How sexist are your parents (if at all)?

In My Humble Opinion
41

The short answer is: Dad is not sexist, Mom is somewhat sexist. I’m sure I could think of some contradictions to that if I thought about it hard enough.

My dad would never do what the OP’s dad did. I think he thinks of his three kids entirely as individuals. If he had an engineering question, he’d go to my sister. I can’t even think of a particular topic he’d go to my brother with first. Dad bought us Tonka trunks and action figures when we were young, and he made sure we played sports.

My mom is somewhat sexist. She catered to my brother, but not in a big way. She steered my sister and me towards housewifery rather than career (but we thwarted her anyway). She’s hardest on herself. Although she’s strong and competent, I think she wishes she were weakly delicate, as she thinks women are supposed to be.

They’re both around 70.

42

My parents hit the 70 mark in '05, both being 1935 babies.

Neither of them is sexist in any of the likely coarse obvious ways. In raising me and my sister, they just about fell over backwards in being meticulously fair in every way possible, whether it be in terms of parent-financed opportunites or the behavioral standards to which we were held or personal freedoms or the forms of hell breaking loose on us for violating the rules.

Of course I wasn’t wearing skirts to High School… :slight_smile:

Hmm… OK, seriously, I’d say…

a) At least originally, they seemed to have higher & more important career hopes for me. Whether it was exclusively cuz I was the guy or not, I’m unsure.

b) I think they would have been a lot more distressed if my sister had been as much of a social outcast in school as I was. Again, it’s hard to know for sure. They did worry about me, but there was a great deal of “he is brilliant and will get a great career so it does not matter that he is reclusive and has no friends”. In retrospect, I can’t complain (the interventions I’d have most likely suffered would not have been pleasant)

c) Double standard on sexual activity in late teens. I think I would have gotten a much rougher chewing out if I had been caught (as I was) partly undressed with opp-sex partner on couch once when they came in, had I been my sister. But not as much double-standard as you’d probably expect. Just a little bit.

I can’t think of any others really. I started at least two other sections then erased them, realizing that evenhandedness was more present than absent: expectations of being self-supporting as an adult (when either of us has fallen short and been granted an exemption from the expectation that we oughta be, it has been accompanied by an assessment that we were “damaged goods” hence reduced expectations for both good and bad); marriage pressures (they’ve been pretty relentless with me too, it’s just the rest of society pushes my sister harder).

43

My dad isn’t very sexist, but, omfsm, is my mom ever (they’re both in their 70s).

Dad taught all of his kids of both genders stuff like cutting the grass, home remodeling, minor car mechanics, etc. It would never have ocurred to Mom to teach the boys to cook, sew, clean house or do laundry.

I’d have to say that having daughters opened my dad’s eyes a bit (he came from a very traditional family with only brothers) to our smarts and capabilities. Although he was a bit more strict on us girls about dating, he’s never pressed any of us to be in relationships to have someone to take care of us.

My mom, on the other hand, has come under the influence of some very traditional priests and tv preachers. If you asked her if women were equal to men, she would tell you under no uncertain terms, that, no, we are not. It totally bothers her that one of my sisters and I are single again, even though, in my sister’s case, she was the major breadwinner in her family. It totally puzzles her that my stepson is the primary custodial parent(when not deployed) of his children. Yet, she was always proud of all of her children’s academic and career successes.

They followed traditional gender roles as far as earning a living and household chores until ill health after retirement severely limited her abilities to do many things. Now, after fifty years of doing nothing more complicated than popcorn or making a pot of coffee in the kitchen, my dad has totally taken over the role of chief cook and bottle washer and actually enjoys it! He’s also not bashful about calling one of his kids (male or female, depending on who he gets hold of first or whose area of expertise it fits) for advice and instruction in subjects he is having to learn for the first time, be it laundry or how to set up his new tv / dvd player (::sniff:: kind of makes me proud). Mom, on the other hand, would never think of asking one of her daughters for any advice beyond recipe exchanges (even though both my brothers are / were better cooks than a couple of my sisters).

ETA: So it looks like the moms are the more sexist amongst the replies.

44

Not in an overt way.

I am 27 and female; I have one brother aged 28. He has been with his girlfriend for eight years, they own a house together and live in a small village near my parents. I live 60 miles away in the capital in a flatshare and have been seeing someone for about 6 or 7 months. Never had a long-term relationship, really. My dad(aged 59) gives *me *grief about not being married, and about how no grandchildren are forthcoming! He always gets the same answer - talk to your other one! I think the implication is that as a female I should be more likely to be married off and popping out babies by now.

