totally get what you were saying. I think what allowed me to see Buffy and crew as being the same age as me was that I was dating a guy who was 18 at the time and he & his friends looked and acted like members of the buffy crew. Then again you had Willow who honestly looked like she was 16 at times....
Sydney, that sounds like grounds for a sexual discrimination lawsuit (hostile workplace), which are of the law I'm fairly sure they must at least touch on in law school. How do some of these clowns ever pass the bar?
Oh, and my sexual harrasment story? I'm working at a company that decides to put all management staff through sexual harrassment training. So about 25 of us sit through a 3 hour training. Within a couple of months one of the guys who was in the training has 4 separate sexual harrassment charges filed against him (this in a company with only 150 employees). 2 weeks later he gets a promotion. The guy who promoted him also sat through the training.
RE : Random guys demanding that women smile.
When I was 21 I had a guy come up to me in a train station and say "smile, it might never happen!". I had just heard that my mother's breast cancer had moved into the terminal phase and that she had at most 2 weeks to live, and I was on my way to see her so I could say goodbye. My response?
"It already did".
Sydney, there are a *lot* of Buffyfen in progressive politics! Most of us cross over with other fandoms (sometimes literally) and in fact my first awareness of the same-sex marriage debate came through these Buffy and Hercules fans posting a call to freep the American Family Association poll!
Speaking of the smiling thing, that's very interesting putting it not only as a dominance ploy, but as a specific sort of social animal dominance behavior, demanding an established submissive behavior in a facial grimace. Unconscious pre-hominid ancestral memes?
Now, here's the thing: ISTR adults demanding children smile, in school and at family events, both boys and girls. Again, fits the demand-for-submission by a dominant pack animal elder model.
Now, have any guys here had the experience in childhood? Then, have any of you had it *since* childhood, and what were the circumstances? (Man or woman, stranger/acquaintance, peer or boss/elder) because I don't think it's impossible that it happens, but we can see it's much rarer, and it would be interesting to figure out the power dynamics, and if possible how much of it is tied into conventional beauty standards, only applied to women.
BritGrirl- Oh, it definitely was grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit, but he deliberately hires legal clerks who are applying to law school and need a letter of rec from him. See, he has a “good reputation” so his letters will take you far. So what usually happens is that female clerks either quit early or they ride it out, get their LOR, and never contact the bastard again. It’s an ugly system and I sometimes wish I had the strength to tell him to his face that he was a sexist bastard, but I never did.
Bellatrys- that crossover link was pretty awesome. One of these days I’m going to write about how Buffy is a model for feminist conscious raising, but I don’t want to de-rail this thread too much.
In terms of the demand for smiles, I think that we demand a smile from others to reinforce our own personal feelings of security. Yes, I definitely agree that there is a strong sexist element in that women are expected to smile far more frequently than men, but I would also argue that from a societal standpoint we’re all trained to think that smiles mean personal security. In other words, we feel more in control of our surroundings because a smile indicates that everything is okay and we don’t have to interpret the possible meanings (or dangers) behind a grimace or scowl.
This being said, I still think its bullshit to feel so entitled to your personal security needs that you actually tell someone to smile to make you feel better. And I also think that asking (or demanding) a smile from someone is an act which agent groups (like men) are much more likely to do because of their privilege.
Just thought I’d add my piece on the smile bit.
I don't usually run into a lot of misogyny, but tp://leofrankowski.com/content/?
q=why_i_came_to_russia
showed up on my friends list as an example of the author's obnoxiousness.
I usually post under my name, but I'd rather not for this one: the fellow on the street who said "Your titties are lopsided". This did not improve my day, and excuse me if I don't want people checking to see whether they're all that lopsided.
And on the recent list: I mentioned female self-defense courses to a male friend, and he said they weren't very good because they put too much emphasis on kicking to the groin. It took five or six repetitions of the fact that I'd taken such a course and it had little or nothing (it's been a while) about groin kicks for it to register with him that I was saying something.
As for being told to smile and/or cheer up: it hasn't happened to me for quite a while, but when it did, I'd snap at the person. (Sorry, can't remember what I'd say.) Then I'd see their face fall and feel better immediately. While I'm not entirely happy with myself that I can be made happy by hurting someone's feelings, I reassure myself that they *did* want me to feel better.
Re. "smile" at children: yes, boys get it. I was once taking PK to his classroom when one of the teachers passed us in the hall and said, v. casual, "how are you?" and PK, who was feeling very cranky that day and didn't want to go to school, said, "not very well, actually" and she said, "oh well, it'll get better I'm sure. Smile!"
PK said, after she'd passed, that she had been very rude, and I agreed with him. But it made me start noticing how very often adults *do* do that to little kids--if the child is unhappy, grownups will blow off its feelings ("oh, it's not that bad"). Think about how people get *angry* when a baby cries. Sure the sound is annoying, but the anger seems more extreme than what one gets with an annoying sound--say, construction in the street. It's as if they're *personally offended* that the baby is unhappy.
Just btw about the "smile" thing: There was a pretty big thread about just that over at Etiquette Hell, q.v., and people said pretty much the predictable things -- including lots of women saying things that have been said here. (I myself remember talking about the subject with fellow feminists in the '70s.) And lots of men and some women expressing surprise that it might be offensive.
One dreary sniffer came out with the remark that he was just trying to brighten someone's day, that people feel better when smiling, some such stuff.
As it was an etiquette forum, I donned the Miss Manners Mask and instructed him that the way to elicit a smile as, opposed to take the opportunity to give a command, is to smile first. I believe that might even be news to some clueless arguers on the topic.
About the following-in-the-dark problem: If one's in a hurry, a simple "Excuse me, coming through here" would be useful, and possibly more effective than trying to strike up a convo.
I propose a "Tell Men to Smile Day"... not only would it perhaps give them a clue but maybe it might also empower us a little *and* we get to taste the heady ambrosia of entitlement that most men sip at every day... *disclaimer: while I rarely tell people to smile, I prefer to smile at them and (since I am in a service industry) greet them courteously because I want them to go away feeling like they had a positive experience, when I do tell someone, I am an equal opportunity teller but just with my friends... although I do tell my kids (boy and girl)to smile and these posts have really made me think about why I do... and I think that it has more to do with my own insecurities (i.e. if they aren't smiling, they are not happy and therefore I am a bad mother) than me wanting to dominate them... but from now on, I think that I will think twice before doing it again...
Unnamed, a much worse (and larger) site in a similar vein is AmericanWomenSuck, which is all about how feminism has 'ruined' women by making them all uppity.
I wanted to say thank you to those of you who supported me, and believed my story. It's most assuredly apprieciated.
When ever they have told me to smile, I grimace at them and keep going. I don't have time to waste arguing a sensless point. (or a more senseless idiot really). I don't ask or demand anyone to smile, but I smile first, encourage them to do the same.
Hell, Now that I think about it.. I have never told my kids to smile. Ever. Their feelings are as valid as mine are, and I have snapped at people, teachers, etc telling my girls to smile. (now that I actually think about it)...
I suppose I should admit that from my life's experiences, (being bullied, teased, beat up in school, and raped) I don't make friends well at all. However, I have NO fear what so ever around strangers. This includes when I walk at night in the dark. (regardless of where I am going).
I refuse to be afraid, and the discussion here and someone mentioned that tv shows and society tells women that they are prey, and need to be afraid. It was a sub-conscious decision when I was a teenager, I refused to be afraid. It follows me in my relationships with people. I tread where angels fear to go. I refuse to be cowed by someone's decision that I am beneath them for what ever reason.
Of course this thinking has made my life a living hell. And when I say hell I mean hell, My parents, my lost friends. My ex-husband, and Finding a career.
An anon was talking about "clothes" and the descrimination there of, and I related so closely to that it wasn't funny. I graduated with my degree, and was hired on at a v. Conservative Architectural firm. I ended up training every architect (all male) on how to use Autocad. They were predominantly hand drafters, so my addition to the company at the time, was hansome. Though I was paid measely just being out of school.
For the entire time I worked there, every day my boss would call me into his office and give me the discourse of the day. "Your clothes are not approprieate for this environment." I would reply at first, I am sorry, what can I do to change it. He would never answer me.
After 4 years of listening to this. I recieved an offer to work for another company making alot more then I was there, and they seemed to really like me. So I gave the offer of employment to my boss, and asked if I was still important enough to their company to keep me on? (they had 4 female drafters now, and 1 female architect). Obviously he said no. so I put in my two weeks notice.
It was the 2 weeks notice that got me to really see the bad in his singling me out the entire time I worked there. He didn't talk to me once after my notice was in. But my parents helped me out, and bought me a good 3500.00 worth of clothes over that 4 years I worked there. Not one outfit was "approprieate" even an outfit that was shared by one other female in the department.
And no, I would not wear dresses, skirts of any kind. And I will tell you why.
Men made them, not women. They were made way back when to allow easy access for sex. And I refuse to leave myself an open invitation to sex. When ever I wear pants, I do not recieve the same cat calls. NOR do I get the attention that happens when I put on a dress.
I use to think I was very unattractive. Now I just say I am more mature. But the thing is, I can't deny I am beautiful. I put on a dress, even a damn Wedding Dress. And the "Wolves" come out of the wood work, and hound me. I am followed where ever I go, I am ostrasized by my own gender in the work place. I am made to stick out like a sore thumb. This observation when I was around 23 or so, was enough to convince me that dresses/skirts were NOT made for women to look nice. Nope.. They ARE a man's way of controling you and your "sexual" gateway.
My mom doesn't get it, and no one I have met has ever gotten it. I doubt anyone would. I am called on my beliefs, and well, I just tell them. Do the experiement yourself and you will see.
So, I experienced every discrimination that "anon" mentioned with clothes, make up, and jewelery, shoes, panty hose. AND including my Hair. (as I buzzed it off one time, and got fired)
I have been with out a permenant job now for 8 years. I work in computers. I have gotten plenty of "temp" work. But every resume I send in, gets me a phone call, and an interview. But once they meet me. I don't fit the bill for their "buisness".. 8 years .. Would be nice to get a perm job and have some security.. But I guess I need some help from someone to teach me how to be a woman in a man's world.
TM
Here's one: at my husband's family reunion a very new, 17-yr-old mom decided to go for a swim with her cousins and her baby's 17-yr-old father. It was 95 deg in the shade and she took off her shirt to jump in the creek in a sports bra, and the boy/father said, loudly enough for all the cousins to hear, "Shit, put your shirt back on - we don't want to see your stretch marks!" I admit I don't know if I would have said anything, but her 15-yr-old cousin lit into him so thoroughly and articulately I immediately made her my hero.
Another one: when I was in high school we played a very short season of what was called Powder Puff football, but was actually the real deal with tackling and pads and all. All who played were required to be a member of Future Homemakers of America. Huh?
To get to public transportation, I walk past a homeless shelter where guys tend to hang out on the front stoop in the morning. Last week was particularly bad [see below] -- I hate it when I forget my burqa at the dry cleaners.
MON: "Hey, baby, those are some LEEEEGS you got there!" [Me: Oh, fuck, THAT's what those are! It's not just a second set of arms. I knew there was a different word.]
TUES: "You got wet hair. You just got out of the shower, huh baby? You remind me of all the crazy things I've done in showers..."
WEDS: "Why you ain't smilin', baby?"
THURS: "Hey there, princess." [At which point the princess, without breaking a stride and without looking at those fucking wastes of space, gives the misogynist fuckwits on the stoop the finger. And completely shuts them the fuck up.]
Can't help perpetrating another stereotype--but I run into the most mysoginistic crap with service/repair men; plumbers, auto mechanics, HVAC, computer techs (my own field), you name it. The ratio of mysoginists to non-mysoginists in these fields is about 4:1 in my experience. I don't know whether it is just because I'm a woman or whether it is just because I'm a blond woman that I'm assumed to be mechanically impaired and clueless by repair men, so I am interested in hearing others' experiences.
I won't detail the 50+ examples, just one of my favorites: I hired a plumber to do some work under my house in the crawl space. After leading him to the trap-door in my deck which accesses the crawl space, he loudly exclaimed, "Lady, you can't get under your house from here!" To which I replied, "It's how I've always gotten under my house. But if you'd like to search for some other way, go for it." He was completely dumbfounded that:
1) I knew anything about my own house other than the location of the kitchen, laundry and bedroom.
2) I had actually been in my own crawlspace.
How unladylike of me!
I'm not a generous smiler. Here are three responses I use depending on my bitch index for that day:
1. "Why should I smile at you? You're not very funny." Variation: "Well, ok, you are kinda funny."
2. I bare my teeth. The average response to this is "oooooh,oknevermind"
3. I ignore what was said and silently look the offender up and down from head to toe like they've just arrived from another universe.
I've noticed that "pretty" people, men and women, are always surprised, often offended, and sometimes scared when I don't smile back at them. Makes me think that they're too used to using their appearance to manipulate others.
Oh, and here's another one. Mary, thanks for reminding me.
If Dr. Tully Monster calls to have something repaired or delivered or sprayed, for which someone needs to be at home, usually they set a reasonable window for him, like late in the afternoon. If *I* call, they are a lot more vague. "Well--sometime during the hours of eight to five." If I am proactive and say, "Can you make it noon? That's when I take my lunch and I can arrange to come home then," they say, surprised, "Oh, you work outside the home then?"
It's 2005. We live in a university town. I may be a silly little inconsequential female, but I am months away from a Ph.D. I work, thank you very much, and--get this--I don't even *have* children to stay home and take care of. Just where do they think they are--Provo, Utah? Words cannot capture how irritated this makes me.
TM,
Useful, practical book that might help you: Betty Leman Harrigan, Games Mother Never Taught You. Been around since the mid-1970s and still seems to me to be mostly relevant, particularly for the descriptions of jaw-dropping mental mind games played by men in the corporate world. Oh, whoever it was who said upthread that men are entirely at the whim of their hormones ALL THE TIME instead of a few days a month wasn't kidding. The executive who went off on his wife because she IRONED his shirts instead of sending them to the dry-cleaner, making him the object of derision at work...priceless. I don't know which part was more ridiculous, that they laughed at him, or that he took it out on his wife. (She divorced the jerkwad.) Anyways, most of her advice still holds true, I've found. One suggestion: get a well-cut jacket and wear it to interviews, meetings, any time you need to give an impression of authority. It's your "mantle." Don't ever be caught looking feminine if you want to be taken seriously. I never wear jewelry to work, or feminine-looking prints, no matter how conservative. Yeah, I sometimes feel like I'm buying in to the whole misogyny racket, but it's a matter of professional survival.
Late to the party, but I wanted to share my own sexism-at-the-workplace experiences:
1. In the late '80s/early '90s, I worked as a reporter at a small weekly newspaper. The editor in chief was not thrilled when the company put in a voice mail system in place of a switchboard. When he went to lunch, therefore, he asked the person whose desk was closest to his to answer his phone. Unfortunately, that was me. I can't help but think that if a man had been sitting in my place, the Big Boss would have called on the nearest woman to answer his goddamned phone when he went out to lunch. (Even if he had to go across the room to do it.)
2. Lots of people who wanted to get something in the paper dropped in on Big Boss. If they couldn't find his desk, of course they'd ask me where he was. (I think Big Boss liked that visitors thought he rated an admin assistant.) What particularly galled me was being handed a letter to the editor by a self-styled local progressive who "asked" me, "You'll make sure he gets this, right?" I should have smiled vacantly, nodded, and then dropped it into my trash.
3. Big Boss overheard my casual lunch conversation with a coworker about a class I was taking at a local gym. By way of (I thought) innocuous conversation, he asked me, "Oh, you work out at (local gym)? What class are you taking?" When I told him, Big Boss replied, "What do you wear? I bet you'd look good in a thong." As a sympathetic male coworker said later that day, "I don't know how you got through the rest of the day without going home to wash off the slime."
Have to disagree, Dr. B - if a guy walking behind me at night (=potential stalker)started talking to me, that would totally freak me out. Especially if they said something like "look at that owl." that would make me think, 'great, not only am I being stalked, I;m being stalked by a crazy person.'
I agree with the poster who said that the most considerate thing for a man to do is cross the street so the woman can see him, and then speed up and pass her. If he is concerned for her safety, and I really appreciate men who are, he can stay a few paces ahead of her, on the other side of the street.
I think a good proof of the inequality of our society is that I often can't experience a simple freedom that a man usually can - the freedom to walk down a street after dark without fear.
WRT: "Smile girl!" comments - I always just say, deadpan, "I only smile for people I like." Sometimes I add a huge, sarcastic smile for extra. That usually confounds them and then they go away.
