I’m a youngish female professor, and I can confirm this – except most students don’t even seem to know that “Ms.” is the best option for addressing women in the workplace, so they tend to call me “Mrs. Porpentine” or “Miss Fretful,” both of which absolutely make me cringe. And yet, I worry about what they’ll say on the course evals if I insist on “Dr. Porpentine.” (Actually, I’d be fine with just “Fretful,” but calling profs by their first names is definitely not part of the local culture, and I don’t want to buck the trend too much until I’ve got tenure.)
You are also male. My spouse, the same age as I am, doesn’t see it as much as I do. In part because he isn’t at the receiving end of it. It part because he isn’t noticing it when it isn’t him.
The baseball/softball story I told upthread is interesting, because a lot of us had both boys and girls in park and rec ball. The mother’s saw the situation as sexist…the father’s just didn’t. To them, the difference in the quality of the experience for the boys and the girls seemed normal.
It is possible that women see sexism because they want to. Its also possible that men don’t see sexism because they don’t want to. The honest truth is many women probably see too much - and many men probably see too little. That doesn’t mean that it hasn’t gotten better since the 1950s, or that its pervasive. And it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. There is a huge middle ground for “it still happens.”
I remember my mother, who’s been in academia herself for many years, telling me before I went to college that when in doubt I should just call people “Dr.” That’s just what I did, and as I recall the few professors I had who were not actually Ph.D.s never corrected me!
I don’t know if you’re originally from the South, but those students calling you “Miss Fretful” are probably trying to be at least somewhat respectful. At my last job (small women’s college in the South) I was amused to realize that all the student workers in the library were calling me “Miss Lamia” even though I’d always introduced myself as just “Lamia”. I hadn’t lived in the South for several years and the “Miss Firstname” business was a little old-fashioned even when I was a kid, but it seems that some Southern children are still brought up to feel it’s rude to call a grown woman by her unadorned first name. Still, “Miss Firstname” was always more informal than “Mrs./Miss Lastname”. In my experience even K-12 teachers were never addressed as “Miss Firstname”, that was what you called neighbors and friends of your parents. So I’m not sure why a college student would think “Miss Firstname” was appropriate for an instructor even if they’re assuming you’re not entitled to “Dr. Porpentine”.
Yeah, I know they’re trying to be respectful (and it tends to be the students who are really, really not socialized to college norms); that’s another reason why I’m hesitant to correct them.
Now I’m really wondering if my male colleagues get “Mr. Firstname,” or if students just address them as “Dr.” or “Professor” by default. I should ask them.
I think the US is a far more sexist society than Europe and a lot of that has to do with the ‘Wild West Conquest’ tropes. I said before that I think ‘feminism’ got itself subverted and ‘tamed’ by The Establishment. I am very opposed to most ‘feminists’ I run across here (and so are most women) because their whole approach seems to be a mixture of returning to pretending to be the helpless (and usually sexless) little woman that men should make special consideration for as exempted from equal responsibility and all the traditional superiorities of men’s stuff over women’s stuff holds true except that women must do it too - whether they want to or not.
I’ve had plenty of self-styled feminists tell me that they want men to have the freedom to be house-husbands too but that’s avoiding the issue: it’s still saying one to run the home, one to finance it. When it comes to the point they prevaricate and where feminists always demanded that men must accomodate them, their response to men is do it yourselves without our help and men don’t want to do “women’s things” - well a lot of women don’t want to do men’s things either but ‘feminists’ have left them no choice!
I find it all like Dr.Zhivago. There was a real desire to change things, to allow women much more opportunity than they had had, but also a dissatisfaction with the (1950s) western world that called all its values into question from a perspective of women speaking their mind. They weren’t going to fight in VietNam and more than half the boys who were probably did not dare to buck the system and the girls did not really understand that. But there was a social upheaval. For the most part it settled down as premature and the love everybody Hippies turned into Reaganite. But the real idealists of Russia 1917 ended up in death camps by 1937 - or even 1927. “The personal life is dead” - women and poncy men better do their duty. Too often, I find that is the message of feminism when it should be “The personal life is ALL” - men better realise there is more to life than ‘duty’.
