Poll for women:

In My Humble Opinion
21

The only case of blatant sexism was back in 1991. I was at my boyfriend/hubby’s german club doing a clean up. It was old world mentality crashing into the new world. Painting, sanding the clubhouse outdoor furniture.

I was the only person doing the work. All the old german men were standing around with rakes in their hands smoking cigerettes and drinking beer. It’s 10am and they are drinking beer like it’s midnight Friday. I’m sanding down picnic table tops so they can be repainted. I have sweat streaming down my face and back at my work. Meanwhile, the krauts are just oblivious to my efforts.

I would like to state that I wasn’t even a *member * of this club and still am not.

When I needed to move this picnic table - very old style table - thick logs - very heavy, it would barely budge under my pushing or dragging attempts.

One of the club members - in his 6o’s - comes over and says,
“This is no job for a woman. These tables are too heavy, go with the other women in the kitchen.”

“I’m safer with a sander in my hand than a spatula.” I said, pleased with my rebuttal.

Naturally, the kraut didn’t get it. " The ladies are in the kitchen getting lunch ready…"

“No, really, you don’t want me there.” In the dark, gloomy kitchen with a bunch of gloomy menopausal, roosted-pecked brow beaten wives. No thanks.

“But that is woman’s work.”

Peeved now, " Really, then WTF to you call me sanding down ten table tops while you guys smoke and drink? It certainly isn’t mens work either.As far as I can tell you guys don’t work at all."

They never bothered me again.

22

The only really blatant time I can think of was when I was a senior in high school. Our physics teacher was big on having us build stuff to demonstrate physical principles (we built rubber-band powered cars, a catapult, and a musical instrument). At one point I was asking for help with 3 other students, who coincidentally happened to be all female, and all seniors (the majority of our class was made up of juniors). He made a comment something along the lines of “I realize this must be difficult for you.” Never mind that the reason I was taking physics as a senior was because I had taken advanced chemistry the year before. Or that during my “slacker senior” year, I was taking physics, advanced biology, astronomy, calculus, and AP English. Or that I ended up going to school to study gasp engineering.

I work at an engineering computer lab, and although no one ever comes out and says anything, I’ve sometimes gotten the feel that some users would prefer to talk to a man. There was a thread here about a year ago, and when a customer asked one woman to talk to a man, she responded “why, so you can hear the same thing in a lower tone of voice?”

While not discrimination per se, I have run across the following situation: I’m in a bar, and some guy comes up to talk to me. We start chatting, and get to the 3 standard college pick-up questions: 1-what’s your name? 2-what year are you? 3-what’s your major? Everything would be fine until I got to engineering. Then, I usually get some reaction like “wow, you must be really smart,” and most of them tended to go away.

As for the flip side of things–my parents are divorced, and I started living with my dad when I was 6. I remember being in school, and the teacher would tell us to take something home to have our moms look at it. I would usually raise a big stink about it, and she eventually started saying “moms and dads.” I’m sure my dad has plenty of stories of a single dad raising a daughter, and the reactions he got.

23

Great poll, LadyFoxFyre . Brings back great memories ! ha.

I was in the NROTC at college for a couple years. I had a few bad grades in Calculus etc. the first year. My ROTC student advisor (an upperclassman) suggested I “drop out and get married”. I said, Why don’t you ?

I did drop out but went back later, ironically, after I had gotten married. The first day of Statics & Dynamics class, the prof makes a really stupid sex joke. I was the only woman in the (packed) class. I got up, told him off, and stormed out.

O.K., I waddled out 'cuz I was 6 months pregnant. This guy was the Dean of Engineering and also my dad’s boss. He actually went to my dad and apologized. I think he just didn’t think about the rudeness of his joke.

My first job as a brand-new engineer was with a monster consulting firm. I was working on a water main project and needed some info on casing spacers. I was trying to talk to a factory saleswoman on the phone and having a hard time explaining what I wanted. She finally said “Why don’t you just put the engineer on the phone???”. I coldly replied, “Ma’am, you have the engineer on the phone.”

14 years into my career, I am less and less likely to experience sexist/discriminatory stuff. Especially sweet was when I would go to see little old ladies around town when I worked as the City’s drainage engineer. They’d be like, “Wow ! We got a lady engineer! I’ts about time !!!”

The best response I’ve found is to make it into a joke. Life’s too short to take offense to some bird-brain. :smiley:

24

I have a friend who lived the first twenty or so years of his life in Lebanon. He’s a very nice guy, and five years of aggressive canadian women has mostly ground this out of him, but he has chauvinistic tendencies. When we first met, he thought tickling and poking me (things I hate, being terribly ticklish) were extremely funny, and seemed to assume that because I’m female, I’d just put up with it. I explained to him how foolish that was, then when it continued, decked him good and proper.

Now he’s realized that life is simpler if he just forgets I’m female. :smiley:

25

In 11th grade, the trig teacher I had was not a goo teacher. He refused to answer questions in any meaningful manner and would spend the classes writting ong the board very fast and as soon as he filled the boards, he would erase them no matter the protests. He would also, as he wrote, lectured, facing the chalk board on aspects of trig other than he wrote about. He would often state blatant falsehoods. I got A’s because I consistently scored highest on the test, having a nearly 59% average. I went to the principal to ask him to at least observe how bad the classes were, but he told me that well, as a girl, I had just reached my limit of learning, that as a girl I could not expect anyone to be able to teach me higher math.