As a pretty sheltered 18 year old, I really hope I never have to experience anything like some of these stories in the comments. It's really quite scary.
I'm one of the lucky ones, I think, in that I've had two strongly feminist parents and been to an all-girls school that prides itself in teaching its pupils to be confident and articulate. It was very much linked to the women's suffrage movement and they didn't let us forget it -- which I'm very grateful for, because it's given me a lot of confidence in myself. I can only admire all those women here who've had to put up with so much crap, especially institutional sexism.
Reading all the discussions on the "smile, love" phenomenon was definitely an eye-opener. I'm always quite happy to ignore guys who catcall me or ask me to smile, and usually only get cross when they decide to insult me for not paying any attention to them, but thinking about the subconscious messages of smiling puts it in another light.
Thanks for reminding me why I'm a feminist.
Next time some idiot tells me sexism doesn't exist anymore, I can tell them this story: how some guy who I flipped the finger to for almost running me over felt the need to pull over, get out and tell me he should "fuck me up the ass" for it. Only in much cruder terms, if that's possible. Scared the hell out of me. It's not just some random nutjob, but misogyny that fits into a bigger picture.
This is the first time I've visited this blog, but I'll definitely be coming again.
Yet another one: I was at the dentist, mouth full of dental instruments, unable to talk and generally scared. I thought the dentist said something to me, so I said "huh?", to which he replied "no, I didn't talk to you, so you just shut up and be sexy!" followed by a stupid little laugh.
Not like there aren't enough examples posted here already, but it is cathartic to vent:
The summer after college, I spent a few weeks in DC finishing a research project with my thesis advisor, who was at the NSF for the year. She got me a temporary office, which I shared with two grad students. Bigwig NSF administrator (male) stops by my second day there and says he's been wondering about the beautiful young lady (me), since my name isn't on the door yet. Not 'what do you work on', or who with - remember, this *is* the NSF after all. Can you imagine this with the genders of participants reversed?
Second year in PhD program at "big Mid-Western almost-Ivy League university, as I believe somebody called it above. I'm considering taking a year's leave of absence to consider whether academia is really for me and what my career might look like if I were to return to my native country after I complete my degree. Famous male professor's take on this: "If you take the leave of absence, you'll just have married and have children and never come back." No comment necessary.
i think this is every day misogyny- have you ever noticed that people always ask women how they do it- have a career AND have children, but no one ever asks men this? women and men should start to ask men this. women in my field always ask higher-up women this question. some men trying to kiss ass also ask the higher-up women this question.
michele,
your story about your boss putting his hand on your stomach and saying you were having his baby makes ME want to puke and i'm not pregnant. i hate that you can only think of the perfect comment later. there should be a name for "the perfect comment thought of later".
val,
i have had the same experience with strange men on the street (never women) telling me, "Smile!" or randomly commenting on my expression. it's really fricking weird. usually i was just thinking about something and, i guess, frowning. or not smiling. i only realized later that the appropriate response is, f- you!
"As a pretty sheltered 18 year old, I really hope I never have to experience anything like some of these stories in the comments. It's really quite scary."
Leonie--
I identify with your fear, there. I also grew up with feminist, doting parents, and was raised to be tough, smart and loudmouthed.
I unconciously thought of sexism as something to happened to other people, without my fortunate background. You know, those poor silly dears. Women.
That was until I got raped by a friend/comrade in college. The thing itself was bad enough, but I also suddeny came to realization that *I* was a woman, which meant whatever I do, I'm operating a system set up to make life harder for me and undermine my basic humanity. It came as a big shock.
I'm not sure what the proper way for parents to handle this is. When you are raising girl children, or black children, or something, do you tell them in advance that the deck is stacked against them? How do you parent-types think about this?
Curious girl, my parents raised me with the information that yes, the cards are stacked against you. They told me that people aren’t going to want to listen to you or respect you because you are black and because you are a woman. You’re just going to have to demand that you’re heard. I think they made the right decision in telling me this. I didn’t grow up with a chip on my shoulder so much as an awareness about the potential motives of others. I’m not a mother but if I have a child, I will be sure to tell them the same things my parents told me. Hopefully I’ll be able to help them find effective ways to spot and fight prejudice.
Came upon this blog pretty late. Most of your stories are downright awful and a few are funny in retrospect. I too have a story to share.
I'm hoping to defend my second Master's degree (Math; the first one was in Physics) within the next month. I also play classical piano and read voraciously.
My friend L. lives in a dilapidated part of town. One of her neighbors gives me the creeps - he fits the "person of interest" profile to a T. I've met him near L's place maybe twice and both times I barely nodded to him, as I always feel so uncomfortable around him.
One sunny day this past June, I hear a "hi" as I walk past a building. I see a construction guy and as I can't recognize him, don't return the greeting.
A few weeks later, I meet the creepy neigbor at L's. He tells me "I said hi to you but you walked on like a good girl."
OK, I know I look young for my age but at 42 I don't need to be told that I'm a "good girl". More than that, I do not need to be so openly judged by a man like Mr.Creepy Neighbor.
So his "hi" was not a greeting (as it is meant to be) but a TEST to see whether or not I'm a "good girl"??
just my thoughts on all the "sorry I'm late to this" posts--I was really excited when Dr B posted this to the "best" section. I hope comments will keep trickling in. I think there has been some great discussion that could contine a bit!
So don't be sorry.
There are a couple true example here, but many are plain laughable. (Is laughing at women's ridiculous interruptation of an event Mysogonistic? I guess it is if she says it is, right.)
Here's another "example", most here are whiny, self-important and insipid, trying in every way possible to out-vicitim the next.
Women have turned vicitimization into
an art-form. The battle of the sexes has been won, by the loudest, most whiny, and least rational.
i hate that you can only think of the perfect comment later. there should be a name for "the perfect comment thought of later".
There is, thanks to the French. It's l'esprit d'escalier. It's literally translated as "the wit of the staircase."
Thank you, John Doe, for your contributions to this topic. And for spelling even more poorly than I do.
I'm always confounded as to how to respond to the catcallers, who infuriate me to no end. I can 1) ignore them. But I feel that by not challenging them, it is giving them permission to continue to harrass women. 2) Respond with a "f*** you", etc. Btu seeing as how this will only elicit laughter and more harassment...3)??? Shoot them down? I wish.
I hate how I can only feel safe with my boyfriend by my side. No matter what, I am still dependent on a man to ward off other men.
Sometimes when I get catcalled, I get so angry that I cry and call my bf and bare my soul to him....I make sure to point out the male privilege he possesses.
When I walk down the street, I am not seen as a human being. And its disgusting that these men probably have daughters my age.
I am sorry to say that I haven't known the situation to be quite as bad at any workplace in India. If Indian women heard the kind of comments I have seen here from their boss, the boss's ass would be toast. I did actually witness one physical bashing-up of one such boss, and it was well-deserved. The thing is, if a woman DOES start beating up a man, accusing him of abusing her, the people stand and watch and the man is.....well, laughed at for eternity.....
I'm not saying that it is better, but just that I am appalled that you guys have to put up with this nonsense. If I were in your place, I would slap the sexist/racist bastards, regardless, and then claim I was PMSing, just for kicks.....
Yesterday I was sexually assaulted by a man who asked me directions in a Tube statio, in full view of two male station staff. The man grabbed me and tried to kiss me and grabbed my breasts violently. I struggled and got away and the man fled. At no point did the station staff intervene. After it was over, I looked straight at them and they wouldn't meet my eyes.
Fuck that. I went to the next station - where I was meeting my husband anyway - and told a member of staff there, who was sympathetic and took me to his supervisor, who in turn called the police. I gave a statement to a police officer, who said that they would go over the CCTV tapes from that part of the station and see if they could apprehend the guy.
Sure, I wasn't raped, but I was assaulted and you damn well better believe I reported it. And I've sent a blistering letter to TFL complaining about the staff members who watched and did nothing while a person was assaulted on their watch.
But I still feel dirty and violated. Ugh.
Once my boss was complaining about the fact that one of our associates did not make it to the fed ex drop off station on time one evening, and asserted that he didn't "care if she had to fuck her way all the way to the station, she should've gotten it there!" Then, when telling his brother (my other boss) that he needed to be more effective in trying to find an insurance agent for the business, he compared searching for an agent in the phone book to "going up to bitches in a club: will you fuck me? no. bye! will you fuck me? no. bye!"
I just read this thread today. Wouldn't you know it that this would be the day that I get a sexist comment form a colleague. I won the office 50/50 raffle yesterday. He was congratulating me on the win. I told him that I made sure to do something frivolous with it - I bought a DVD. "What?," he exclaimed."You should have gone to a salon!" This is the same guy who wouldn't speak to me for a month when I scored higher than he did on the Professional Geologist Licensing exam, even though he went to an Ivy League university, and I'm a mere state schooler. Fortunately, he's the only guy at work I have any trouble with - my supervisor is the greatest.
A trivial tale, I suppose, though I certainly identify with the women's clothing thing. Thank goodness I get to dress casually for work!
this is a fascinating and disturbing thread, i hope it keeps going despite being so long. thank you to everyone who has posted their experiences.
it is reassuring to see so many people angry about something that has always bothered me, the "come on, smile" thing. that always made me mad but i wasn't sure exactly why and now i know.
daisy says:
I'm always confounded as to how to respond to the catcallers, who infuriate me to no end. I can 1) ignore them. But I feel that by not challenging them, it is giving them permission to continue to harrass women. 2) Respond with a "f*** you", etc. Btu seeing as how this will only elicit laughter and more harassment...
yes, exactly! recently as i was walking down the street in the middle of the day, a middle-aged guy in a pickup made loud kissing noises and muttered some things at me. i usually just ignore that stuff, but it irritated me so after looking over to make sure it was me he was harassing, i yelled fuck you and gave him the finger over my shoulder as i walked away. he then laughed at me with a loud, evil, maniacal laughter that left me almost shaking in impotent rage. he was obviously showing me who was in control of the situation. every time i think about it i get so angry. i think it is better to just ignore, so they don't get the satisfaction of seeing you react.
One of my many stories of institutionalized misogyny: Just before grad school I was hired as an assistant editor for an engineering consulting firm. Their product was a report which naturally had to be well edited. The main editor was a man who had an inner office. The rest of the men were mechanical engineers, all of them with post docs, who were all given offices with windows. Naturally, being female, I was put in the "bullpen" (what a misnormer) in the center of the building. It was a general public area with quite a bit of noise. After a few months of this, I went in one day to see my immediate superior, who had been shoving most of the work off on me while he told jokes in his inner office. I told him that it was too noisy out in the main area and that I would appreciate being assigned an office where I could close the door and edit in peace. He appeared to be speechless in response to my perfectly reasonable request. (Of course, I had noticed other signs of rampant sexism there, so I knew the twit would be flustered.) After lunch he called me back in and told me that actually, my title had just been changed to assistant editor/secretary, so I would have to stay in the main area to serve as secretary to one of the partners, who was very old but whose name still drew in business. I saw what they were up to in assigning me this guy. He didn't really need a secretary so I would still be free to edit everything, but that way I'd have to stay in the bullpen. One day, I decided to go into his sumptous office and ask him if he wanted coffee (my ironic gesture was totally lost on everyone but me). He didn't need any coffee, but he started talking to me. I soon realized he was lonely, about ready to retire, and just wanted someone to listen to him. I closed the door to his office, sat back, relaxed, and let him talk away. Soon, through the glass panel, I saw the editor start to pace back and forth, obviously anxious that I should get back to editing. Well, the old guy thought I was simply charming and I spent many an hours listening to stories of his most interesting life. There wasn't anything my boss could do except take over the editing, most of which he should have been doing anyway. It shows how entrenched the sexism was that rather than give me a quiet place where I could get loads of work done for them, they would rather I keep the ridiculous title of secretary to this senior partner so they could deny me the "status" of an office. I couldn't wait to go to grad school, where another type of sexism was waiting for me. But that's another story and I'm tired.
In response to the woman who wrote about workman and salesmen who didn't want to talk to them, that drives me crazy too. At the time of my divorce, one of my best friends was a real estate agent. She claims that men really hate for women to own real property of their own, and the experiences that came to me after I owned my own home proved her right. I once received a telephone call from a salesman from Sears who wanted to speak to my husband about getting the house reroofed. As it happened, I was going to have to get a new roof so I said, "There's no husband here, but you can talk to me." He said he'd call back later and maybe he'd be home. The
nitwit lost a big commission. About two hours later, some friends had dropped by and the phone rang. It was the roof salesman wanting to know if it would be a long before my husband came home. I told him yes, it would be a very long time and hung up. In a few minutes, he called AGAIN. "I forgot to get a specific time from you," he said. "Can you give me a definite time when your husband will be home?" I couldn't believe it. I said, "You just don't get it do you? How about this? My husband is dead!" There was a pause while, I think, he got it, then he said, "Well, I guess he won't be home anytime soon, will he?" I said, "Not before the sale ends" and hung up. Meanwhile, my friends were laughing their asses off. Sorry, I got carried away, and I have more stories to tell than time to tell them, but I'd like to say that I loved reading these comments because I realized how many really smart, wonderful women there are at there. By the way, my daughter is months away from getting her Ph.D in a science at an ivy league school and has seen so much discrimination. A lot of it has gone underground, of course, where it festers nonetheless. I teach at a college and those of us who are tenured make a point of getting on hiring committees for the sake of the many women out there who deserve the positions they are not getting.
^^^ Meg, now that you mention it, I had an experience like your phone call from the roofer as well. I don't know who this call was from, but an older sounding man called me and asked for Mr. (my last name). I told him nicely "there is no Mr. (my last name)", then he just said very impatiently, "MAAM, I asked for MISTER (my last name)". I just told him he had the wrong number after that and he stopped calling. Whoever he was, and I'm constantly having repairs done and getting quotes for this and that, he lost the job!
Another time, shortly after buying my house, I was at Sears with my father, shopping for a power drill. He started chatting with some guy in the aisles about what kind to get and when I spoke up, the random guy said to my father, as if I weren't there, and with complete shock, "Is SHE going to use it????".
One other experience, which actually turned out to be convenient, was when insurance salesmen came to my door and asked me if my parents were home. I was 23 at the time. I simply told them "no".
P.S. Meg, I'm also working on a phd in science at an ivy... probably not the same as you daughters? My department actually has a very nice atmosphere, despite the fact that there are few women...
Now that you mention it, Val, my comment was probably too general to have much meaning. My daughter's department isn't as bad as some of the others, and the women seem to be getting jobs. My daughter has had to be more proactive about getting help from her advisor (while it seems to be much easier for her male counterpart), which I can see has made her stronger, but she has related stories of discrimination she has heard from others. She's in epi and health science, and the women seem to be getting good jobs in the real world. The usual stories occur about tenure denied to women. A male colleague in the biology department where I teach here in California told me the sexism is as bad as it ever was, but it is hidden now that it's against the law. I definitely see that my daughter's generation is receiving more respect. As more women reach levels where they can make some of the decisions, surely they will make it easier for those coming up. Hurray for progress. Meg
My mother asked me to drop Physics because "it was my brother's thing" and my higher grades were making him feel bad.
Want more? I'm late to the dance, but I have a good one...
Bossman from my past - tech company - openly admitted he paid higher salaries to men because "they head up families and would steal from me if I didn't pay them enough".
Now, don't choke on this next part... but when he did hire females, he preferred those with unemployed/lazy husbands or even single mothers. Why? Because they needed that weekly paycheck so badly they couldn't walk out.
I worked for that ass for eight years (yeah, single working mother with limited options). I left him in my dust and now make six times what he paid me.
I just found this thread yesterday, and have just finished reading all these comments. Now most of the things that have happened to me seem like nothing compared to what you all have gone through.
I am 15 years old. I get catcalls when I'm walking down the road from teenage guys and even jacka**es that are probably 60-something years old and it really pisses me off. The only two things I can think of to do is give them the finger or just ignore them.
I also have people in my family who seem to think that I can't do different things or protect myself because I'm a girl. Like when my mom bought a bunch of mulch for our garden and my uncle used his truck to pick it up for us. When he drove it all back to our house, I had both my aunt and uncle telling me that I should let 'the guys' take care of it. Which meant that my 16 year old brother and my uncle were the only ones there that could lift a 50 pound bag of mulch from the truck. I think it really surprised them when I picked up a bag like it was nothing and put it in the pile by the driveway. I kept going until we had unloaded it all. Just because I'm a 5'4" girl does not mean I am incapable of lifting anything.