There’s a kind of generational 20 year swing that should put us overdue for return to liberalism, but Reagan-Thatcher really dragged the late 20th century kicking and screaming into the 19th and raped it to shit and back. The present 60s-20s - and you can trace the liberal swing back by about 40 years for a very long time in Europe if not the US - is overdue and starting from a base far to the Right of its predecessors.
Most American ‘Feminazis’ like Andrea Dworkin were doing no more than casting very traditional prudery and belief in the superiority of all things ‘masculine’ in modern language. They bear no comparison to parts of Europe where women have always run their own small business or peasants worked together - Hellz bellz, who’s the oppressed sex in ‘The Waltons’? Why must there be one? Even if they do different things, as long as respect is there, does it matter? I think we have been expected to be less respectful of The Female than ever before, but that is changing.
All the same, I don’t believe it is really possible for a European to engage American women here because it is such a different culture that I see (for both sexes) as extremely masculine-orientated and hostile to all things female, and even just plain humane. Sarah Palin is maybe a good example: she’s as good a man as any with balls. What she is not is a challenge to balls as the only value worth having (though I have to admit that everything she has ever said shows more balls than gay tennis 
)
I see it as a case of putting differences aside until the battle is won. Then you rip each other’s throat out. But there is an opposite too, that there is no reason American women should not be just the same as American men. Equality means that there are as many female would-be rapist filth as there are male. Equality means that women don’t hide (as so many ‘feminists’ do) behind whining ‘inferiority’ when they are teenagers not getting what they want, or having to consider other people, or women who should have grown out of that self-obsession years before, but the American culture protected them
I wonder if the college students won’t appreciate a little education on the matter. If done correctly, it will probably not reflect negatively on your evals.
When reviewing the syllabus - with your name and office hours…
“You will notice that I have a PhD. A lot of students call me Miss or Mrs. People with a PhD worked really hard for that and tend to prefer being addressed as Doctor. If in doubt at college, anyone teaching a college class can be addressed as “Professor.” Even women. Even grad students TAing your classes, who don’t technically deserve the title, but a little flattery will serve you well. This little public service message will serve you well your college career. Don’t worry if you forget and call me Miss or Mrs. I understand habits are hard to break.”
Er…because we’re in the sharp, sharp minority? Because we aren’t looking for it? Because we (primarily) aren’t the target of it?
My experience is that there is very little sexism in today’s world. My opinion used to be the same. However, after actually listening to actual women talk about how women are treated, my opinion changed.
You sound almost exactly like I did not just 6 months ago. Seriously–it’s uncanny.
I’m a baseball fan. When I try to talk about baseball with other fans, I’m reminded very vigorously that it’s not “normal” for me to be able to talk baseball. On an Indians site, if I or one of the handful of women say we like a player, someone will say, “Because he’s cute?” or if we don’t like him “Oh, come on! He’s not that ugly!”
Right, like my opinion of Ryan Garko has something to do with his face and not his inability to hit for power.
A more hurtful example is just that I grew up watching baseball with my dad, listening to the games on the radio, etc. But once when he unexpectedly got tickets, he took my brother. He told me to my face that he didn’t even think of me wanting to go to the game.
I’m assumed to love babies and weddings and shopping. If I get angry, it’s because I’m just sooo emotional, where if a man gets angry it’s because he was wronged.
In HS, I had to take home ec and I had to sew a skirt.
If any males in here are fantasy readers, you might be surprised to know that there are men who won’t read fantasy because it’s “girly.” Can’t be seen as “girly,” you know. It’s like an instant sex change operation!
Men are still the default and women the other. I’ve mentioned this a couple of times, but there was a story about a specific physiological adaptation and it said, “Humans don’t have this adaptation except for women and people from Africa.”
Well, my god, it looks a hell of a lot like humans DO have this adaptation except for some men!
I’ve seen this some other places, the “People do X except women” types of statements.
Then the Republican party thinks that all they have to do to get women voting for them is nominate a woman, any woman.
