I was actually part of the most egregiously sexist act I’ve ever witnessed. In my sophomore year of college, my roommate, a very strong and self-possessed woman, and myself, a somewhat less authoritative male, both applied for the same job. (We were not romantically involved, just roommates.) By “applied”, I mean that we both responded to an e-mail sent out to an e-mail list used by the college’s theatre department. The email was from a professor who needed a stage manager for her dance troupe’s upcoming performance. My roommate, “Sarah”, beat me to the punch by sending her e-mail several hours early. Sarah also knew the professor and was currently taking a class from the professor. I had never met this professor before. And in all honesty, anyone who’s watched the pair of us as stage managers would have to conclude that Sarah is much better at it. Nevertheless, I was offered the job instead. We compared notes about this after I was offered the job, and Sarah asked the professor why she’d picked me instead.
The professor told Sarah that in the past few years, she (the professor) had had tremendous trouble with the technical director of the theatre in which she’d be performing, and that this trouble was multiplied when the lighting designer or stage manager was a woman because the technical director was horribly sexist*. The professor had decided not to hire a woman for the job because a woman simply couldn’t, in her mind, perform the job given the necessity of working with the technical director.
Sarah and I talked this over and considered going to the college administration over the issue**. I offered to decline the job and tell the professor why I would be doing so, and generally told her I’d back her move, whatever it was. Sarah eventually decided to let the whole thing slide, since she liked the professor in question. Truth be told, I still feel a smidge of guilt whenever I get work from this professor; I know that I do a good job, but Sarah would do a better one.
*He is, incidentally, obscenely sexist, something I found out the following year when I did a lighting design in the same space and brought in my own friends, both women and highly competent, to help me adjust the lighting for the space.
**The technical director and the theatre that he manages are owned by the college, though not connected with the theatre department in any way.
Too right. I was coming in here to post a similar anecdote from a multi-family gathering when I was a kid “Oh, we’ve got some left-over childrens’ food - the boys can have an extra sausage”. I can’t have been more than five at the time, and it pissed me off to the extent I can still remember it 34 years later. I was HUNGRY, dammit!
Most egregious apart from that:
I had a university physics lecturer who used to make snide comments about women all the time - most famously, referring to a particular tough equation as “she”, because “anything that gives you trouble is always female”.
When I had a supermarket job as a teenager, the change-rooms were labelled “Men” and “Girls”. I never worked up the courage to sneak round and re-label them “Boys” and “Women” but by crikey I fantasized about it a ton.
This is not exactly what the OP was asking about as I heard it second hand, but the manager of an electrical contracting company told me that he had a female come for an interview. He asked her why she had gotten fired from her last job. The manager told me she said it was because she, “wouldn’t suck the boss’ dick.”
I was just reminded of one I witnessed, after visiting the Web site of the business in question. It happened to be woman-on-woman sexism, too.
I was at my local music store, waiting my turn behind a woman at the cash register. Behind the counter were the man who was actually working the register, and the woman who had helped this customer find what she was looking for.
The lady was talking to the man on the register, pointing to the woman behind the counter and enthusiastically praising the high-quality service she had received. She told the guy that the store “really should be sure to keep her around” and “she deserves a raise!”
The whole time, I’m doing my best to not bust up laughing, and the two behind the counter had looks on their faces that said, “I’m biting my tongue and being polite to the customer.”
You see, the woman behind the counter owns the music store.
She did agree, after the customer left, that she could indeed use a raise
When I first attended university, I enrolled in the NROTC program. The freshmen were each assigned an upperclassman to help ‘mentor’ us, not only in the NROTC program, but with university life as well. I wasn’t doing too well at the beginning of my second year, and I was talking about my struggles with the classes with my advisor, Paul. He listened for a few minutes then said “Why don’t you forget about engineering school. You should just drop out and get married”.
:dubious:
The second-most egregious one also occured while I was in university. It was at the beginning of the semester, and I was expecting my first baby. I was your typical crabby pregnant woman. Anyway, the Dean of the engineering school was teaching the class known as Statics and Dynamics. (This guy is my Dad’s boss’ boss, as my Dad was a Civil Engineering professor). I was the only female student in the class. This one day he walks into class and writes four words on the board:
EGGS
RUG
WIFE
SEX
So of course someone queried him about the list. The Dean looks really happy with himself and says “Well, son, you can beat eggs, you can beat a rug, you can beat your wife, but you can’t beat sex”.