I have also mentioned to my family that I intend on joining the Marines, the FBI, or the police department. They think I should do something safer, like being a lawyer, doctor, secretary, etc. I am not saying that those are bad jobs, but it's just not what I want. Now I can tell you that if it was one of my brothers that had said that, they would have been all for it.
I'm ranting here so I'll just stop now. And thank you all for some good ideas on comebacks I can use.
I'm shocked at some of the personal experiences that I've read here, shocked and horrified. My own experiences seem nothing in comparison, but they have bothered me nonetheless.
A friend and I (we're both in our final year of school and are allowed to leave campus) had gone to the local supermarket to buy some lunch - in our private school uniforms and blazers. We were pondering over some of the bakery stuff - fingerbuns, if I remember correctly - when a fifties-ish man leered at us and said, "that'll make you fat, girlies" and then proceeded to wink and smirk at us until we left the store. Neither of us knew what to do, but in hindsight a good hand gesture might have been appropriate.
I was walking my three year old cousin to the shops when a young-ish man approached me and proceeded to lecture me on the selfishness of being a teenager mother. He said that I was, quote, "probably really happy to have a kid, 'cause now you'd have money from the government, right?" He then asked me had I tricked my boyfriend into getting me pregnant, and commented that he supposed that "the money I got for that brat [gesturing to my young cousin] wasn't enough, so I got myself pregnant again."
FYI, I am neither overweight nor pregnant nor have I ever been.
Eslyssa.
Oh, and on the whole 'smile' thing? It bugs me, too. Majorly.
Having been treated for a severe and debilitating depression (I'm still on meds, but things are looking up) I got a lot of that. So many times when someone found out I was on meds for depression, they would make a comment to the effect of, "Tou're being treated to regulate your girly hormones? They can cure female emotional immaturity now?"
My psych (a young gay("-er than a treeful of monkeys on nitric acid") man is amazing - and so he should be - but on the occasion I needed to see a different non-psych doctor for things like prescriptions, ergh. "Come on, smile, it's not so bad." "Go to university and you can meet some intelligent guy who will make you lots of money, and you can just stay at home with the children."
But the smile thing... Yeah. "Chin up and smile, it's not so bad." Wow, why didn't the countless doctors I'd seen tell me that when I was hospitalised? Dang, now I'm cured!
Eslyssa, who will go back to lurking now...
(Sorry if you get this comment twice, the Haloscan comments page glitched)
I tend nowadays to call someone out (privately if possible) when they spew this sexist shit instead of stewing about it liked I used to do. (Admittedly, sometimes I do chicken out and stew ... but less and less, the older I get.) It's not my usual modus operandi; usually I'm a placid, friendly Deep-South chick. But sometimes I just have had enough.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I got tired of STRANGERS or casual colleagues putting their uninvited hands on my belly to feel the baby move. I finally told one man, "If your wife were expecting, I wouldn't walk up and grab your family jewels while congratulating you, now would I? Quit handling my body without my permission, please," and smiling the whole while. He really didn't know how to take it. (I swore to one friend I was going to grab the next offender with a Vulcan Death Grip, but -- alas -- no one gave me the chance.)
My endocrinologist used to make his female patients strip to the waist and put on this insubstantial little paper blouse for his examinations ... WHICH NEVER WENT BELOW THE NECK. I flatly refused one day, to the prep nurse's consternation. When he came in, the doc asked why I wasn't ready to see him, and I assured him that if it were medically necessary I would disrobe but it hadn't been necessary before. He launched into a condescending speech about how it *might* be necessary and his time was valuable and he didn't have time to come in and out, etc., but I cut him off with the explanation that the damned paper blouse was too little; it was more like a cheap picnic napkin than a true coverup. Then I asked him, "Let's say you went to see YOUR doctor for an examination in relation to chronic stomachaches, and he told you to strip from the waist down and stick your genitals in a teeny little Dixie cup. How dignified would that make you feel?" He sputtered for a bit and then just went on with my examination. No paper blouses for me from then on. And I no longer put up with MDs who think of themselves as "MDeities."
The "Smile!" admonition is also a hot button for me. Another older male colleague, retired from the military, who had a low-walled cubicle facing mine, placed the straw that snapped the camel's back one day when he said for the millionth time, "Smile!" when he walked by my cubicle. I endured it for six months before I got to the "Okay, I've had it" stage. I started saying things like, "Explain to me why I should be smiling inanely at my computer screen while I'm writing a news story about the city's sewage problems, hon -- do YOU normally smile at sewage? That worries me if you do, really, it does." Or "No, but I'll consent to bare my teeth at you while I'm snarling -- will that work for you?" or (more honestly) "Mike, I'm not here as part of the office decor designed to lighten your mood. I am human, with a wide range of moods and trains of thought; I'm not merely decorative. My face reflects my mood or the seriousness with which I'm contemplating something. You may intend to be friendly but you are coming across as obnoxious with your directives to 'smile.' You are not the smile police. Would you like it if I walked by your cubicle periodically and said, 'Look fierce! Be a man!' or something equally inane? In the future, if you don't like my facial expression, please either engage me in conversation about whatever I'm doing or ask me how I am, or feel free to look in another direction." He tried to josh and say, "Whoa, didn't mean to get a speech," but i cut that off at the knees too. He didn't quite know how to take it either, since I continued to laugh and joke with him at other times. But he quit doing it, too.
(Part 2 -- I had a lot to say)
The last time we bought a car, I deliberately switched dealerships when the guys wouldn't bargain with me. I'm the one with the car price guide in my hip pocket (the dealer's version, not the consumer version -- which I special-ordered from Amazon.com), and they're talking to my husband?! I finally got one guy's attention by waving my hands in front of his face and saying, "Hello? If you want to make a sale today, you'd best be making eye contact with me since I'm the one who is buying." And I was smiling, albeit a bit ferociously. He tried to make apologetic eye contact WITH MY HUSBAND again. We ended up going elsewhere. I wished later that I'd thought to send his district sales manager a copy of the $36K sales contract I'd made with his competitor; I'm making a mental note to do that next time.
It goes on in my own house, too. My elderly mother has lived with my family for the past nearly 11 years. She used to be highly critical of my multi-course cooking ("Well, this looks adequate" was her nicest response to one four-course meal) and would fawn all over my husband's Hamburger Helper meals (no joke). I've tried mentioning to her this is rude and frankly devisive, but she said that she just thought he needed the praise. I finally decided it was one battle I didn't want to fight on a daily basis, especially when my husband would just sit and bask in the praise but not defend me or elicit my mom's comments when I cooked. (It also bothers me that this mattered to me.) So now my husband cooks ALL the meals and has done so for nearly 10 years. I'm a little sad, because my youngest girl doesn't know how well I can cook, but some battles are too tiring to fight. And I've made a conscious evaluation of my options and decided that my mom's too infirm to kick out (darn it).
And my "favorite" misogynist joke of all time:
Question: What do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Answer: Nothing. You done told her twice.
(My response was a deadpan prolonged silence ... then a politely raised brow as I waited for it to get funny. After a while, I said, "Oh, that was it? Anyway," and changed the topic. I have to admit some anti-woman jokes are funny but that one pissed me off.)
Yeah, I'm also the former newspaper reporter who, years ago, got tired of the mayor calling me "Hon" at meetings, so I started calling him Peachcakes at all official functions. (Even as young as my early 20s, I was getting used to the "Who is this crazy woman?" looks.)
Also, I'm the woman who asked my male hair stylist to please let me know the next time he needed to lean against the armrest so I could move my hand; I really didn't need to feel his genitals pressing against me while he was styling, and I didn't want him to make a bad cut on my hair if I "accidentally" punched him in a tender spot for doing that again. He tried to defend himself but I just put up a hand and smile and said, "Please, we're grownups. I just don't want to feel your dick. Please just cut my hair." He stared at me for awhile before he laughed and said, "Well, I guess I've been told."
I still applaud a consultant who came to our newspaper and spotted the bell that customers walking in the front door could ring, just on the edge of my desk (which was near the front door). He asked if I was the receptionist. I said no and pointed to the receptionist's desk -- which was to the left of the front door. I also said that I hated the damned bell. So he brought my boss up front and said, "I'm going to help you save time for your employees so they can focus on the jobs you pay them to do." My editor enthusiastically agreed. And the consultant tossed the bell in the trash and ripped (I mean RIPPED) the glued-on "please ring bell" sign off the front of my cubicle and handed it to my boss. I stood up and clapped.
This kind of marginalization of minority or non-mainstream social groups goes beyond gender issues, of course. I used to be a reporter at a daily newspaper that published a highly offensive Associated Press story about Wiccan practitioners being accorded space and time for their religion while serving in the military. The story used "witch" as a synomym for "which" and verb phrases like "brewing up trouble." Very trivializing. Our paper did more by adding a similar "funny" headline. I'm not Wiccan but it annoyed me to no end. I tried to point this out to my editor in chief, who said, "Well, aren't witches just people who run around naked in the woods and worship the moon or some such nonsense?" Instead of getting more pissed, I asked him to think about it from a different perspective: "Let's say you post a story on Easter Sunday about how Christians are feeling 'cross' today, and you publish some ads about stores 'resurrecting' new low prices. Would you be surprised at the community backlash you would feel at having flippantly used such trivializing comments about what is sacred to a group of people?" He got beet red in the face but, to his credit, said I had given him food for thought.
There is shit I will put up with, and there is shit I will not. But I don't have all the answers. My older female manager (now gone) at my present job used to pay closer attention to the achievements of the men in our department than the women (such as approving a man's idea ... when she had recently shot down the EXACT same idea suggested by a woman). We swore she was awarding penis bonuses and started making private jokes that we were going to strap on dildos before we walked into her office with a suggestion to propose. No actual solution in sight, however...
Fight the good fight! I usually try to joke about it to make my feedback more palatable to people rather than alienating them, but some people just need alienation ...
Check out the Citibank ad at the top of this page today. (I don't know how to grab a direct link to the ad only, or I would.)
http://twolumps.keenspace.com/
Carolyn,
I just read your comments and applaud your ability to think clearly and quickly. It's rare that I can laugh and be direct in response to blatent misogyny, disgusting sexist jokes, etc. You are inspiring. Meg
oooh, i'm late, late, late to read this!
i liked the guy in college who told me i should become a legal secretary, because i was pretty smart.
there were two times [as a law clerk and as a lawyer] i had to train less-experienced men who were hired for more than i was paid; when i complained, one boss said i was too thin-skinned, and the other said i was lying [until he checked his own records].
the chief justice of a state where i worked gave a "welcome" talk to new lawyers, which included the important legal insight that "you ladies shouldn't be wearing those dangly earrings to court."
after missing a day of work for a grueling treatment related to my first pregnancy, a judge asked me IN OPEN COURT, in front of clients and other lawyers and the universe, how the procedure went and whether it worked.
after my second child was born overseas, i went to obtain a passport for her and was told by a clerk that i had to change my last name to my husband's name in order to get the passport. eventually they located a clerk with a brain.
for many years, i worked in a progressive office with many female lawyers. we often consulted with outside lawyers about legal problems; dismayingly often, a female lawyer would have to drag a male colleague to the consultation, just so the piggish lawyer seeking advice would actually listen. [the guy's function was to say, "yeah, she's right."]
whew!
late as always. Followed Ginmar here.
A couple of comments:
1. One of the best responses to any attempt at domination is to use the same sugary sweet method to turn it back on them: i.e. when asked to smile, say "You first, sugar". Always add the "honey" or "sweetie" or "sugar" or "baby" to punch the point home. It helps if you stand straight and tall and stare them down.
2. For catcalls and whistling, if I feel particularly mean, I simply turn, hold my pinkie up and stare at it, look meaningfully at the offender's crotch, and say, "honey, you don't have the right equipment for the job". Otherwise I might smile disarmingly and say "Baby, I wouldn't F*ck you with your boss's dick", and saunter off. The point here is to call his manhood into question.
3. I have found that as I get older, it's much easier to turn dominance displays back on the aggressor. I am not sure whether it's because I have become better at doing so, or whether I'm just less of a target.
4. I handle all of our family finances. My husband often serves as a "discrimination shield", but if the salesperson does not recognize in very short order that I am the one calling the shots, the sale does not take place. I am a female gamer, and even more than car dealerships and realtors, I've found that video game stores are loathe to talk directly to a woman customer, especially one on the high side of 35. The ones who get my business are the ones who catch on quickly. Voting with money is an effective means of social change.
I'm also kinda late, but I thought I'd share a story with a happy ending.
My father is a mining manager, and the mining industry is male-dominated and can be notoriously sexist.
On one mine where he used to work, some one wrote - "Karen would be a good ****." - on the wall outside the cafeteria. My father quickly called a meeting right outside to discuss the matter. Some of the men were sniggering amongst themselves, thinking it was a good joke and thinking whoever did it was a legend.
My father said, in no uncertain terms, that when he found the people responsible they would be on the first plane out and they'd never come back. Moreover, if ANYONE ever sexually harassed anyone else in this manner they'd be off the mine so fast they'd think they were in a new timezone.
He saw the smug grins slowly wilt off the men's faces. Ooo, not so funny NOW, is it?
Still, the mining industry is still rather bad, especially with some of the older, more traditional members. I remember my dad went to a national mining conference, and the speaker was an elderly man who'd be in the industry for 30 years. His speech began with, "Good evening, gentlemen."
Half the audience were women.
But oh, they were probably the miner's wives or just secretaries, right? Pft.
Good to see I ain't the only one.
The boss who tells the client, in front of me: "We'll get back and make some more ad ideas for you. You should see Copykatparis when she's had a few drinks; she gets some real good ideas then!"
Other colleague, around Halloween time when I was talking about a costume party I'd been to: "Did you ever dress up as a country so your boyfriend could explore you?"
And these are just the more obvious examples.
Maybe the only way to reply to catcalls is to say "Thank you! I used to be a man, you know, so this is really great!"
The only way I could ever stop the catcalling was to very obviously, and with great relish, pick my nose. And even then it doesn't always work.
The joy of getting older is that you only get hit on 20 times a week, instead of 20 times a day. Ah, to be able to walk to the bus stop in peace! To be able to sit in a cafe without some leering idiot automatically assuming you're looking for A Man!
The freedom this brings is something I've found that men simply don't understand.
The "smile!" thing irks me too, and in the past I've either ignored it or snapped at the person who said it, but I think I'll adopt an Extraterrestrial Visitor approach the next time it happens [think 'Starman', if you've seen that movie]. I will stop short, look at the offender with intense interest (but no smile) and say, "Why?" Any response he might make will receive follow-up questions, always with the intense (hopefully creepy) interest and complete bewilderment. It would be my hope that it'd make him think, but if not, at least it might make him uncomfortable, and that's pretty good too.
reply to lis's comment "Wrt: "That's my sister!
This comment merely changes the object of the insult from the woman who is being degraded by comments to the man who is making the claim. Although superficially it appears he is rescuing her, he is instead claiming ownership of her, and thus her insult. The commenter backs down quickly from his insults because he wouldn't want to degrade a man that way. The woman still isn't getting any respect -- indeed, she's been written out of the equation -- although the man claiming ownership is."
Lis, you took the words out of my mouth. I am surprised nobody else noticed this.
Nature Lover or Garden of Misogyny or Larkin About
After hacking away
at your power of self healing,
I prune the point and think
how pretty you look today.
Your foliage resplendent,
variegated for my eyes,
inspiration written naked
in your spastic guise,
I scoff at the irony,
easily denying my sin
while the parts of you
I'd rather not view
fall casually into the bin.
I had a quantum mechanics professor announce that his class will "separate the men from the boys". I was sitting in the front row and blatantly glared at him. He obviously noticed because he immediately backpeddaled - "and the uh, women from the girls".
How about the phrase "the lovely and talented [name]"?
Never seen that applied to a man.