It’s gotten better, much better, just since I graduated from high school. I think most men are really trying to think about the things they say and I think many if not most women are more willing than they used to be to say, “I’m not doing that just because I have two X chromosomes.”
This reminds me of when white people are confused about black people not trusting the police.
Back when my husband was on Canadian crutches and could not use his leg at all, when we went places together, people spoke to me instead of him. If he asked questions of a sales clerk, people looked at me when they answered. Sometimes it was as if he were invisible, other times it was as if they thought his mind as well as his leg were non functioning. When he regained the ability to walk after a surgery, our roles were reversed, and I became the semi invisible one.
Ah, yes - bias against disability. I do get tired of people assuming I’m the nurse + translator rather than the wife.
Also once had someone tell me point blank I was young enough to divorce the cripple and get a real man.
People are such class acts.
It’s harder for men to see bias against women because it’s not directed at them. I’ve also found that as men get older, and particularly when they get married, they tend to become more aware of these things.
QFT. I think that there is much, much less blatant sexism in public, but that privately, people will come out with many of the tired old sexist beliefs. And you can substitute “racism” for “sexism”, too. People will say stuff in private that they wouldn’t dream of saying in public. Sometimes, a private letter (dead tree or electronic) or memo comes into the public view, and everyone is appalled that this person is so sexist or racist. But the fact of the matter is, sexism and racism are still here, they’re just not nearly as blatant as they used to be.
I’ve found this also. My husband used to believe that women should be happy with the traditional roles…until we had a daughter who wasn’t interested in such roles. Now he’s become somewhat feminist in his views, because it’s HIS precious little girl who is adversely affected by the old attitudes. It’s hit home for him. He loves his sisters, but they were, or would have been, happy to be stay at home moms for broods of kids. The ones who had to work outside the home always resented the necessity.
I’m glad that we’ve made this much progress, but there’s much further to go.
That’s my personal favorite.
My husband did the cooking when we were first married and one of his doctors, a woman, demanded to know why I didn’t cook him “better meals.”
Certainly, most “official” cultural oppression is a thing of the past now, but it stands to reason that women in their 50’s today have born the brunt of a great deal of inertial effects, such as older family members who believed that only certain occupations were appropriate for women. I wouldn’t think that most younger women have had as much as a problem with that, as long as more patriarchal immigrant cultures are factored out. As for those cultures, oppression in them is a problem with those cultures, not mainstream American culture. On the other hand, the mainstream culture drops the ball here by its reluctance to vigorously oppose gender repression (and all repression) by those who wish to immigrate to this country.
Yeah, but if we get angry and try to deal with it verbally, we’re “whining”. Six of one and a half-dozen of the others, I’d say…
Heh. I remember in a past thread about Affirmative Action, I had to spend an inordinate amount of energy convincing one male poster that white people greatly benefit from Affirmative Action because at least half of them qualify as beneficiaries. He balked at this statement seemingly on the grounds that its disingenuous to refer to white women as white people.
It ticks me off to see how many people here are of the opinion that nothing’s wrong. I see it all over the place, and I’m a male for God’s sake. Numerous people laugh at men in “girly” jobs, and expect their women to be brainless, busty automatons.
Even in my own family, I see it. upon hearing that my sister’s P.E. class was playing football, my father replied “Football? In a girl’s class?” Yes, dad. everybody goes by the same curriculum, settle down.
I don’t think I understand you; can you elaborate on why you disapprove of this? What’s wrong with one member of a couple running the household and one financing it, as long as both are free to choose which role (or both) they would like to fulfill?
I think a man should be able to be a stay-at-home dad and not have people look down on him (as happens) or feel inferior for not having a “real job.” I also think that a woman should be able to be the primary breadwinner in a family and not feel like she’s “married beneath herself” (as also happens).
Unfortunately, we’ve got a way to go before that happens. Even though I like to think of myself as somewhat enlightened, I have trouble with the idea of marrying a man whose dream was to stay home and raise children. Whereas I think if I were a guy, I wouldn’t have trouble with the idea of marrying a woman who wanted to be a mom.