casual sexism

Bahsan

A friend assumed all the video games I have in my house near the shelf where I keep MY PS4, are my ex-bfs. “Because he’s never seen me play”. He hasn’t seen my ex play either, or any of the other male friends that has consoles he didn’t make this assumption about

Karishma

I was in the copy room this morning filling water for myself, when one of the managers was trying to print out a few documents. The printer was slow and there was a print-lag. He was getting pissed at the printer, when suddenly he said – “This printer is a female!” I was there, and I exclaimed, “Excuse me?” He burst out laughing saying, “I said that because you were here.” (Like that was supposed to be funny) So NOT! The other day at work, one of the managers was unwell and had been off work since a week. The other manager from the same department was chatting with me, when I asked him about the first manager, who was unwell, out of concern and humanity sake. This second one goes, “Ah, he’ll be alright. You women are always so sensitive, asking how is he now, etc. He’s a tough man, he’ll be fine.” (Yes, us women, we care!)

Lily

I’m the only woman sat at a bank of 6 desks (all the others are occupied by men) with a sign overhead saying ’’management’ (it’s a big open plan office). Random guy comes up to me & just assumes I’m the secretary – I’m not!

Jessica

So… It’s not often you experience this kind of casual sexism from actual bus company employees. I was on my way home from university for the weekend and using the bus. I had changed my bag from my usual backpack to a hold-all so did not have my official University ID by accident. This became an issue as the ticket inspector required valid student ID with my ticket. This was resolved in the end as I realised I had remembered to pack my ISIC card. However, I feel that the inspector’s comments were inappropriate. He said: “oh you girls and your bags”. I found this very offensive as he suggested my not having the intended ID was due to a fashion choice and not down to the fact I had made a practical choice to pack my clothes in a larger bag for the weekend. This was after I explained the situation to him. I had a male friend present with me during this incident and felt the inspector was trying to gang up on me. Which backfired… I recently had a seperate run in with the man despite having both valid ticket and ID this time… He apologised to the male passenger next to me for the inconvenience of the exchange between us. Charming.

Jess

My employer saw me standing next to the company minibus. He asked me if I’d been shown how to drive it. I said of course because that’s protocol. But that I’d already driven it on a sixty mile round trip the week before. I was shocked at my driving ability being queried. I was particularly annoyed as a male colleague had knocked a wing mirror off the minibus a few months before but I knew our boss would never have asked a man if they were OK driving the vehicle yet it’s OK to ask a young woman because women have questionable driving abilities.

15

One of my teachers made a sexist comment last week about all women acting a certain way. Comparing women to technology as we ( women) did not do what he wanted it to. When my friend confronted him about this after the lesson he dismissed it as “just a joke to lighten the mood”. I don’t know about you but nothing lightens my mood like casual sexism, right? When it was pointed out to him that it was sexist and he shouldn’t be saying it over teenagers he simply shrugged it off, and when questioned further he turned the situation around on us, saying that we were saying that all men acted that way. Which was not the case. In the end we just had to walk away due to the sheer stupidity, that a middle ages man, with a wife and kids, was arguing like a child about how that all of this was “just a joke” and that “we shouldn’t make anything of it”. I mean what harm could a influential role model for children making a sexist joke and enforcing casual sexism do? ( sarcasm btw). I’m only 15 and I still have collected a fair few of sexist experiences. Some much bigger, some smaller. At the age of 13 i learnt that it was safer to sit on the outside seat of a bus, then you could control who sat next to you then. It scares me that the world is like this, and I don’t want my brother to grow up in this world. A world where Donald trump is president of the USA – sending a very clear message to anyone that this behaviour is acceptable as long as society gives you the green light, that some people say that now we have a female leader that that woman suddenly equal as men (That this solves every problem that we as a society have)That the media screams don’t do this do that at young girls; if you do this you will be ugly, boys won’t like you, be liked and sets unrealistic body images in young girls heads, that millions of young girls look down at their body’s and sigh. Because we don’t have the waist line of a Disney Princess or the body type that’s in fashion. Or how boys shouldn’t cry, to be tough manly, creating more toxic masculinity and stigma around being anything but this. It scares me that this is a society. That every child is socialised into, that’s this is the real world. That this is not a dystopian book. But that means it’s up to us. And me, a 15 year old girl, to stand up challenge these stereotypes and stand up to every inequality. And hopefully something might change. Because I don’t want the next generation to face these old issues. No one does

Emmeline

Comments around school: Food tech. teacher (female), to a boy: “You’re stirring it like a girl.” (I.E. weakly.) Music teacher (male), to the class: “The boys will like ‘The Great Escape’.” (Or whatever film it was, I know it was something I’d like a lot though.) Boy from my English class at a book reviewing session: “It’s more of a boys’ book.” Random boy who was being annoying, to me: “You dropped your lunchbox, here you go, Princess.”

Sue

This is one of those niggling little examples of sexism. That constant drip-drip-drip of of casual sexism dressed up as ‘humour’ or ‘light-heartedness’ that really gets under the skin…. Sky News today reported on the newly-built HMS Elizabeth leaving a shipyard in Scotland and heading into the open water. Because of the vast size of the ship, there was only 14 inches free space either side of the ship as it passed through a gap. Kay Burleigh commented “They probably need a woman to navigate it”. This is so insulting to all the sons and husbands out there who are perfectly capable of navigating a huge ship – including MY youngest son who is currently serving a a first officer on a container ship. There is absolutely NOTHING to suggest that a woman can navigate better than a man, or vice versa. This kind of casual ‘humorous’ sexism MUST stop!!