From: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism
Subject: Re: Sexist Incidents
Date: 31 Aug 92 11:46:40
Organization: Natural Language Incorporated
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
In-reply-to: mackenzi@McRCIM.McGill.EDU's message of Tue, 25 Aug 92 18:36:39 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.183639.16010@thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu> mackenzi@McRCIM.McGill.EDU (Paul Mackenzie) writes:

>Has anyone had any experience with blatant sexism?  By this I mean some
>decision making that was OBVIOUSLY based on sex where sex had no logical
>part in the decision.

Sure.  Here's a few:

A friend of mine worked as a customer support (phone support) person.
She was extremely familiar with SCO Unix, having previously worked for
SCO.  A customer called with some questions about SCO Unix.  He refused
to talk to her because she was a woman, so a male customer support
person (who knew nothing about SCO Unix, but had the right chromosomes
and therefore sexual characterstics) had to relay the questions and
answers.  She stood there and he told her what the customer wanted to
know and she told him and he told the customer.

I went out to lunch with a (male) friend of mine.  Afterwards, I wanted
to go look at some futons because I was redecorating my house.  A
salesman came over to ask if he could help us.  I told him I was looking
for futons, told him something about my requirements, etc.  He then
addressed questions to my friend, who had not said anything.  After
about 10 minutes of asking my friend questions and me answering them, he
finally figured out that *I* was the one who was going to be purchasing
a couple thousand dollars worth of furniture and started talking to me.
Then I asked about a feature that one of the frames had and whether it
was available on another model.  He said no, and then said to my friend
"If you're handy around the house, it would be easy for you to add."  We
found this very funny, but also clearly sexist - ignoring the person who
is asking questions in favor of the person you assume is paying (because
he's male) or you assume can do woodwork (because he's male).

At several points in the course of redecorating, I called to have people
come show me samples of carpets, new cabinets, sliding glass doors, etc.
I was invariably asked if my husband would be home when they came by,
even though I never mentioned anything about having a husband and I
always said that *I* wished to purchase this or that.  The assumption,
apparently, was that my "husband" would be the one with the money and
therefore should be present for the purchase.  In this case, of course,
it is possible that if I had been a man, they would have asked about my
wife, but I tend to doubt it.

Most of the time when I go out to lunch or dinner with a male friend, he
is the one they put the check next to.  This might be okay, but then
when I put *my* credit card down to pay with, they bring the check
*back* to him.  Maybe they're just careless, but, again, there is the
assumption that it is men who pay for things.

As you have probably seen from the other examples posted, there is a lot
of blatant sexism against men, too.  You, as a man, might start to
notice this more if you look for assumptions about what you can or can't
do simply because you're a man (such as the diaper changing example I
just saw posted).  Other things to look for: as above, assumptions that
you will pay for things; assumptions that you will work on your house or
car or whatever; assumptions that you do not have to take care of
children; assumptions that you do not know how to cook or clean;
assumptions that you are interested in sports; etc.

Muffy
--

Muffy Barkocy | muffy@mica.berkeley.edu | wi.4636@wizvax.methuen.ma.us
~Little round planet/in a big universe/sometimes it looks blessed/
 sometimes it looks cursed/Depends on what you look at, obviously/
 But even more it depends on the way that you see~ - Bruce Cockburn