Some random guy on the internet calls a blogger a "dumb bitch" for confusing objectification and slightly unfair treatment with hatred.
just want to share one of those bizarre incidents that make you go what the f***?! it involves a wacky game of cat and mouse while driving. Sadly, I'm no stranger to strangers randomly pulling up along side of me, hoping to engage me in the fine sport of flirting with disaster. I put it in the same catagory as catcalls and the smile comments. Just vexing enough to feel your insides screaming, "WHY??" You're just driving along, lost in a thought, only to look around and realize there's some guy leering at you at 70 miles an hour. I admit the only solution I've come up with thus far is to pull into the slow lane and do the state minimum. I find the types with enough gaul to try to pick you up at mach 10 don't have the ability to drive that slow for long. That being said, it's a whole other story when you're stuck in traffic. This guy in a minivan was the works: giving kissy faces while on the side of me, getting in front of me to slam on his brakes and wave, and to top it off? He some how winds up behind me, riding my arse, and what to my wondering eyes should appear? He's giving me his "O" face and gestering that he's jerking off. I wonder, was that a suggestion that I should pull over and pleasure him, or merely a kind reassurance that he'll be thinking of me tonight as he shags his wife? It reminds me of a David Cross skit that I'm about to badly butcher. It's post 9/11 in NYC and the city's just starting to recover from it's shock, and he's noticing the little things intrinsic to New York. In particular, a guy in a trash truck is trying to pick up a woman: "C'mon, pretty, pretty... Gimme a smile... C'mon, sugar..." Cross turns it into a shpiel about that "go-to" guy everyone knows: "I'm a go-to kinda guy. I'll ask 100 women out. 99 of them say no. But maybe, just maybe, that 100th chick likes to f*** on a pile of trash..." So maybe minivan man thought I might be that 100th chick? I'll never know. I was too stunned to formulate a response, traffic let up, and minivan man took off; undoubtedly to spread more joy and pathetic, palpable memories.
Oh man, not sure if anyone is reading this, but men walking behind me at night freak me out so much. Here's what I'd prefer a man to do:
1. cross the street
2. pass me
3. NOT SAY ANYTHING
I think I would have a heartattack if some random guy started talking to me at night. "Harmless?" Ha!
Incipiently Humorless woman! How is a program (nope, somehow uninclined to sample even so) which relates predictable and/or unpredictable mood changes to a much-maligned Terror Alert Level which coincides directly with (who polls this much! odd!) drops in Popularity of the Bush Administration?
Irony, back from the dead, to smite thy bitterness (with iron supplement hugs, or whatever!) If thee take joke itself with no mete or texture; for affront, thy merely turneth sour.
Incipiently Humorless woman! How is a program (nope, somehow uninclined to sample even so) which relates predictable and/or unpredictable mood changes to a much-maligned Terror Alert Level which coincides directly with (who polls this much! odd!) drops in Popularity of the Bush Administration?
Irony, back from the dead, to smite thy bitterness (with iron supplement hugs, or whatever!) If thee take joke itself with no mete or texture; for affront, thy merely turneth sour.
whups, excess redundancy.
Whoa I'm really late to the game here but I have to share (vent)...
In graduate school I had the misfortune of being in a lab with the most misogynistic male post-doc who ever lived. The worst part was that he actually believed that he was anything but! Here are a few nuggets...
#1 Female guest speaker visits the department and meets with various students and faculty (myself included). Afterwards, in front of my male advisor, F***nut postdoc asks me if we talked about dresses and shopping.
#2 A piece of equipment in the lab was malfunctioning so a repair tech was called in. Because I had been using it most often and thus most familiar with the problem, I explained to the tech what the issue was. A few hours later the tech finishes the job. He then explains to the F***nut postdoc the cause of the problem and how he fixed it even though I was right there in the room. He completely ignored me. After he packs up his stuff, he comes to the back of the lab where both the F***nut postdoc and I are -- he looks at F***Nut and asks him if someone can sign his repair form. F***nut says "Oh she can do it, she's our secretary!" He thought this was hilarious. I felt about 2 feet tall.
#3 F***nut postdoc would occasionally tell my colleagues that if they had any photocopying to do they should just give it to me like he does (which he didn't and knew full well that doing so would have required medical attention to remove said paperwork from his ass).
#4 F***nut commonly used the term 'girl' as a synonym for 'weak' or 'fearful'. He also referred to me as 'butch' because I was neither weak or fearful. I think he thought it was a compliment??
#5 Once someone had posted flyers around campus to raise awareness of violence against women which read "They're killing us" to which F***nut took great offense. He became incensed and went around ripping down as many as he could. He complained loudly how personally offended he was at such a blanket statement - as if all men are abusive to women. Oh the irony...
I could go on and on... needless to say, the more infuriated I became the more he did it. He really enjoyed pissing me off. Then he acted totally bewildered about why 99% of the women in the department despised him.
Ugh, CJ Porter, I had a similar thing happen to me and it just kept INFURIATING me. I won a motor scooter in a raffle, and the owner of the shop that awarded it kept calling my husband to work out all the details. I was absolutely furious, but, you know, it was a free motor scooter, so I wasn't going to make a huge deal about it.
Years ago (when I was 29, an adult) my live-in boyfriend was moving out so I took a day off work to help him. A guy I worked for said to me, "Couldn't get him to marry you, huh?" Made all the more stupid by the fact that the boyfriend actually had asked me to marry him and I'd changed my mind--but not something I was going to share at work!
I'm very lucky to be married to someone who's really not at all into traditional gender roles.
Reading all of this has reminded me (and made me more aware of) my own experiences of sexism.
Sydney, I was shocked when I realized that you were younger than I was (I graduated in 1996), and that the gross comment from your boss had happened during your very recent work experience. Yuck!
I'm in Canada, and I feel like things aren't quite as bad here... which doesn't stop them from being frequently annoying.
A few examples of sexism that I have experienced/witnessed:
1. Being told when I was looking for work as a legal secretary that I had to wear a skirt or a dress to a job interview or else I wouldn't get hired. So, against my better judgment I wore a skirt and got hired, and then wondered for my entire time there what would have happened if I hadn't.
I was actually kind of annoyed at myself for giving into that kind of sexism, but I wasn't raised with any consciousness about how to deal with this. My parents raised me and my sister to consider ourselves at no disadvantage because of our gender, which didn't prepare me for the way we are treated in the "real world".
2. After having been hired as a legal secretary (after being interviewed in a skirt) I then proceeded to go to work for 8 months being told almost constantly that what I was wearing was not appropriate. I had gone out with my mother and bought clothes on her advice, apparel that she considered appropriate for an office job. I asked for advice on what was considered to be appropriate and was told to "look around" because as a female I would automatically be able to understand what was appropriate from looking at my coworkers.
When I was finally fired it was because I didn't fit into the office culture and I didn't dress appropriately (i.e., I didn't act in a stereotypically female manner and didn't dress in a stereotypically female manner). This was despite the fact that they had no real complaints about my work, which was generally excellent. This was also despite the comments along the lines of, "Why didn't you become a lawyer instead of a legal secretary?" which I received constantly from both the female and male lawyers in the office (it was a small office, with two female and two male lawyers).
3. My dad and I were working on my old beater car, replacing the water pump and the cylinder head gasket. We went to a local parts store. My father hung back because he is shy and doesn't like talking to strangers, and because it was my car and my money.
I talked to the parts guy. He talked to my father. My father, of course, talked to me. I talked to the parts guy, he talked past me to my father, who talked to me. It went around like this the entire time we were in there. I even called attention to it once by moving in front of my father and saying "Excuse me, I'm the one you need to be speaking to here." Apparently it was still impossible for him to understand that he needed to speak to me about car parts. He couldn't bring himself to address anything he said to me personally.
4. My current boyfriend of over 6 years and I were crossing the border from B.C. to the U.S. to go camping with friends down in Washington. I was driving (because I like driving and really doesn't - it stresses him out and makes him grumpy). Before we got to the border he insisted that we stop and trade places because he didn't want us to get hassled and delayed because a woman was driving.
This was earlier in our relationship and for some reason I acquiesced. Later I tried to explain how this had made me feel, and after 20 minutes of back and forth he couldn't see why this was such a big deal. After all, he just wanted to avoid a hassle, who could blame him for that? The idea that we should challenge sexism when we find it didn't make any sense if it had the potential to inconvenience him.
This led to an explanation of the concept of male privilege vs. sexism... which was more successful, in the end.
5. A female friend trained in a very male-dominated career (Industrial Instrumentation Technician). Throughout her training male members (i.e., everybody else, because she was the only woman in a class of 16) of her class would go out of their way to carry heavy objects for her even when she objected strenuously to them doing this and even when she was doing fine on her own.
6. After finishing her training, and despite the fact that she was generally acknowledged to have truly superior interviewing skills, a good resume, good grades and proven skills, she had a great deal of difficult in finding a job in her field. Often she would apply and not be called in for interviews. Sometimes she would be told that she wasn't being hired because she didn't have any factory or plant experience.
Finally she tried to get a job with manual labour temp agency to get some factory and plant experience and they refused to hire her, sending her over to another temp agency that dealt more with "women's jobs", which really meant jobs that didn't pay as well and weren't as physical, despite the fact that she was very strong and physical and had worked for her father, a carpenter and roofer, throughout high school, and of course, was a trained IIT.
Of course, any time she expressed frustration about her situation there was always someone in the room who felt it necessary to point out that that was what she got for trying to "change the world".
7. This example actually has a positive outcome.
At my karate club we ordered t-shirts with our club logo on the front. The men's shirts came and fit fine, but the women's shirts were all done in junior sizing, so were way too small. A Sensei who didn't belong to our dojo but often trained with us stood around making all sorts of comments about how he'd like to see us all try on our t-shirts (leer leer), and we should have a wet t-shirt contest and so forth. I started feeling very uncomfortable, but it was already after class so I just left.
This seemingly minor incident actually really bothered me, in part because it was so out of character for the kinds of things that happened in our dojo, which was ordinarily a *VERY* respectful environment for men and women alike (one of our Senseis recently had her first baby. She still comes to class and brings the baby. He sleeps in his carrier in the corner and we all ki-ai quietly so as not to wake him).
I wrote to my Sensei (the head guy) and explained the situation and my feelings and he thanked me for telling him and said that kind of behaviour was not welcome in the dojo and he would deal with it, which he did.
8. A female friend commenting that a person who had their job before them was a real troublemaker, because she had sued the boss for sexual harrassment. Note that the boss is not a troublemaker for sexually harassing her, she's a troublemaker for not putting up with it like a "good little girl".
When I called my friend on this, she backpedaled and said that that wasn't what she'd said. I pointed out that it was and reviewed the conversation and she said, "Well, what I meant was, she was a troublemaker for other reasons, not for that. Like... she was hired for a job she had no training for and then tried to tell everybody what to do, when it was wrong or not the way things are normally done. And she stole important papers because she got fired just to make trouble!"
All of this from someone who never met the person she was speaking about, but taking her male current coworkers' word for what the situation was, and ignoring the outrageous fact that the boss who was sued for sexual harrassment was the previous woman's *stepfather* and really had made really inappropriate comments towards her in the period after his wife, her mother, gave birth to their first child (and was therefore sexually unavailable to him).
I'm sorry, I just read the main post and a few comments, including the last one there.
I'm also from Canada, an undergraduate student at the University of Western Ontario. You may know this school from the now-infamous "Saugeen Stripper" incident from a few months ago.
Anyways, Orientation Week here happens during the first week of school, and involves daily activities such as concerts, carnivals, etc. Students do various activities in groups based on residence and faculty. Each constituency also has cheers. Well, most cheers are harmless, with the exception of the Engineering faculty. I can only imagine the embarassment of any self respecting female engineering student, coming to this new school, being taught a cheer that (yes, for real) talks about violence against women including donkey-punching, pearl necklaces, stomach-kicking for women seeking abortion, and more. I heard this cheer in a public setting on campus, and only later learned that it was actually taught by the facilitators of the engineering student's orientation week, some of which are women. So yeah, I took a bit of action with that one, talking to university representatives and the usc. I doubt anything will come of it really. Anyways, just thought I'd share...
I must agree that I feel for all of you have been the subject of sexism at your places of employment. It is wrong and nobody should have to be subjected to that kind of treatment. However, I think one should look around sometimes in order to see that it isn't just the women who are subjected to it. I, as a man, have sat through countless conversations with female co-workers who are pissed at their lazy ass husbands and decide to lump all men into the "dumb", "stupid", "worthless", etc. category. I sat through baby classes (because my wife recently had a baby and I became a father) along with reading baby books and found very much negative sentiment towards men and fathers in general. One class talked about pre-cookihng dinners and freezing them since "she" wouldn't have time to cook once the baby arrived. What gave them the idea that all "she's" in a relationship cook dinner? I always cook!! My wife is a bland and boring chef, I don't want her in the kitchen!! I also read books that mentioned how apparently my biggest concern after my wife's delivery would be "How long until we can have sex again?" I mean, come on, gimme a break already!! I just became a father, the last thing on my mind is sex. I think that plenty of negativity can be found on both sides of argument. I just wish it would all stop and we could get credit for what we contribute as people, not men and women.
Very useful blog. Thank you.
When I was 22, I worked in a small rural hospital. I was at home one day when the maintenance man came over to my house. I really didn't want him there, but gave him a pony can of beer he requested, hoping to get rid of him. Instead he came into my house, put me down on the bed, and tried very hard to rape me. I struggled, but couldn't get away from him. The only thing that saved me was he couldn't get an erection, and I refused to give him a helping "hand". When he left, I called the police. The chief, (this was a tiny town) came over and talked to me, then called the hospital administrator where both the rapist and I worked. Between them all these men decided this was a case of "he said, she said", despite the fact that my attacker was on duty, and should have been at the hospital at the time. The upshot of it was we both got three days unpaid leave (almost like a suspension) and then they called us back to work, and I had to work the the SOB until I quit the job.
Rural law enforcement has a really bad attitude about rape, or did in the early-mid 70s. My ex-husband, a cop, tried to do the old "try to put your finger in the hole" thingy that supposedly proved that you couldn't be raped if you kept moving. Pure crap, that. Boy was he surprised when I not only got my finger in the hole as he moved it, I then lit into him with the story of the above assault. I told him he better adjust his attitude pronto.
These attitudes are insidious, and harm everybody. I had a job where I had a lot of employees under me. It wasn't until somebody pointed it out I realized I did things like inappropriately putting my arm around some of the men, and could have been sued if one of my co-workers had filed a sexual harassment complaint against me. Glad he didn't, but just saying, whoever has "power over" has the possibilty of misusing that power.
Oh, and about the smile thing. The shape of my mouth is not conducive to big toothy grins, and so even when I'm smiling, people think I am not. I also don't smile a lot, I worked with sick people in the hospital. They don't want some idiot smiling at them when they are sick. But, inevitably, one of the visitors would order me to smile. I finally started telling them it was against my religion.
Another thing I have noticed is that even though nursing is still 95% female, a male will be promoted, earn more money than a female. Women only make 99% of what men make in nursing, better than the 75% across the board, but still not what you would expect for a minority in the profession. And men, even with less education, will get promoted to management before a woman. I have a Master's in Nursing Administration, and was constantly having to compete with men with Associate degrees and less experience for the same jobs.
One time I was putting together a microwave cart when one of the deputies came to see my ex-husband. He asked why I was doing it, and my dyslexic, impatient ex-husband said, "She probably wants it done right." Not enough to forgive him all the other crap that went on in that marriage.
I bought a car one time. The salesman asked me if I wanted to bring my husband to see it. I told him it was my money, and my car, and my husband didn't have anything to say about it. I have watched a group of salespersons stand around gabbing with each other and totally ignore me when I went into a dealership, and did everything I could to announce my interest in one of the vehicles. No Sale. I love mechanics, too. They used to love to try to sell me more than I needed. One particular brand of car used to continually get clogged fuel filters about once a year, and then would "vapor-lock". They would always tried to sell me a fuel pump instead of the fuel filter. But I learned my lesson the hard way when my Dad changed the fuel pump on one of my cars, and it still wouldn't run, because it needed a new fuel filter. So, I'd tell the mechanics, "Change the fuel filter, and if it still doesn't run, we'll talk about a fuel pump." Never did have to replace the fuel pump. Strange, that.
Predatory males will use commands like "smile" or "buy me a drink" to find out if you can be commanded. If you show you are compliant, he feels he can force you to do other things.
I suggest anyone who sees a woman being harassed on the street confront the harasser. "Hey, leave her alone" is easy enough to say. Yes, they may direct their attention to you, and either make the same lewd comments to you or suggest you must be jealous because you're old or fat. So what, what do you care how some idiot on the street evaluates you?
If you don't feel comfortable saying something, at least make it clear you are watching, and that you disapprove. Both men and women can do this. If the situation changes from one-on-one the harasser loses a lot of his power and may be less likely to try it again, at least not when there are others around.
Jeff: However, I think one should look around sometimes in order to see that it isn't just the women who are subjected to it.
I'm sure you're a really nice guy and all, but geeze, talk about the male pity-me syndrome.