He also overlooks me in any issues he deems too intellectual, however this is possibly because he enjoys intellectual discussions about engineering and physics, as does my brother, and my type of intellectual debate would be more about philosophy. There have been times where he has said “Don’t you worry your little head about that” - he would never say that to my brother!

45

I never really thought about it, but the only way my parents were sexist was in being more protective of me than my brother. Other than that, they always encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do, including helping my dad with carpentry, or working on the car, or whatever. And they were definitely supportive of any intellectual/educational/professional choices I made, regardless of what they were.

I’m 43 and my parents are in their 60’s.

46

Dad was 82 when he died. Mom is now past 80.

Dad was in college when World War 2 started. Mom was in high school during the war. They met in college after the war.

They had a very traditional marriage. Mom worked 80 hours a week cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the kids. Dad worked 80 hours a week to pay off Mom’s credit card bills.

Dad would grudgingly admit that a woman could take care of herself, but he did not think much of a man who was not the breadwinner of the family.

Mom does not do plumbing or electrical repairs. In her mind, that is what men are for.

After my brother and his wife had kids, I was surprised to learn just how much my mother disapproves of women working outside the home. In her view, my sister-in-law should have done without the cell phone and the fancy car, and stayed home to take care of the kids. Nevermind extra income. That’s what men are for. In Mom’s mind, in the traditional breadwinner/homemaker split, the breadwinner has the bad end of the deal.

I should also add that my parents had three sons, but no daughters. Mothers tend to interpret everything in terms of how it affects their children. So my mother is one of the most male-chauvanistic people I know. She can think of lots of ways that an evil woman might get her darling boys into trouble, but it never crosses her mind that a man might mistreat a woman.

47

All of my sisters–even the two born in the 70s–were REQUIRED to wear skirts to high school, and everywhere else. Pants were not allowed by my parents church; likewise dancing, movie theatres, rock music, you name it. I used to smuggle in pants for my little sister, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my 6-years-older brother did the same for the sisters nearer to him in age. But the baby would have been on her own.

48

My father died at 58, but he would have turned 100 this year. My mom will turn 80 this year. They were incredibly “sexist,” but it was what was expected at the time. My sister and I were taught housework and we had lots of chores to do daily. We cleaned the house, ironed, dusted, mopped, cooked, washed dishes, etc. My brothers had to mow the lawn once every two weeks and take the trash out 2x a week. My parents saved money to pay for their sons’ college educations and their daughters’ weddings. See where we’re going here? And this, even though during hard times my mom had to work to help support the family. She was a secretary, one of the “acceptable” jobs for women at the time. Mom wanted the very best for her daughters, and had the *dream *that we would marry and have babies and be supported for the rest of our lives. This was the pinnacle of her hopes for her daughters! Higher education for girls was never discussed.

Didn’t work out that way. She raised very strong women. One daughter is an engineer, who supports her husband; one’s a lawyer with a truly wonderful husband. Their five sons all earned college degrees, too. Two of her sons are engineers. I don’t know what one of sons does (he’s non-communicative in the extreme). The second youngest is a part-time tree-trimmer and the youngest is not gainfully employed and has not been for well over 10 years (He’s in his 40s; that’s a pit thread I’m going to start one of these days).

I think her old fashioned gender role ideas were challenged when she was widowed at 38 with seven children. Things were very hard for her because women were just not considered a ‘head of household.’ She had massive problems getting a loan at the bank (women just didn’t have credit histories in their own names.) She couldn’t even buy whole life insurance because the insurance companies believed women would never have the obligation to provide all the support for the family! She faced a lot of difficulties that women today could not imagine because things were so different then, but she’s a very strong women. Now she’s very cool. Hands down best mom in the world.

49

If my dad were still alive, he would be 102. And he was 55 when his first child was born. So you can probably guess the answer.

When I asked him why he wouldn’t help me pay for college, (as he had done for my sister), he said I would be able to get a husband to take care of me. :rolleyes:

50

Um…why’d he pay for your sister’s college, then?

My parents helped pay for my baby sister’s college but not the rest of us, not out of sexism (conventional or inverse) but because she was so much younger than everyone else that years passed in between her enrolling and the elders, and they didn’t have multiple other kids to support at the same time.