Bastard.

I have two degrees now, one in Mathematics, and the other in Computer Science. I graduated Magna Cum Laude.

26

Heh. That happened to me this weekend. I danced with this guy for a while, then he suddenly took off. Later on, I was sitting on a bench at the front of the club. I was upset (long story) for a reason wholly unrelated to him. He comes over and plops down, and asks what’s wrong. I give him the Reader’s Digest version, and he informs me that I’m only upset because I’m an overly emotional female. I think he thought that I was upset that he’d ditched me earlier or something, because he said “well, I’m too wild for you anyway. I’m a wild college guy.”

I said “Oh, well I can’t have any involvement with you anyway, since I’m a graduate student.”

He looked slightly surprised and left quickly. :rolleyes:

27

I knew my boyfriend was a good 'un when I first told him I was an engineer (I skirted around it when I first met him, and just said I worked for a medical company), and the first thing out of his mouth was not “Wow, you must be really smart!” but “Was it tough being a female in engineering?”

28

I don’t think I have ever really experienced blatent discrimination but have had issues with men but they usually learn pretty quick I don’t put up with bullshit. I can thank my daddy for teaching me to be forward when needed.

I have worked in construction, auto parts (tire store) and computers all my working life.

Just little things like someone explained. I was in window and door sales, answered the phone (after the receptionist sent the call to me) and have had callers (usually men) say “I was told I would be transferred to sales.” I would reply, “yes sir (occasionally the old snooty lady) or ma’am, you have reached sales, how may I help you.” Usually a hesitation and then once they got to know me, they knew I knew my stuff and was not a girly girl that prances around in sundresses commenting on my hygiene preferences.

I haven’t had too many sexist things happen in my working travels. I am pretty assertive with those I meet on a professional level and sexist jokes never bothered me since I grew up around the construction industry. Inside I am a big wuss personally but I am good at putting that knowledge that my father gave me to work professionally.

Oh and when it comes to car sales people, I have never had one treat me like a “po little woman.” I have purchased many vehicles in my life and have been treated with respect. Besides, I am good at pitting dealer against dealer.

A confident demeanor (sp) and walk says you mean business. I have always walked into a car lot with jeans on, a nice conservative top and a list of things I have researched in my brain.

As for other places, some men get the idea I am a puss (like on construction sites) and when I would walk out there with a hard hat on, my tape measure on my hip climbing out of my big black 3/4 ton truck, they were the ones that were shocked. I had one builder comment that I wasn’t anything that he expected. He said something to the degree of “I knew you were petite but I never thought you’d be driving around in a bigger truck than me and be willing to climb on a roof.” Ha, a nice voice on the phone fools them everytime.

But I never let it get me down because:

Hehe, love to shock people when they really meet me. :wink:

29

I had a teacher like that, and he finally accepted that I might know what I was doing when I continually proved him wrong and/ or gave him a shorter way to do what he’d just done.
:smiley:

30

Oh my goodness lee. I’m not a girl, and it would have taken all my self-restraint to avoid decking that bastard of a principal. I would certainly have taken it up at a higher level - whether it would have worked, who knows, but you got the best revenge by proving him completely, totally wrong. Short of finding someway to personally humiliate him, I mean.

Go get 'em :D.

31

I can’t remember too many incidents that affected me accutely (they’ll probably come to me later) but I do remember being disgusted and bored when I went to see “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson being taped one evening. This was probably a year or two before he retired.

Johnny was fine, but Ed McMahon “warmed up” the audience with a bunch of stale, boring old sexist jokes. They were extremely sexist, and not funny. I couldn’t believe that he’d still think he’d be able to pull that off anymore. What an old dinosaur. I always thought he was OK before that, but I lost a lot of respect for him after that night.

I got an opportunity to go to the “Tonight Show” again, and I requested to get tickets on a night when Jay Leno hosted. No more Ed McMahon for me! (I haven’t gone back to see the show yet, though.)

And easy-e’s story reminded me of my childhood. My mom was very active in our lives, but so was my dad. My dad’s schedule allowed him to attend all the school events and activities, so he’d go instead of my mom (who didn’t drive, and worked downtown). He volunteered to drive for field trips, etc. etc. As a kid I remember feeling embarrassed because I wasn’t “normal” like all the other kids, since people often assumed that I’d be bringing my mom to such events, and were surprised when I had to correct them and say that my dad was coming instead. (I remember seeing one of my sister’s old school photos—it had the moms posing for for a class picture next to their kids. But wait! There’s ONE MAN in the group! Yep, my dad. Bless his heart.)

Now I think it was just cool that I had a dad who had no problem performing a duty that many thought was “mother’s work”.

32

Just a couple days ago, I recieved possibly the most annoyingly sexist lecture ever, by one of my classmates. He was convinced that any girls that were really good at professional sports had to be lesbians. All of them. No exceptions.
Even the ones with families.
And children.
And normal lives outside of the fact that they’d won the Women’s World Cup, or the WNBA Championship.

Of course, he was telling this to me and my friend Elisa, who are both starting varsity athletes in each of our respective sports. :rolleyes:

33

#1 In restaurants, invariably, the bill goes to the male I’m with, if I’m with a male.

#2 I was buying a guitar. Had my then-bf with me. The salesman talked only to him, because even though he knew the guitar was for me, he assumed the guy would be paying.