I stood up and declared: “Dr. X, I don’t think everyone in this classroom thinks that’s so funny”. Gathered up my books and waddled out of the room.
Well as soon as I got out the door I thought “Lordy girl what have you done!” I had visions of Daddy getting fired over my popping off to the Dean like that. Went straight to Daddy’s office and he kind of got a chuckle out of it and assured me that things would be fine.
I found out that the Dean actually did go talk to Daddy, apologized and said that if I didn’t want to come back to class he understood, I could just show up for the tests and that would be fine. I chose to go back and behaved myself the rest of the semester. And the Dean did too.
Sure - moreso in small stores, typically, but I see it a lot. I know that the owners of two wine shops near my house also act as advice-givers and cashiers, for example. The owner of a nearby restaurant also acts as the maitre’d most nights. Owners of salons are also frequently stylists too.
It’s not overly egregious, but my mother still thinks it’s horrible that I won’t pack my husband’s lunch for him. She especially thought it was bad when he used to leave for work before I got up in the morning. She felt I should be getting myself out of bed just to pack his stupid lunch.
He has hands. He can pack a lunch just fine. He also earns a paycheck and can buy lunch if he forgets to pack one.
A friend joking to me that she should ask me, rather than my husband, when our children’s birthdays were, since he probably wouldn’t remember. This, while he was actually in the room listening to the conversation.
I didn’t personally see this one, but - the policeman coming round the local playground to ask the men, specifically, what their business was there (answer, in both cases - “taking care of my kids, as a matter of fact”)
I did witness this but don’t personally remember it - being quizzed by a stranger at a bus stop about whether the man I was with was “really my dad”. The man apologized to my dad afterwards, saying that his wife had pushed him into checking us out, since my dad was “talking to the kid so much” he looked like an abductor, not a parent (:eek:!)
During last year’s U.S. primaries, a coworker told me he would not vote for Hillary Clinton - or any woman - for president. This was not (he insisted) because he thought a woman would be less competent for the job, but because “the rest of the world is still really sexist, and if we had a woman for president everyone would lose respect for us, and she wouldn’t be able to do her job properly.” I threw all sorts of objections at him: the world is racist, too, but he was willing to vote for Obama; we shouldn’t kowtow to others’ prejudices in choosing the best president; I’d never heard that Britain under Thatcher or Germany under Merkel had lost the respect of other nations; etc. But no, no, no - the guy wouldn’t budge. I could only conclude that he secretly just didn’t trust women as leaders, and this was his excuse.
On the other side of the spectrum are all the conversations with women I’ve had who go all jelly-kneed when I express my conviction that women should have to register for the draft when they turn 18, the same as men. “But the women have to stay home and care for the babies…!” I’ve been told. I know from previous threads that there’s disagreement among Dopers on this issue, but to my eyes the male-only policy is clearly and unreasonably sexist, and it’s an embarrassment that more women aren’t fighting for it.
Sure - small town, small shops, small staff. It’s an economically smart business move to do some of the work yourself instead of having to hire another person.
Of course, in this particular instance it may have been ageism as much as sexism. The store owner is about my age (early 40s), but looks younger; the customer appeared to be in her late 40s/early 50s.
Isn’t it possible that the harm is different for the different genders? It seems to be sort of taken as accepted wisdom amongst certain people that it should be totally equal. But what if it simply isn’t?
Well, either both sexes should have to register, or neither sex should have to. The same law should apply to everyone. Personally, I’d prefer to do away with the draft, and requiring people to register for it.
Fine - but either way, both men and women shouldn’t have to register, or they should.
No, every American male is required to register once he turns 18. Practically speaking, the draft hasn’t been used in decades, and it’s very unlikely to be used anytime soon: it’s politically unpopular, and the military mostly doesn’t want it. But in principle American males of an eligible age can still be drafted.
Sure, it’s possible. But it’s up to the defenders of differential treatment to (scientifically) prove that boys are affected differently by it than girls. Absent such evidence, the motivation for approaching the situation in the “traditional” way can only be bigotry. And, in all the times it’s been brought up (including on the SDMB), I’ve never seen any cites provided; the proponents of this view always appeal to “common sense” or their own fantasies and experiences.
Plus, even if it were scientifically proven that a statistically significant difference exists, it should not necessarily result in female statutory rapists receiving lighter sentences. If the specific child in a case has endured or will endure emotional trauma because of the act, there is no reason for the sentencing to be any different.