Wow. I knew that there was a good amount of sexism and such in everyday life, but there are a ton of terrible examples here. There have a been a few minor things that happened to me too, but there is one thing that always comes to mind because I wish I had been equipped to handle it better. I am currently an engineering student at a fairly prestigious university. My first year, I was having some trouble adjusting to college life (being away from home and my friends because I am shy and find it difficult to make new friends), and the professor of one of my engineering classes tells me to come by his office. I knew he had been handing back homework to students and commenting on their work, so I assumed that was what this meeting was for. When I arrived at his office, sure enough, I saw my work on a table, but then he started asking me questions. How is work with your group going? How is school going? He asked about my grades in specific classes, and yes,I had performed rather poorly in my computer programming course because I had never done it before. Then he asked, "Why are you in engineering?" Not "what made you choose engineering?", but "Why are you here" with intonation implying that I shouldn't be. As someone who was already struggling with adjusting and already questioning my future, that just topped it all off and shattered my self-confidence. I have recovered to a large extent, but to this day it makes me angry that I allowed his questioning to have such an effect on me.
While I am bitching, my dad can really irritate me sometimes. He walks around the house exclaiming to my mom what a mess it is, and then does nothing to help clean it up.
Here is another of those distasteful jokes about women that I almost don't want to share for fear that I will only help it to spread:
Q:What do you do when the light bulb burns out?
A: Nothing, the bitch can wash dishes in the dark.
Yeah? F*** you.
I, too, am often overwhelmed, especially when I receive comments from people who I know like and respect me, and clearly are just completely clueless. My favorite gem occurred as a second year PhD student presenting my work at our group's annual industry affiliates conference.
I was explaining to a co-worker my preference not to work in a group on my projects this semester, because I was concerned that due to my research, I wouldn't be able to put much time in, and didn't want to drag somebody else down.
Him, "Wow, that's amazing. Most girls would just sit on the guy's lap and let him do all the work!" And he really meant it as a compliment.
In high school, working in a department store in the sporting goods section (circa 1996-1997), I dealt with everything from t-shirts sneakers to golf clubs to knives. The knives were locked behind a counter in the sporting goods area near our cash register. I spent some of my work day there, but obviously not all of it.
The asshole in the adjacent department (automotive goods) enjoyed telling me, when I inched towards his department, "Stupid cashier, get back in your pen!" I complained to a woman in upper management there and she, appalled, firmly instructed me to write a letter of complaint to the man who was the store management. So I did, and began it by explaining that Assistant Manager Whats-Her-Name suggested I bring this situation to his attention.
Big store manager did nothing--never acknowledged his receipt of my letter. A week or two later, I worked up the nerve to ask if he'd read my letter, and he brushed me off. *Much* later I learned from co-workers that he had laughingly shown it around and that there was speculation as to whether I "had a crush" on asshole automotive guy (who BTW looked like a troll), and if that was the source of my anger.
Dickwad.
In high school, working in same department store but having lept on the chance to switch to the electronics dept. because of asshole automotive goods worker, I found the paystub of a male co-worker. He had left it in the drawer in the dept. We did the same job, went to the same high school, and had the same experience. However, where I'd been earning $4.75 / hour, he was earning $8.00. I complained to middle management and they gave me a whopping $.25 raise.
In high school, in same electronics dept., 60-something-year old asswipe named Bob started telling 17-year-old me how beautiful he thought I was and how I was his fantasy. This was after I learned that my letter about asshole automotive guy had been shown around and laughed about, so I didn't say anything--I just shut up and dealt with it, because I knew I'd be starting college soon enough.
And there are many more tales where that came from!
When I worked at an investment banking firm in Chicago, I was hired to be a researcher/copy monkey for a group of analysts on the 2-10pm shift, as well as a fill-in executive assistant. Though this last was not in my job description, because I was competent and intelligent, I frequently got called in at 8:30 to fill in for one of the assistants who called in sick (because the MD she worked for, who is now a Congressman, didn't trust "temps" to get anything right), then had to work the rest of my 2-10 shift on top of that. Fine. I was well-paid, and getting overtime for anything over 40 hours. Then in 2001 the economy starts to slide, and the firm starts bitching to the regional offices about overtime. Since they made it clear that overages would have an impact on Managing Director bonuses, our overtime was effectively cut off. I happened to catch a ride in the elevator (57 stories up, mind you) with the senior managing director, and unwisely, perhaps, I said something about the cut in our overtime (a lot of us [all EAs at this firm were women] had come to depend on the extra money). He responded by asking me point blank if I thought I might consider developing a "Michelin man" fetish (he was short, and rotund, and very, very wealthy). I was stunned. I just looked at him and couldn't really think of anything to say.
Later that year (post 9/11) when I was given the choice of being permanently laid off or resigning (had other, unrelated issues with the new office manager), I stupidly resigned. They sprang it on me, and I was upset; THEN I found out that resigning would mean that I might not get any unemployment benefits. My friend (MM's assistant) got me in touch with her former boss, a labor lawyer. When I told him about the Michelin man comment, as well as some other things about my job that had made me uncomfortable, he said, "Your boss is guilty of being a pig, but he hasn't done anything actionable." Luckily, the company didn't fight my unemployment claim (the office had slashed more than a third of its staff, including VPs and MDs in a newer department).
Knowing what I know now, 5 years later, I could have made a case for harassment and made it stick, because my attitude toward my job deteriorated due to the hostile environment--sure, I realize it now, and it pisses me off all over again--but the kind of casual misogyny we've become used to won't stop until we can say "FUCK YOU" to unwanted advances without fear of losing our jobs. I put up with the shit in my office because I needed that job and the benefits. How many others have to say the same thing before we do something about it????
i used to play guitar and sing in a band that had three girls and one boy, and experienced plenty of examples of misogyny within the music industry..for example, i only ever encountered one female sound technician (who was great), and the many, many male sound techs would invariably address questions about my amp, our bassist's amp, our drummer's kit and my microphone to the one male in our band (who played lead guitar), which was somewhat frustrating to say the least.
there's also the issue we had when we were starting out - when it was four girls and no boys, and we were all teenagers - of never knowing whether the the sleazy promoter was booking us because of our music, or because of the fact that we were all 'feisty' (god, i hate that word) young girls. from the way we were talked to by said promoters, we concluded that most of the time, it was probably the latter.
one more thing - guys in guitar shops..give it up! honestly, go in as a female asking for something as simple as a pack of guitar strings, and, not only are you faced with a row of somewhat incredulous faces, but they will almost certainly ask as many questions as possible regarding the exact type of strings you would like (regardless of whether or not you have already told them clearly), in an appallingly transparent attempt to trip you up.
[disclaimer: i realise that not all soundguys, promoters and guitar shop people are like this, just like not all men are misogynistic twits, but i have had experiences like these many-a-time].
I have a question.
If a man is going to suggest that a woman, whom he is in a hierarchical position to oversee or provide feedback to, has a problem in some professional capacity, should he assume that she will assume he is expressing it because she's a woman?
On several instances I have yet to hit the right formula for communicating a problem without several women feeling (I have learned through third parties) that I just said that because they were women. Having made *exactly* the same comments with the same, to the extent that I can control it, demeanor, I know this to be a stretch at least.
So you know, obviously it's them not me and all, right?
But semi-seriously. Should I just assume they will assume I don't treat men that way too? I am not degrading or condescending, I don't get off on messing with people, and I am reasonably respectful of personal feelings on the other side.
This is a great post! It could serve as some kind of easy reference for people who challenge you with 'show me when and where women get a hard time'!
'Wondering' - just treat the person as you would any other. If they're suspicious that you're picking on them because they're female, they will ask around discretely, and will find out soon enough whether you're a jerk or not!
Well here's my contributions:
Thanks for the great ideas as how to counter the 'smile' issue. It took me a while to verbalise why it pissed me off so much when guys did this, and I boil it down to: they're not doing it to be nice or to pay you a compliment, but to make themselves feel 'top dog', boost their self-esteem and make themselves look big in front of their friends...and I'm just not going to play, I'm sorry! That's not what I'm here for! 'Well, ok, you are kind of funny' and 'You first, peachcakes' are my favourite retorts out of the above, but previously I find that looking taken aback and giving someone the once-over with a 'wierdo' or 'what*ever*' look is quite good and hard to laugh off. If you think you can get away with it, a loud 'Fuck off', or the finger with a smile/scowl as you most feel like, is satisfying. Sometimes you may wanna frown cause you are pissed, other times you might want to laugh because they're so pathetic!
The 'when are you going to have a baby issue' - I would just ask it back to the guy, if appropriate, or say 'well I didn't think it was any of your business, unless you're feeling lucky today - and boy, you'd have to be *very* lucky!' I really get outraged when women are accused of being greedy/unrealistic/overstepping the mark when they want to 'have it all' ... like guys are ever considered in the same way.
When I was 13, a boy two years older than me in line at the lunch queue started to say he wanted to put his hands up my skirt etc, and all his friends were laughing. I warned him that if he didn't stop I would kick him in the balls. He didn't and I did! Some of his friends laughed, but some were outraged that I had *dared* to offend his 'manhood' (for what it was worth). Funnily enough, some years later, when this boy was 18 and in the oldest class, he (maybe he remembered me, maybe he didn't) started saying how he was going to touch my chest, and I threw my drink over him. Now if anyone is asking for a lesson, he was, and I hope he gets it one day. I regret not reporting him.
I have proved rather censorious and spiteful, conservative relatives of my mother's (Italian) delightfully wrong by attaining the best academic record I could have (I'm about to submit my PhD thesis). When I was about to take up my undergraduate place at what some say is the the best uni in the UK, my mum's brother thought it would be a good way to get one up on her by taunting her that 'if you think that Chiarina is going to go and study now after the pissing about she's been doing this year [my gap year which I spent in Italy] then she is mad! She's going to go and get married to her boyfriend [the lovely and stuff of family legend Giorgio]'. Did you get that double insult? Like getting married and having children is a 'waste' of one's talents!
Re: guitar shops: It has taken me a while to learn enough about guitars to know when to call 'bullshit' while in a guitar shop. It was painful but I've learned. Also when I get condescended upon I can bask in the thought that not only am I almost certainly a better guitarist and musician than they, but I have earned thousands of pounds for it!
My mum has some horrendous stories regarding doctors, including being felt up by a GP mumbling something about a breast exam (and then only going on to examine one breast), and being publicly denuded of her examination gown in front of a group of medical students (one of whom gasped and put her hand to her mouth). My mum had just come out of the operating theatre and hence was feeling a bit woozy - and did not have the presence of mind to reply.
Personally I tend to refuse to feel afraid, while conjuring up my meanest bad attitude when feeling vunerable. I like to think about what I might realistically do when confronted with certain situations, including verbal ones with employers known to be extremely insensitive. (E.g. 'We are so lucky to have x as our head of department as an excellent example of how not to conduct oneself in public'). I am also currently fending off the concerns of my mother and boyfriend's father as to my plans to travel solo in Central America. Yes they may have legitimate concerns which I am addressing systematically and sensibly, but they keep saying...'but you're a girl! and you're on your own!'. If I can hack it in Italy with the Italian and (I'm sorry to report) immigrant men, and paternalistic and oh-so-well-meaning Uncles, that's a start! I did Karate for 6 years and my sensei always used to say 'your legs are most useful for running away. Also, if it comes to it, if you knee cap someone with a kick to the knees, then you can kick them in the head *much* better.' Another tip: aim for 6 inches *behind* the nose.
When some compares the sensible measures of 'modest deportment' in public as a defence against attack to 'well, you wouldn't leave your purse out in public, would you?' I say, 'well I'm not a purse, or a suitcase or any other such piece of baggage, I'm a person who has every right to go about her daily business in whatsoever manner she pleases'
Much love to everyone
x
well that's an eye opener and no mistake.
Our university has many policies about equity and so on, but when our hotshot (thankfully ex) Dean constantly puts up pictures of scantily clad women before his lectures nothing is said. The pictures have no relevance to the topic, but are somehow justified because we are in a cultural studies department.
My worst example is one time I went to a doctor asking for a referral to the women's health service because I thought I was suffering depression and I was too poor to afford private counselling. He asked a few questions about what was wrong, and I explained how I'd moved to a new town, couldn't find a job, was unhappy where I was living and was confused about various career and study issues. He asked, 'have you got a boyfriend?' and I replied ,'no'. He then asked me 'How does it make you feel that no one wants to rape you all the time?'. He then suggested that while I was there I should take off all my clothes and have a breast examination and a pap smear. I had the presence of mind to get the hell out of there, but I never reported him to the AMA, because I knew how hideous that would be and I was already miserable.
Thanks for all the comments everyone.
I realize i'm coming to the party late but i felt the need to add a few comments.
RE. "smile honey", my most common response is a cold, calm "NO". If the person is obtuse enough to ask "Why not?" i inform them that they are not the expression monitor and if i want to smile i will. Their opinion will have no effect on the matter.
RE. Catcalls. I loathe this practice and i've found the best way to deal with the drivers and construction workers who feel the need to comment on my body, what they want to do to my body or how they think my body would react to their fantasies is to explain at lenght and volume that "NOBODY FINDS YOUR COMMENTS SEXY! YOU ARE NOT MAKING YOURSELF LOOK MACHO! NEITHER ARE YOU MAKING ME FEEL BADLY ABOUT MYSELF! YOU ARE HOWEVER SUCCEDING IN MAKING YOURSELF LOOK DESPERATE FOR A WOMAN AND MAKING IT CLEAR WHY SOMEONE AS PATHETIC AND SAD AS YOU ARE IS UNLIKELY TO GET ONE WHO IS WORTH A DAMN SO SHUT THE HELL UP YOU TWIT!"
At which point they generally call me a bitch. I agree with them. Thank them politely and tell them that if they feel it is acceptable for them to comment on my body, out loud, in public then it is equally acceptable for me to comment on their behavior in the same fashion.
I was with a group recently and the subject of tipping came up. Most of the group agreed that men tip better than women. I said I disagreed. I happen to be a good tipper. However, if I get poor service I am likely to leave the server loose change. If I am in a group that includes males the service is generally better because I'm assuming that the server is assuming the males are paying. If no males are present service is generally luke-warm to nonexistent. In those instances I do consider the restaurant and the food. If I know I will want to go back, I tend to leave a large tip to insure they remember me the next time. I think this is one of those self-fulfilling prophecies. The server expects a bad tip, gives bad service, receives bad tip.
New York Moments - I had the almost exactly the same thing happen to me at New Year's on the Champs Elysees. An arab guy grabbed my crotch, I threw my champagne at him, and he hit me in the face. I didn't know it was so commonplace until the next day, when people were acting like it was my fault for not knowing to avoid arab men at new year's. WTF? I've travelled alone and with a girlfriend through Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Israel without a problem, so why is it different in France?
I'm in a highly technical field, and for many years was the only woman amidst male staff people. One manager, on his birthday, wore a baseball cap with soft-sculpture naked breasts on it, supposedly thinking it was "OK" because his wife had given it to him. At my complaint to HIS boss, he was asked to remove it - no repercussions. At that same place, in the computer room, also all male, the supervisor had posted a sign that said "Notice: Sexual harassment is not prohibited, it is graded." I went to HR with that one. Finally, when my manager threatened that, because I had everyone walking around on eggshells because they were afraid they'd be slapped with harassment lawsuits, I wasn't going to get "perks" like classes, and sweet assignments. I marched out of my office and into his bosses. The boss (Pakistani, by the way) made him leave the work place immediately and sent him off to emergency EEO training. Shortly thereafter, the entire staff of some 30 people, myself included, were required to attend a three day in-house class on harassment.
It took me a while to get to the point where I wouldn't take it any more. Throughout my career, many women have persistently recommended that I don't make waves over these things.
When my enlightened daughter started college, one of the football players would slap her on the butt when he passed her in the hall. She told him once to stop it, she told him twice, the third time, my karate kid gave him a swift kick in the butt slamming him up against the wall - to his surprise. She told him "Do it again, and I'm taking out your knee." He stopped harassing her.
Mysogeny vs harassment - not just degrading, but malicious intent, in my mind.
Apparently this thread is indefinitely open, so I will add a few comments.
In most of my life I've felt that my gender hasn't significantly affected my advancement. And yet, whenever I tell people the few stories I have, they react with shock. Especially the men. They are the most surprised by what I consider to be relatively minor things.
1. I was at an awards dinner for a professional organization. There was a presentation on the design of a particularly famous aircraft engine of the past. The speaker, an older man, started with "I will try to avoid math , since there are ladies in the audience." And he kept bringing it up! Everytime he put up a slide with any math, he would apologize to "the ladies in the room." I actually understand what he meant, since there were in fact non-engineer spouses in the room, but still! The woman who introduced him, when thanking him afterwards, pointed out that she was an engine designer and found his math fascinating (which it wasn't; tables full of numbers are rarely helpful in a presentation.)
2. I was TAing for an older male professor. He offered to carry the large box of assigments up to my office for me. I nicely declined, since I was in a hurry and he walks slowly. He responded with "Oh! I understand! You have to show me how STRONG you are." Not evil, just clueless.
These are not my stories, but some I've heard from others:
3. At a mining engineering professional meeting, the young women students were constantly approached for sex. Apparently the organization had a habit of hiring prostitutes to attend the meeting.
4. At a conference in my field, there was a group of many men and one female graduate student, at dinner or something. The men were mostly also either grad students or junior faculty, but there was one very senior, highly respected professor. That professor was, as such senior people are wont to do, holding court. He was telling everybody about how beautiful his daughter's roommate was. Apparently this beautiful roommate had financial problems, so he gave her $5000. "And just so you know how beautiful she is... she's worth $5000. I mean, Mary here" (gesturing to the grad student) "is pretty, but she's only worth, oh, $100."
5. My advisor talks about how she has become so much more concerned about what she wears on the days she teaches than she ever used to be about any kind of wardrobe question in the past. She constantly asks her husband to tell her if her pants are too tight, etc. We pass out index cards to the students, so they can ask anonymous questions (it's a good system for the shy students) to be answered over e-mail or in the next class. One question left for her: "are you wearing a thong today?" It's made her even more concerned about her wardrobe.
I think as I advance I may see more. I will probably be applying to a department (where I got my master's) that has never had a female faculty member.
Wow. Some pretty raw stuff in here.
I'm a guy, and I have at times found myself in a "hiring manager" position. I like to vet resumes with the names removed by the administrative people in order to overcome unconscious bias; still, it's not that hard to tell who the women are.
If I can find a woman who's even remotely qualified for a position, I'll hire her. Why? Because in my not-insignificant experience, women will get the goddamn work done instead of spending all friggin' day talking about sports, betting on sports, and fantasizing about sports.
So there.
JSmith--
There was a book on that a few years ago. (I don't remember the title, I just read a brief blurb on it in a book I read). One of the arguments, I think, was that women tend not to waste as much time and energy over stupid pissing contests and turf battles as big manly do. Men get way too caught up in the hierarchy, which ends up hurting productivity in addition to hurting the people that get squashed.
Everyone else:
Thank you for posting your stories. I read the whole thread today (it took a long time, but I'm really glad I did). I hope writing down your experiences helped you heal or at least let some of your emotions out. For what it's worth, reading what you wrote helped me understand misogyny better from a female perspective, and will hopefully help people see the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which male domination surfaces and harms people.
Looking forward to a day when this sort of shit will happen less often,
Dave
JSmith--
There was a book on that a few years ago. (I don't remember the title, I just read a brief blurb on it in a book I read). One of the arguments, I think, was that women tend not to waste as much time and energy over stupid pissing contests and turf battles as big manly do. Men get way too caught up in the hierarchy, which ends up hurting productivity in addition to hurting the people that get squashed.
Everyone else:
Thank you for posting your stories. I read the whole thread today (it took a long time, but I'm really glad I did). I hope writing down your experiences helped you heal or at least let some of your emotions out. For what it's worth, reading what you wrote helped me understand misogyny better from a female perspective, and will hopefully help people see the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which male domination surfaces and harms people.
Looking forward to a day when this sort of shit will happen less often,
Dave
JSmith--
There was a book on that a few years ago. (I don't remember the title, I just read a brief blurb on it in a book I read). One of the arguments, I think, was that women tend not to waste as much time and energy over stupid pissing contests and turf battles as big manly do. Men get way too caught up in the hierarchy, which ends up hurting productivity in addition to hurting the people that get squashed.
Everyone else:
Thank you for posting your stories. I read the whole thread today (it took a long time, but I'm really glad I did). I hope writing down your experiences helped you heal or at least let some of your emotions out. For what it's worth, reading what you wrote helped me understand misogyny better from a female perspective, and will hopefully help people see the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which male domination surfaces and harms people.
Looking forward to a day when this sort of shit will happen less often,
Dave
On 7/19, I noted that
"If I can find a woman who's even remotely qualified for a position, I'll hire her. Why? Because in my not-insignificant experience, women will get the goddamn work done instead of spending all friggin' day talking about sports, betting on sports, and fantasizing about sports."
I should qualify that by further noting that during the annual NCAA men's basketball tournament (aka "March Madness"), everyone in our office, including the women, basically goes to Bracketville for the duration. Our Duke alumna can be especially annoying at that time of year.
JSmith--
There was a book on that a few years ago. (I don't remember the title, I just read a brief blurb on it in a book I read). One of the arguments, I think, was that women tend not to waste as much time and energy over stupid pissing contests and turf battles as big manly do. Men get way too caught up in the hierarchy, which ends up hurting productivity in addition to hurting the people that get squashed.
Everyone else:
Thank you for posting your stories. I read the whole thread today (it took a long time, but I'm really glad I did). I hope writing down your experiences helped you heal or at least let some of your emotions out. For what it's worth, reading what you wrote helped me understand misogyny better from a female perspective, and will hopefully help people see the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which male domination surfaces and harms people.
Looking forward to a day when this sort of shit will happen less often,
Dave
Just discovered this site yesterday.
Thank you to everyone who wrote -- I truly enjoyed reading this and hopefully it gave me a little more perspective. I have never (to my conscious knowledge) told a strange woman on the stree to smile, and honestly did not know it happened that often. I can see why many women are unahppy with the practice.
Examples I've seen as a guy (and this is just in the past few months):
My roommate, a law student, saying that it's hard to tell the secretaries from the female lawyers at his firm.
The constant, and I mean /constant/ talk amongst my male friends about how they don't care how many female attorneys their firms hire because they'll be outta there with kids within three years.
My female friend bowing to her mother's pressure to not be so opinionated. Apparently no one likes a woman with a brain.
On the flip side, I think Jeff has some valid points too that Jesurgislac was too quick to dismiss as male pity me syndrome. Stereotyping hurts, regardless of which side you're on.
When women say men can't cook, can't keep house, are inept at child-rearing, and are lazy and stupid, it has no effect on the male's place in the societal heirerachy -- men as a whole can dismiss it as the women being bitchy or vindictive, and society accepts that dismissal. So in that regard, the male version is much more hurtful to females as a whole than vice versa.
But as an individual person who has been on the receiving end of such statements, and who has not dismissed them as bitchiness or vindictiveness, they do hurt.
"Have you had the experience of a complete stranger, generally a man, commenting on the expression on your face? I had this experience this morning. What compels a strange man to make a comment about a woman looking pissed off??? If I look pissed off, it's probably for a good reason and I PROBABLY DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT FROM A STRANGER."
Absolutely priceless.
That goes along with "smile baby!" or "I bet I can make you smile!"
I freaking detest men who think they need to control what is happening with my face or body.
To all of the comments that racism and sexism are inextricably linked, here is an article by someone in the advertising industry making a pretty clear correlation between the two- as well as one pointing out the major source of the problem.
You want Watermelon with That?
http://
blogs.graphicdesignforum....aterm.html#more
I believe you Twins Mom. In the last couple of months I've encountered the same things from a renowned Psychologist and from the police and this is 2006.
I can't resist putting in my two favorite things on this topic:
1. You know how you feel when you have PMS? That's the way men feel ALL the time.
2. Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.
Have a good laugh.
Ha ha ha. ha.
ha.
I'm late to the party, for sure, but want to add my misogynist story.
I found out a couple of days ago that I have scoliosis. When my male doctor showed me the x-rays (of my lower back, including my pelvis), he pointed to the bend and said, "Here's the problem. But look here [indicating my pelvis], good news is, you have a nice big opening. You're set for twins!"
It was gross.
First of all, I'm twenty-two, single, and had never even discussed the possibility of pregnancy with this person, so he had no basis for assuming this was something that I had any desire to discuss. Second, I completely freaking out about the possibility of long-term pain management medication and/or spinal surgery. Sexual comments from my medical practitioner were really uncalled-for. I was so eager to get out of that office, I didn't ask him several of the questions that I wanted to, never mind the fact that his medical expertise and professionalism had pretty much been proven to be nonexistent.
After I left, I found myself wondering what the male equivalent of that comment would be. "Your spine is crooked... but hey, nice balls!"
How 'bout the time when I was interviewing for a job with a theater company and mentioned in passing that I'd supported my husband through grad school and got "Like a good WIFE?" from the male artistic director?
Jackass. Still makes me mad.
Wow. Just wow.
I never encountered the "smile" thing until I lived in London. Random homeless looking guys seem to think it's acceptable to ask you to do that. Haven't had that problem here in Boston, so far.
I've generally been fortunate, personally. However, a friend of mine who is expecting her first child in October, was told that she couldn't have the job sharing option she'd like when she returned from maternity leave and would have to settle for a different part time option (that would not be to her financial advantage, what with child care expenses now needing to be factored in to her day-to-day). When she complained she was told it was her own fault for choosing to get pregnant and good luck looking for a new job because no one was going to hire a new mum.
What frickin' century is this?
Okay, first thing. I had to scroll through a whole bunch of ads to get to this section, which I don't think really belong in a comments section. Anybody who knows how to get rid of them please do, or tell whoever can, how to do it. I'm not meaning to gripe, it's just distracting and a little annoying.
To get to what I actually meant to say. I, fortunately, have not ever had to deal with catcalls or "smile" comments and I hope I will never have to. But if I ever have to I have been armed with an arsenal of good advice on how to handle it. Thanks.
The summer before my senior year in high school I decided that it might be a good idea to get a job to help pay for college. At that time I just finished tutoring because I was having trouble in a class. Conveniently across the parking lot was a cafe with a sign looking for cooks and dishwashers. I do not have the skills to work as a line cook, so I applied for the job as a dishwasher. I was hired right away. Dishwashing, I have found out, is a highly male-dominated field, but the first person I worked with was a woman.
On weekends there were usually two people working in the dish pit. One day I was working, I can't remember whether it was a night or day shift, the dishwasher stopped working. I was the person washing dishes at the time, the only person in the dish pit. My manager called the repairman (it was a guy, that's the only reason I'm using that term). He came in and promptly started asking one of the (male) cooks, who had been on the line except for the last five minutes, questions as if I wasn't even there. I'm short (5' 3.25"), I know, but apparently to him I was invisible. When he was finished he reported back to that same cook. The only way I learned what had gone on and what he had fixed was that I listened in.
Thank you all for making me realize that it could have been much worse, but that I have a genuine reason to not have been comfortable with this.
For anyone who wants to know, this was an isolated event (for me).
P.S. TM, I don't know if this will sound repetitive, but I'm sorry that had to happen to you and thank you for having the courage to speak up about it.
Well, all the comments on this thread came as a bit of surprise to me. I know its too late in the day to comment here, but couldnt help talking about it.
I am an Indian, in Bangalore and work as a software developer.I was under an impression that working condition for women are not as trying in that part of the world. Most of the male friends from US tell different stories, where the work environment is not as anti-woman. It is possible that since people can work from home and do not have to be in office all the time, so such incidents are less in number.
Back here at home, the situation sounds similar to yours. a) science and maths subjects have not more than 5% female students in class b) Most of the technical jobs are male dominated in IT industry. c) Females are a part of soft skills like documentation or testing, most often not the technical aspects where use of logic and reason is required.
In about 9 years of my work experience, I am still to come across a female technical architect.
As a senior person in workplace, I have also been involved in screening of resumes to interview people for our team from time to team. I often end up fighting with male colleagues on thier comments like " We can't consider this candidate, she is a female, they can't really think too well. They are good at linguistics, and handling social situations." WTF!! They dont even think that they are sayign it to me! A woman!
We Indians, are culturally different, and are not as comfortable talking about our bras. It still can get embarrasing if intimate clothign is the topic of discussion in a group, specially a male group, and in office place. I can't help thinking back about an incident when two senior technical members of my team, who sit right next to me kept ranting about how a particular brand of bra is so comfortable, and its ads on tv. Both have lived in states for more than 10 years and think they are very forward thinking and liberal. And all the time during thier discussion, they were looking at me ( I wasnt lookign at them, but could feel thier eyes on my head ). Finally I could take it no more, and put my headphones on, and at that they both burst into a heart laugh.
I did not find the whole incident funny!
Well, I guess its same story all over the world, whatever the culture or ethinicity. Most men are jerks all over the world 
.
just, felt like I had to share.
and TM, I know I am being repetitive, and dont know if you would read it now, but I am really sorry for what happened with you. nothing could be worse than people who are supposed to help you turning against you. Salutes to the strength and resilience you showed.
Dr. B
I have been reading your blog for some time, and am now officially addicted to it.
ummm, yeah, what you all said... ditto, ditto, ditto...
however, my one non-ditto to add in the category of "once in a blue moon you get the wit before the staircase" (now i need to go look thru the thread for the french phrase again)
scene: late night at a bar...
drunk guys staggers over to me and says, "baby, you should take me home and f*ck my brains out"
I reply, "I'd love to, but it seems someone has beaten me to it"
The next person who instructs me to smile will get this response, "stand on one leg." The ridiculousness of the request/command *should* get the message across that their initial command/request was ridiculous in the same way.
Wow... Solid female bitterness from top to bottom in this thread, and of course, it's all mens' fault.
What a load....
Amazing, patty O! you read all of the hundreds of comments, and NOT ONE was an example of justified outrage at sexism! Why, now that you've pointed it out, I realize that ALL of us bitter females must be wrong, adn you must be right. Thanks for bringing that to light.
I deffinately did not read all of these comments, but lots of interesting stuff. Im a guy, I try not to be sexist some little stuff probably happens but I really dont mean it.
I work in an office where litterally Im the only Male on the floor except one day a week. I once heard about a seminar entitled stereotyping, pros and cons. I had never really thought about any pros of stereotyping and while I wasnt able to see the seminar it got a few of us at the office talking. they pointed out that when they ask me to help move heavy things at the office thats a stereotype but not really a bad one. Oh I should say that im the largest person, the youngest person, and Im a guy. so is it stereotyping when the 65 years old person asks me to help them, yes, but its not a bad thing in that case. I just found that interesting as I had never thought of stereotypes as anything but bad before. Im not deffending sexism, but it is a two way street, its just that its been a super-highway in one direction and a bit of a dirt road going the other way.
As for women being more emotional or not, (I agree that we set the mans view as the standard by which women are judged which is wrong, excelent point) one point I did not see raised (again I didnt read them all, it probably was mentioned) is that boys are taught not to show emtions. We're expected to be tough and "show no weakness." Is there a social construct that women are more emotional? yes, but there is a related issue that men supress their emotions, I know I do. Im numb to alot of things that should enrage me.
Don't get me wrong, women have plenty to be pissed off about and letting it out in a semi-constructive way like on blogs is great. I liked reading this and seeing if theres any Im guilty of. I did quite well, I will say I make inapropriate jokes, but only with friends, and they make bad jokes right back. Not sure if that makes it ok but thats how it is. Anyway rants are fun.
Im still just made at women because your jeans come with a free belt and they try to charge like 30 bucks for a mans belt, thats some BS right there.
(someone said this to me lately, it was an odd so I included it here, is that misogyny?)
So ill finish by saying thanks for the brain candy, I love your site, So thank you Bitch. anyother time that would sounds wrong, thank you bitch. gotta love the 'net.
Phew. I'm a female engineer, and it would take way too much time and effort to write about even half of the misogyny I've encountered, both in college and in my professional life.
Most of it has already been covered, anyway.
I agree that women have had many troubles everywhere.
I hope that women in return can see some of the unfortunate things men have to go through.
For example, elementary to highschool is very centered around female activities.
We boys are, "being left behind".
Reading this, I am actually surprised at how little misogyny I have experienced personally during the last 4 years doing my PhD.
My future husband and I are both finishing and got positions in academia in our respective fields. Due to some luck as well as differences in our fields, I will be earning 2.5-3 times as much as him. (rookie TT salaries are a very open secret in this area, for better or for worse.)
I am starting to get hurt at how many people think it is funny and ok to make jokes about how I will now have a toy boy and his having to be "creative" in coming up with ways to please me so I don't go on to greener pastures. I don't even know to whom of us that is more rude.
amazing thread...it never ceases to amaze me how firmly entrenched we are in our misogyny. that we continue mistake poor treatment or gender specific issues (eg. boys vs. girls education) with systemic disenfranchisement and oppression. that we continue to underestimate how the threat of violence and explicit verbal beratement shape women's choices, self-esteem, identitites.
thanks, bitchphd, for keeping this central.
I'm also a junior faculty professor. Last semester I was stalked by someone who asked me to read a Statement of Purpose for a grad school application, and I obliged in part because it appeared from what he said and, later from reading his statement, that it was a legit request, and being that I teach in a Spanish-speaking country and institution, I am regularly approached for such favors by students who I don't know but were recommended to see me. It became obvious that something big was off when I later got the weirdest email from him sent to hundreds of other business entities (and myself) in the style of a cross between a T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings poem (I'm a literature professor) but with the line FUCK OR KILL? repeated in the poem.
Then he started stalking me, the worst was when he appeared outside one of my classes and when I politely told him not to email or speak to me again he flipped out and started yelling, frightening my students, four of whom (all females) walked me back to my office afterwards because the class ended in the evening. When I went to the campus police, the officer at the desk upon seeing the name of the harasser brushed it off by saying he was a nutjob who hangs around campus a lot and has done this to lots of professors but is otherwise harmless and that I shouldn't waste my time because I'll end up snarled up in court over it. I walked away incredulous, but came back again another day, and this time a female officer took me seriously and took down all my information in a report.
Now, as if that's not enough here's the sexist work experience part: When I forwarded the initial offending email to the male director of my department and asked him to caution our department administrative assistants in case he came in inquiring after me...my director emailed me back reproducing the less offensive language in the poem in a joking manner...ha ha ha ha!!!
I was so stunned that I did not respond and never ever broached the subject with him again. The next time the director saw me in the hallway, he awkwardly chuckled and asked if I had gotten his email, to which I only shrugged and walked away.
Luckily stalker has moved on (only who knows to whom?) but if anything worse happened to me because of this institutional indifference, the last laugh would no doubt be on the other end of a lawsuit.
Talk about feeling totally discredited.
I suppose it didn't help that similar unwanted advances had happened to me twice before, once at another insitution, where at least it was handled professionally. And, of course, harassers have built-in antennae for just this kind of vulnerability. But revealing that would only discredit me further.
I'm glad it's so easy to post to this site:
I should probably add that the campus police did send a cop to my class afterwards once but only for a few minutes...he interrupted my class to tell me that there were two other incidents on campus that day (we serve more than 20,000 students so I was surprised they were not equipped to handle three situations in one afternoon) and for that reason he could not stay until the class ended as I had requested, and then winked at me for good measure.
I am a tall, lanky, blonde, green-eyed 43-year-old I suppose some might call attractive woman and I actually look forward to age dulling my beauty so that I won't have to put up with this shit anymore.
a reader: the word you are searching for is "Esprit d'escaglier" (with reservations for the spelling, not a french speaker) Which is supposed to mean "Wit on the stairs" - i.e: The wit that comes to you when you are already halfway down the stairs.
I haven't been reading the posts so forgive me if I'm repeating what someone has said. I've had a lot of jokes and awkward comments and downright sexist crap said to me before, but sometimes its not the words that hurt the most. Its subtle things. Take for intance my past two relationships.
I'm a young woman (19) and I'm trying to form a good understanding of what it means to be in a healthy relationship (I don't have the best example condiering my partents divorced, then my first stepdad beat my mother and the third divorce made my mom walk out on my brother and me (temporarily, she bounced back)). I had a boyfriend through high school that was loving and perfect and respectful. When I left for college to an Ivy League school to study engineering and he stayed around home to study music, our bond fell apart. (I'm paranoid that my being the female "breadwinner" had something to do with it.)
After I got to this said school, I dated a guy for a few months who was very respectful to me and so sweet. I had never had a guy pay for EVERYTHING and insist on taking a cab everywhere rather than the subway. He would always make sure that I wasn't too cold outside. He thought is was "cute that I liked math and science" (he studied history). He was also domineering in the bedroom. Even so, he was also soooo nice to me and he never said anything disrespectful to me. But that was just it. He never said anything to me that would cause me to think in any way. He never did anything that would cause me to have a reaction that didn't affirm his greatness and wonderful-ness. He was also angry when I told him that I wanted out before he expected anything more serious (as if that could actually happen with a guy like him).
He never did any one thing that I could "pin" him on for being misogynistic, but I think that his not ACTING misogynistic did not hide the fact that he WAS misogynistic (after 3 months of dating him though... I couldn't see this after our first date).
I almost think that it is worse when people hide their true colors because of the threat of being considered un-PC, than letting everyone know immediately that you are a sexist asshole. Of course in the perfect world no one would be a closeted misogynist OR an outspoken misogynist.
We "lost" my little brother at 18 months. Seemingly overnight, he went from being a happy, normal little boy who babbled and loved to be held to a child who who never made a sound except for desperate shrieking, stared at the ceiling, and couldn't stand to be touched. He was eventually diagnosed with PDD- a disorder on the autistic spectrum. My mother was understandably distraught at losing her child overnight, and tirelessly poured over medical journals and visited doctor after doctor to find out what was wrong with her child. Do you know what the doctors told her? That she was being overreacting and being an "over-emotional mother". Know what happened when my dad voiced the same concerns to the doctors? We got results. They took it seriously. My brother finally got a diagnosis. My mother has a Bachelor's and a Master's in Early Childhood education and Special Education. My father does not. My mother is clearly more qualified to note deviances in normal child development and spot a developmental disorder, but she was written off as the emotional woman. My father, as the "rational man" was the one taken seriously.
Misogyny in action, the very name of this company itself is misogynistic and repellent:
http://www.findacomputerguy.com.
So, no computer girls, eh? Guess not.
Ha. They have changed their name to OnSource.
I have two car sales stories- grrr.
I was 19 and buying my first car. My parents had died a few years earlier, and I was fortunate to have enough money to purchase a new, entry model car. I went (on my own, obviously) to check out a Honda Civic, Toyota Tercel and a Saturn. I went to several Honda and Toyota dealerships (purposely dressed up, to look older, as I look very young) and couldn't get anyone to even make eye contact with me. At Saturn, I was helped immediately, and I told the sales guy that today was his lucky day bc I had just left the competitors without anyone even talking to me, and I was looking to pay cash for a car that day. I sent letters describing my shopping experience, and included a picture of me standing next to my new Saturn, to each of the unhelpul dealerships.
Mor recently, my husband and I purchased a new car for him. At the time, I was about three weeks from delivering our first child. I was also in the middle of my postdoc. Although the salesguy was great, the finance guy was an ASS. He kept pushing the life insurance deal where the car is paid off if someone dies, saying, "You should really think about this in case something happens to your husband". (1), uh, dumbass, if he is dead, I won't need two cars, and (2) having lost two parents at age 15, I'm pretty f-in sure I know the value of financial planning, thanks. Eventually I informed him of both points.
He consistently referred to me as "the little lady" and "Mrs So-and-So", in spite of the fact that I asked him repeatedly to call me by my first name. He did it one too many times, and I finally looked him dead in the eye and said "Mrs. so-and-so is my mother-in-law. If you can't call me Jen as I've asked repeatedly, than please kindly refer to me as DR. So and So." He shut up and got the job done after that. Ass.
i had tried to quit my job once already after my boss started seriously questioning my integrity over a really trifling matter (he thought i'd turned up the thermostat when i hadn't - apparently my fellow employees had a way of saying "nope, wasn't me" that was more credible than mine), and i wrote him a very long resignation in which i very plainly defended myself and expressed my disappointment in his utter lack of professionalism, both in that incident and many, many others. however, after a frank discussion, apologies, and promises to try to improve from him (why does this read like a chronic domestic violence narrative?), i chose to stay on.
three months later, after he pitched a screaming fit about five inches away from my face (reason: front door was shut; he wanted it open), i walked out
while he continued to scream himself blue in the face. afterwards, i heard from co-workers that his ultimate rationalization of it went something like "i'm glad she's gone - i was tired of having to walk on eggshells around her all the time after that letter. i can't deal with employees who are that oversensitive, you know? if you can't take the heat..."
that's right. he took my attempt to speak to him frankly and as equals as evidence that i was too much of a wimpy little girl for the job. yup, sorry my sissy inability to deal with workplace pressure kept you from being able to scream as much as you wanted to.
ooo! resurrected!
I'd like to point out that there's pretty substantial validity to the complaint about the male stereotype of "incompetent at all things related to home and children". The perpetuation of this stereotype also perpetuates the notion that only women are capable of maintaining a household. Since *someone* has to take care of these things, this stereotype enforces the exclusion of women from the workplace.
Feminist revolutions in thinking have to hinge upon the notion that men and women are equally capable. Any set of stereotypes which classes a group of people as incompetent needs to be confronted and labeled as "Bullshit".
I worked in the kitchen of a restaurant from ages 16 to 18. I was the only female. The males were anywhere from 15 years old to early 30's. The younger males didn't give me any problems, but the older ones would constantly make sexually explicit comments about female patrons in my presence. If I showed anger, they would say that I was jealous that I wasn't the one being checked out. Also- a couple of them tried to pressure me into telling them how many people I slept with. When I refused, one of them started listing all the guys that he already "knew" that I slept with. After this, the mid-20 year olds placed bets on whether or not I had already slept with my current boyfriend at the time(who used to work at the same restaurant). Who I had slept with was often the topic of conversation. The men would often talk about me when I walked away and if I asked what they were talking about, they would burst out laughing. That experience during my tender teenage years made me become wary of all men.
I read through them all, and have found myself saying "me too!" frighteningly often.
My stories...
My husband and I adopted our daughter 2 years ago from Asia. She is fabulous and quite smart. However, when she is around other children, she turns into little-miss-giggle-I'm-too-stupid-you'll
-have-to-make-the-decision-for-me-I'm-just-a-girl. I shit you not, she thinks she can't display any intelligence around strangers or she will not get attention. She is 6, btw.
My mother makes disparaging comments about my dad and how men cannot "get" women, etc. She says this in front of my highly emotional son who no longer tries to have a relationship with her as she has stated that she cannot communicate with "left brains".
My daughter got more attention from my mother on her first week in the U.S. than my son ever has at age 8.
WTF???
We as a society perpetuate stereotypes and then wonder why mysogyny occurs and why men buy into the stereotype that they cannot be nurturing or emotional.
At least my son still loves pink and my daughter is learning to skateboard.
Many men denigrate and show hostility toward women, but many postmenopausal women show hostility and denigration towards pregnant women and women who are accompanied by their children. As a mother I have experienced this again and again ever since my first pregnancy.
Great Site Thanks.
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I have long loved this thread and followed it for its entire life. I ultimately decided that misogyny in real life is such an important topic that i decided to start a blog of my 1st person experience of same. Curiousgyrl had gone "around the bend"!
aroundthebend213@gmail.com
sorry thats my email. This is my url:
http://aroundthebend213.wordpress.com/
I think your original comments about it are much funnier and more topical than the 'program' itself. Good observations!
Last night I was eating out with my boyfriend and another friend at a cafe when we heard this terrified screaming. It sounded like a youngish female voice, and she just kept screaming over and over. We and everyone else in the outdoor seats turned towards the sound, but we couldn't see any struggle in the street and everyone seemed to be walking past normally, albeit looking behind them for a moment. The screaming sounded like it was coming closer, and it wasn't until a group of men walked past that I realised the screaming was one of these guys' RINGTONE.
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No one has talked yet about how the 'smile' thing affects student teaching evaluations. What a burden to know that you have to be just as prepared as your male colleagues AND be Miss Smiley Face, too.
As an advanced grad student I had been promised a course to teach, but when the assignments were passed out I was passed over by a man who had finished but hadn't been able to find a job yet. When I went to discuss it with the supervising professor he told me that he'd decided to give it to the guy because "he had a family to support" whereas "your mommy and daddy can help you if you need it." I made it to the secretary's office before melting.
I'd previously thought that this was a great guy and we had a really good working relationship (which maybe was why he actually told me the truth like an ass?) It only took me a little while to get past hurt to angry and report him to the campus equal opportunity office and he actually came to apologize, all pale and quivery, hat in hand. I told him I'd already consulted an attorney (my brother who'd just passed the bar, but I didn't share that part). Truly gratifying.
Talking to military men in Iraq about politics has revealed one common thread: hatred of Hillary. Just in case you think this is due to their principled conservative stances on matters of public policy, I've been asking them why they don't like her. Most common answer: some variant of, "Because if a woman was elected President, once a month she'd start launching nukes."
It's as if they had never met an actual woman before.
Phew, reading through this all was worth it.
I've got too many bits and pieces to add, that I just can't formulate them into words now! Work, on the bus, on the train, getting my motorbike fixed, buying a motorbike, getting mycomputer fixed, walking past a construction site,walking past a construction site, walking past a construction site..in the bar, at night, on the street to my house, work again, fixing my dads car, relatives... Boo and Hiss.
I would say that I've never encountered any sexism or misogyny in an academic setting and this I'm thankful for though disappointed that i need to thank my lucky stars for it in the first place. People regardless of internal organs should be able to get an education without tolerating that sort of offensiveness.
If anything at least in my school and department it seems to be going the other way, and female students are expected to outperform the male students as a result of an inherently strong work ethic, being goal driven and having a better focus on their work, and the lecturers and course directors have been excellent the whole way through with everyone and very equal, and this is a formerly very male dominated science degree...
That I'm also the best kickboxer at my uni club may be a sound discouragement from comment to my face, who knows..maybe I should wear my gloves out more!
While it is not necessarily positive to trade one type of assumption for another at least this one has a character emphasis beyond my tits and size thereof or gray matter and presumed lack thereof.
When ever a guy calls to me from his car (especially if it's an older guy) I'll take a picture of him with my cell phone (while laughing) and then mime texting. Many men get embarrassed thinking that I took a photo of them and am now sending a message to all my friends - "look at the loser trying to hit on me!"
First of all, major props to the men on this thread who are trying to break the patterns of misogyny. Every time you cross a street to pass me at night or refuse to laugh at a crass joke, you renew my faith in the world. Good on you
That said, there's a long way to go... I've been very blessed and haven't faced much direct discrimination or hate speech, but I've certainly seen it in action. Last year at my state university, a friend of mine was sexually assaulted on campus. Know what campus police told her?
"You really shouldn't report this. You'll only embarass yourself." Unfortunately, she chose not to file the report. I wonder how many other young women were pressured into similar decisions?
Oh, and my favorite response to catcallers? Ogle him right back and follow up with a look that clearly says, "you couldn't satisfy a canary."
I entered the work force over 25 years ago in the predominantly male field of electrical engineering. To give you a clearer idea, in an office of +100 engineers I was one of two female employees in the engineering department. All of the other females in the office were administrative assistants (aka secretaries back then).
I began my job as a draftsperson however, after being on the job for only eight months my boss called me into his office to discuss my future with the company. He and the engineers I worked for had noticed that as I was drafting their work I was also correcting the designs and he wanted to know if I had an engineering background. I replied no and he asked me if I would be interested in becoming a designer or an engineer.
As a single mother of two at that time I replied yes for it meant more money. We discussed it and well the short version is that I ended up having a very successful, challenging and enjoyable career that in the end had me as the lead electrical engineer/project manager on multi-million dollar projects and well respected in my field.
I have since retired and now pursue my first love, that of drawing and dream of becoming a successful artist. I haven't quite defined for myself what that means but hey it is up to me to define it!
I understand what it is to work in a male dominated field and too of the "attitudes" that one can encounter as woman doing so...try being a 5'11", redhead, well dressed in heels (which put me up at 6') and then go strolling thru a construction site giving orders to "big burly" construction workers. Particularly when they have screwed something up and your telling them to rip it out and do it all over and on their bosses dime to boot!
It was tough some days and I did meet my fair share of resistance and comments which were less than favorable from some of the men I encountered. But at the end of the day every single one of them knew they had met their match and more times than not their superior. And that is a part of the key to success.
Some may think it unfair to have to be "better" or "sharper" than their male counterparts but in the end it really dose serve your own purposes better to be so.
However the other part of the key is not to let them get away with anything, stand up for yourself. Hold them accountable for their actions or words. That is the harder part, the part that will test your abilities, worth, and commitment. Are you committed to changing things from how they "are" to how they could or even should be? Not only for yourself but for others? If you are not willing to take this on then who are you in reality to be complaining about how things are?
Complaining is easy changing things is hard.
As a woman who's been there, frankly, if you want to talk the talk then you have to be able to walk the walk as they say. It's hard sometimes but anything worth having is worth fighting for. The things we acquired freely rarely garner any value as time passes.
A thought to ponder...
Every misogynist was a child and had a parent or parents. Every child's personality (for the most part) is formed in its basic nature by the age of five. So who in the end created this person and his attitudes?
Change begins at home teach your children well if you want the world to change it is up to you.
As far as PMS goes who cares, it is what it is and men get it too. They just haven't come up with a catchy acronym for it yet!!! Why do you think some of them make those comments?!!
I study the performance of a musical instrument that is not typically played by females, at one of our countries top conservatories. Here are a few of many comments that I have received from my studio professor in my private lessons:
"You're lucky. There have been studies that show that men prefer women with high hip:waist ratios."
"You'll need a husband who can buy you a big house to put all those shoes in."
(in response to my decision to attend grad school at another conservatory)
"You're going to leave me, just as you're becoming a hot woman. When you first started school here, you were just a little girl..." (actually, I was 18...)
"You're wearing lipstick! You look pretty. Are you going on a date?"
"You keep losing weight. Is your grandmother worried?"
"Something's changed in you. New boyfriend? Old boyfriend? You're glowing." (I think I was just wearing makeup.)
"Your pants are so tight. How do you get into them?"
"You should wear this color more often."
"Why are you going to study with (future grad school professor)? Is it because he's cute?"
"Hey, you've gained weight!"
"There are going to be more women in the studio next year. Will you enjoy that? I will."
"What do you look for in men? In women, I look for passion, talent, and intellect." (clearly...)
Professor: As a woman, you should vote for Hillary.
Me: Obama supports women's rights.
Professor: It's not the same. He wears pants.
Me: So does Hillary.
(silly professor, you can't be a misogynist and a feminist at the same time)
"Have you met Greg's new girlfriend? She's really hot... as a violinist, that is. Things have really been popping up... in his playing... figuratively, that is."
"I saw you make a bee line for some guy in the atrium. Anyone special? A new boyfriend?"
"Who was that guy you sat next to at the recital? Your boyfriend?"
I'm not quite sure why my professor thinks that every boy I am with must be a boyfriend. He's never gonna meet my real boyfriend. Real boyfriend wants to kick him in the nuts.
Speaking of Hillary Clinton -- if there's one thing her candidacy has done for us, it's shown the depth of misogyny still alive in even the most "respectable" corners of our society. The crap that gets published about her even in the most staid and stolid publications is appalling. And they don't get that it's bigotry, pure bigotry.
What about the process of getting married (traditionally). My husband asked me before we were married if he should ask my parents for permission. I asked him why, and his answer was about respect for them. I asked if I should ask his parents for their permission too and he agreed that we should both ask or neither of us should. Among all my friends of similar age who have gotten engaged or married the man has asked the father (and sometimes mother) of the female for "permission", sometimes before the question is officially asked to the female herself. Is a grown woman really still the property of her parents in the minds of so many men?
Also, in my grad department we have an faculty member who doesn't think women should be in academia. There are countless stories about his attitude, but I think the saddest moment was when I went in to talk to him about a paper I was writing, and he had to ask my name. There were six students in the class, and only fifteen graduate students in the entire department and the class had been meeting for at least 10 weeks by then. Another professor overheard and apologized to me later, but no one does anything about the offender - because he's old, is respected in the field, and has a named chair.
"there was the time I was on the train with some friends and I had my feet on the seat. the conductor told me to take them off or put them in my male friend's lap because "he would really like it."
tripthepeach- you should hace kicked him where the sun don't shine.
My favorite was the time I asked a new gynecologist for a birth control prescription, and she acted surprised, and then asked if I only wanted a few months worth because "Aren't you going to get married and have a baby soon?" I was 23 and in my first year of grad school in the biological sciences, so no, I definitely didn't want a baby soon. I left with a 12 month prescription and the distinct feeling that this FEMALE gynecologist disapproved of my choice not to have babies in the near future. Maybe I should have asked if she had popped out a couple of kids while in med school? I'm not sure why, but I think I was more angry that this comment came from a professional woman than from a man--after all, she should know better.
Incidentally, the first internal medicine dr. I saw at the same medical group was an older man, probably 70ish, and I only saw him once before I switched. While examining a mole on the back of my upper arm and a rash on my face, he was not only incredibly rude and rough with me but he also managed to brush up against my chest more than once. I thought about filing a complaint but wondered if I was making a big deal out of nothing. In retrospect, I wish I had, rather than ignore the poor treatment and borderline harassment from someone who was obviously taking advantage of his position of power, even if only to treat me like I didn't matter.
So far I haven't seen much sexism in my lab or department, but I wonder if that is because I work for a female PI in a lab that has always had more women than men, and I work in a field with many prominent women. Hopefully I won't see more of it later in my career, but from what I've read here, that isn't likely.
I think at least one other person has mentioned it, but one of the things that makes me really happy about this thread is how many men in it are disgusted and aware of these problems, and willing to speak up!
On a related note . . . several people have mentioned that women should consider that men are belittled as well, citing examples of being trained not to have emotions or people assuming their wife is the one who cooks. This isn't an anti-male attitude, it's actually misogyny, because the actions described (being emotional and cooking) are "women's" actions, and thus are devalued, so if a man does it, he is devalued for that action the way women are devalued *all the time*.
As for my personal experience with misogyny . . . I'm in comics. Please see girl-wonder.org.
Okay. I have to go anon on this one, cuz it's really bad.. This is my "fight back" story: I was at a computer show one weekend, working with a couple friends and it ended really late. On our way out, I had to go to the bathroom and found one that was I guess really part of the maintenence room? Anyway, I had my period, had to go.. went in there and there are about 5 or 6 nasty nudie mags, all open at various nasty pics. I don't mean "Playboy" I mean the nasty ones... I was so disgusted (no, I did not put my butt on the seat) that I changed my tampon and left the nasty thing in the toilet for those bastards to see come Monday morning. yeah, that's gross and nasty. But I felt better and just laughed my ass off about it for days... yeah. I know. I'd forgotten all about that story until I read the comment upthread about the woman who was told to smile, then opened her mouth and let the blood run.. LOL...
When I feel I'm being talked down to by men, i like to call them "pretty" or "sugar tits" (When I"m at the bar, natch.) I also like to tell them to go "buy something pretty." Is this wrong? Real question..
Twice I've been asked by potential employers if I'm planning to get married or have a family (one male, one female.) And a friend who was really great at her job (sales office at a hotel) was talking with a client who was so impressed with her he wanted her to interview with his company. She met the guy for interviewing at a restaurant somewhere where, after interviewing her for about20 minutes, promptly asked her out. Doosh.
As an academic still working on the final degree, I remember often being in classes where I or another woman made a remark, only to have it ignored. Then, within a few minutes, a male student would make exactly the same remark (often with the same wording!) and the professor would wax rhapsodic about how great the comment was. The one time I got angry and said something about it, some of the people in the class told me I was out of line for saying anything about it, that it wasn't 'appropriate.'
I remember in 7th grade I was told that I didn't need to know math because girls weren't good at math ... by the teacher in the class of course.
In regards to harassment and abuse, when I was 12 and went for my first gyno appointment, the obgyn spend twenty minutes fondling my breasts and talking about how they felt fake. This guy DELIVERED me. YUCK. No nurse in the room or mother. I never told my mother. I was so humiliated and angry, especially when I realized the breast exam takes about a minute, tops.
No one is probably going to read this as I've just today come upon the most enlightening feminist website, but here it goes:
I can totally relate to the "smile!dammit" syndrome. I was at a convenience store a couple of years ago, patiently waiting my turn, when this blond 30 something goober-guy looked at me and said.."Smile!" He was my last straw guy, as I'd become sick & tired of men demanding anything from me. I'm also resistent, obstinate to stated demands, commands. I blandly looked at him and said...(now, I have a deep, raspy voice that carries across the mountains to the hinterlands, terrifying the peaceful sheep nibbling on grass. My voice is directly oppositional to my big-eyed, baby face).."I don't know you. Nobody tells me what to do!" I was oozing attitude all over him, even though later I realized he wasn't worth my time & energy at all. Creep.
What I consider awesome, is the male clerk snickered very loud when I responded to obvious jackass, then immediately started laughing his butt off..haha. 1 for me, 0 for loser.
jlj, report that guy to the medical board in your state. They take these reports seriously. Odds are, others have experienced similar treatment from this abuser.
Now for my misogynist boss story: I worked in a biomedical research facility, coordinating clinical studies, planning studies, doing study treatments, and so on. At the time, I had a master's of science in nursing. Our lab had research career ladder that set the criteria for promotion. Although I had the credentials and experience, when I asked about the promotion my MD boss said, "But you're a nurse, you're supposed to be nice to people. A nurse can't be a scientist."
Because, of course, requesting a promotion is not a "nice" thing to do. And we all know that nurses are just angels who want nothing but God's grace in return for our selfless service to humankind. And we don't have the brains to be scientists! Silly me.
Keeping the thread alive.
I discovered the site a few days ago (thank Bill Donahue) and it took me a while to read through the entire thread, but believe me, it was worth reading. I'm a guy, but that does not mean I haven't seen/heard/done misogynistic things myself:
1. More than a few people here talked about their experiences of not being believed. My mother took Karate for many years, and she told me the story of how one day, walking home from the beach at the age of fifteen, a man attacked her. She was more than he bargained for, and the miscreant ended up running away. Her instructor was very tough, he would strengthen his students' abdomens by literally running across their stomachs in a line. My mother had gotten a black belt from this man by the time of the attack, but when she told people she had fended off an attacker, no one believed her. Not even her parents. To his credit, her Sensei did.
2. Someone told me that my cousin, who had gotten accepted into an aerospace engineering program wouldn't make a good engineer since she was going to have kids anyway. I am still ashamed by my own silence here.
3. I'm normally rather oblivious when walking somewhere. My friends often joke that when I get my PhD (eventually) I'll be the embodiment of the absent-minded professor. So it says something that walking through downtown Atlanta once I actually noticed EVERY SINGLE MALE around me leering at the woman walking in front of me. As she passed every one of them rubbernecked. Meanwhile, almost ironically, in my typical absent minded fashion I wondered what horrible disfigurement she had that was the cause of all the staring. It took me a second to realize that all of this was because she was attractive. I'm a heterosexual guy and of course I notice when a woman is attractive, but I never understood the point of staring/leering, as though trying to burn the image into one's brain.
4. My friend told me how his girlfriend was once looking at some billboard postings at her college under the heading "Jobs" for obvious reasons. A man approached her and asked her if she was looking for a job, to which she replied in the affirmative, not realizing it was a setup. At this he said, "I've got a job for you," and (real classy) looked down at his own crotch, and then back at her. She couldn't think of anything to say and just walked away, with him laughing in the background. My friend, her boyfriend at the time, suggested she should have looked him squarely in the eye and said, "I'm not your type, I'm not inflatable."
5. My last story, sadly, is from when I was a misogynist. This was when I was in my early teens and was far less enlightened. My mother was pleading for help with housework and I, the eldest, offered to vacuum but then ordered my sister to to help with the cooking, since, "It would be useful for you to learn now, for when you need it later." Oh yeah, I meant it exactly as it sounded at the time. Fortunately, she never listens to me, thank God. The irony is that I have really come to enjoy cooking, and have found it useful in university life.
By the way, someone asked about sexism not being misogyny. True, the word misogyny means to hate women, while being sexist means to discriminate against them. However, while I love to nitpick on semantics, I would point out that discriminating against African Americans, and hating them, still uses the same one word: Racism.
During that painful past, kind of miss the pain, I dare not think, that period of time, if there is no friend of help, I do not even know how to escape. I just earn the SOF gold to save myself. Now, my sister is coming back, this news I am very excited. She is still herself; just felt she is very depression. Sister, since so she began to call her, I hope that I let her only sister. Have called many times to her; just only want to tell her I want to call you sister.
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Umm...I've got a few. In grad school at UCLA, I received an unsolicited email from a famous visiting scholar (Slavoj Zizek if you care) detailing all the filthy sexual acts he wanted to perform on me. The professor (Kenneth Reinhard) in whose seminar he was lecturing admitted he had given him my email address, and immediately asked me how this was going to affect him personally. My supervisor, a famous feminist artist (Mary Kelly), pretended to be shocked but also told me I would miss this kind of male attention when it was gone. The following year she invited Zizek back as a keynote speaker for a conference on ethics.
More recently: the father of my unborn child ended our relationship and has been emotionally abusing me because "I got myself pregnant on purpose and am ruining his life." A few weeks ago, my dean made a joke that my mother and Sarah Palin now had something in common because both their daughters were unwed mothers.
Fuck this shit, you know?
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um, failed comment?
i was trying to say that shakesville has a discussion on this at the moment.
http://shakespearessister.blogsp...comment-
3170696
sarah's and other's comments on academia reminded me of this:
in the mid-90s, my sister was trying to get into the Texas A&M vet program and was having trouble with organic chem. she went to her advisor for help and he told her not to worry. she was so pretty, she should just focus on finding a husband while she was there.
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Okay the only reason im writing this is because im intoxicated but thats got to be one of the fucking top of the line waste of time jokes to even put out the web. Your better of showing a live feed of yourself jacking of a teddybear then ever typing a such a basketcase of a joke thank my email is ChrisMarkea@yahoo.com dont care for a response just dont waste no more space of the internet with that crap. Thank you!
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Here's a minor but unique one.
I play ice hockey, both with all-women's teams and men's teams. (Sometimes there are other women on the men's teams, but calling them 'co-ed' would imply co-ed rules, which usually require a certain minimum female presence. Anyway.)
I drive up to Canada a few times a year to play in tournaments. The Canadian border guards always accept my explanation that we're there to play hockey, and wish us luck.
The US border guards tend to be much less friendly, sometimes bordering on belligerent, and frequently skeptical. My favorite encounter happened with me and another 20-something woman in the car:
Guard: Are those your boyfriend's hockey sticks?
Me: No, they're ours.
Guard: You play hockey?
Me: Yeah.
Guard: *pauses, then looks relieved as something occurs to him* Roller hockey?
Me: No. REAL hockey.
The implication being that women don't play hockey, but if they do, it'd be ok if it were roller hockey. (Which is an insult to most ice hockey players.)
The same border guards also usually ask me to confirm my occupation (engineer) in tones dripping with skepticism. I've also encountered guards that don't believe I own the car I'm driving, a modest Honda CR-V.
Some day I'm going to snap at some misogynistic border rent-a-cop and get sent to Gitmo.
Well, M -- when you *do* snap, at least you'll have those hockey sticks handy.
This is an amazing thread. My own tale: when I was a student teacher, my cooperating teacher made me stand in front of the students while he walked around me, looked me up and down, and then stuck a dollar bill in my pants. His point? To mock one of his male students who had frequented a stip club the night before in celebration of his 18th birthday. The worst part? My female professor convinced me to keep quiet about it.
This happened a couple of years ago, when I went to an Apple store to buy my ipod. My boyfriend at the time was with me. I had never owned an ipod or any kind of mp3 player before, and I'm not terribly technical, so I was asking the (young male) salesperson a lot of questions to make sure I knew exactly how to use the ipod. He directed all his replies to my boyfriend! My boyfriend thought it was bizarre as well, and ended up taking a few steps back so that he was standing almost behind me, but the salesguy kept addressing him! Hello, I'm asking the questions because I want the answers. My boyfriend does not need to be involved in the conversation just because he has a penis!
I wish I had said "Hey, I'M the one buying the ipod, not him! And I'm certainly not buying it from you now!" and then gone to a different store.
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I have a story that I guess I've been trying to forget about for a while. What is with men that will not leave you alone when you want to be left alone?
I had a disagreement with my then boyfriend in a public place that had a lot of people around. Can't honestly remember what it was about, but we both got pretty angry and I tried to storm off. I don't like agruing in public to be honest, and I wanted to leave it until we were somewhere a lot quieter and more public. I say "tried to storm off", because he grabbed my arm and prevented me from walking away from him. Why do people think this is acceptable behaviour? I bet he wouldn't do that to a man that he had a serious disagreement with, unless that man was attempting to leave with his property. I've never had a woman that I argued with try that bullshit. Thankfully, my current boyfriend is much more respectful.
Thanks for allowing me to bitch, BitchPhD!
This ad for Blackstone merlot is the most insulting, misogynistic thing I've seen in print in awhile. The dog gets better treatment than the woman. I see it saying-Drink this wine and you can have the nice lady AND you don't even have to listen to her.
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