i grew up in a community in the UAE where girls weren't allowed to talk to boys and vice-versa once we hit age 7. long before i entered puberty, the adult women in my life kept reminding me that if i am ever caught talking to a boy, i would be the one to suffer with the label of 'prostitute' and a tarnished reputation that people would never forgive or forget. the boy/man would be able to continue with life as if nothing had ever happened. they were right. it didn't matter how smart i was, how nice i was, what i contributed to the community, etc. all that was quickly forgotten (especially by the adult men in my life) as soon as i started to develop an interest in boys. it was really more of an interest in people around me. shorts had always been my favourite thing to wear, but as soon as i turned 13 and started turning boys' heads, i was being slutty. my parents and teachers started to monitor my every move and all my phone calls. i was rarely allowed out in public by myself or with my friends because i might "pick up a boy".

although the adult women who warned me were right, i didn't agree with their attitude. i didn't agree that i should conform to the rules made by men to avoid being treated as a whore. i thought i have as much right as men to walk out in public with shorts on, and i should fight for my right, and i won't let anybody stop me, no matter what the consequences. and believe me, i paid severe consequences. in one respect, i was fortunate to have an abusive father and a co-dependant abusive mother. i literally raised myself up, and i learnt to question everything. i learned to think for myself, make my own decisions, make my own choices. i was locked inside my home for months on end, i was hit, i had food thrown at me because i dared to have a casual relationship with boys. (by casual, i just mean plain old friendship. the sexual relationships came naturally years later).

well, i finally left home in the UAE for india. i travelled a bit before settling down at a college in chennai (IIT - if you've heard of it. thwap calls it the 'atom bomb' university!). i thought the sexism i experienced in the UAE was bad. whoa, i didn't have a clue how to start fighting this attitude here in chennai. when i wore western clothing (pants, shirts, shorts, skirts, the usual stuff), if my t-shirt wasn't an extra-large that made my boobs disappear almost entirely, i got dirty looks. i had a pair of black jeans that fit my figure so nicely. not too tight, but not loose either. an older female student pulled me aside and lectured me very harshly about wearing such tempting clothing. talking to men was more acceptable in this place, but only if it was in the presence of other women. i didn't bother talking to the men anyway cause they were so bloody sexist. i knew i already carried the reputation of slut for wearing 'tempting' clothes. some males even approached me hoping to get into bed with me because they heard that "i was easy". degrading.

i wanted to be on the swim team. i was a swimmer in high school, and i couldn't give up swimming so easily. i was told it was a co-ed team. i turned out to be the only girl on the team. the boys came out of the change rooms in their speedos, walked around to the shallow end of the pool and jumped in. i came out of the change room in my bathing suit, started walking toward the shallow end when the male coach called me and said, "next time, you will wrap a towel around you from the changeroom till you enter the pool". so, i slapped him. turns out they had a really crappy team. i was faster than all the boys! but get this, i was not allowed to participate in any of the meets because i am a grrl. oh, i was so mad. i complained and yelled at everyone in any position of authority who was denying me my opportunities and rights, but got nowhere.

some time later, i couldn't take it anymore, and i left the wretched place. i started working on immigrating to a new country. i chose canada (at random - hmmm, i seem to have made a lot of important decisions in my life at random. anyway!) i have faced sexism in canada as well, but it has been so mild compared to what i've been through before.

i have felt strongly about the recent feminism threads because i keep having to ask myself: why shouldn't i be able to form my own opinions on sex and sexuality and fashion? what makes anyone else think i can't think for myself in these regards? why do i feel like somebody is denying me the liberty of thinking for myself? it's goddamned oppressive, and it tears me up inside. i've been through a lot of that bullshit for years as a little girl, as a teenager, and as a young woman. i went through enough of it that i had to run away from where i was living and join the homeless on the streets. and i was miserable. but i fought those attitudes. i don't think i changed them. it's hard. but i fought them, and damn it, if i'm not worthy enough to call myself a "good feminist", then i won't. but don't anybody try to suppress my thoughts no more. i'm a free being (to a large extent anyway), and my thoughts and opinions may not always be well-informed, but i learn as i get through life, but i don't learn when people dictate to me what i should think, (and if i don't want to think like them, i get insults tossed my way), but in the end, i have my own set of beliefs. i choose what to believe. and people need to learn to respect this choice that i have, just as much as i respect their choices.

(btw, males and females, queers and straights and bis, communists, socialists, capitalists, whoever can post to this thread. i would really like this thread to be a meaningful (and peaceful!) reminder of struggles women face daily. my only request is that people refrain from making judgements and denials and their own interpretations of other people's experiences, or claiming that their experiences are harsher or more valuable than others'. if you are a male or female and have experienced sexism, let us try to stop thinking for a little while what "feminism" really means, remind us again what we're fighting against, and let's try not to fight amongst each other by dictating our own personal beliefs to each other).

nighty-night.

[ 13 October 2005: Message edited by: ephemeral ]

My mother grew up in Pakistan during the 60s and it appears that many of these restrictions didn't really apply to her. She went to all-girls schools most of the time, but it seems that she had neighbourhood male friends and no one gave her any trouble as long as she stayed within certain boundaries.

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Originally posted by Mandos:
I have an interesting anecdote about that but I can't share it without giving even more away about my identity than I already have. Suffice it to say that IIT was the wrong place to go for that.

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Originally posted by idontandwontevergolf:
With the restrictions on clothing ephemeral has mentioned, I've often wondered if isn't partly an admission by men that they cannot trust themselves to control their own lust.

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That occurs to me, too. But then I wonder exactly which men are setting the rules in those instances? For example, whatever spewing there is about women dressing 'immodestly' in North America comes not from men in general, but from a small-- usually extremely religious-- subset of them.

Recently, a recovering Fundie of my acquaintance sent me a link to a site that argued for women to 'cover themselves'-- invoking fricken David and bloody Bathsheba. (Wish I could find the link; it's hideous.)

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Originally posted by ephemeral:

i grew up in a community in the UAE where girls weren't allowed to talk to boys and vice-versa once we hit age 7. [ 13 October 2005: Message edited by: ephemeral ]

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Originally posted by idontandwontevergolf:
With the restrictions on clothing ephemeral has mentioned, I've often wondered if isn't partly an admission by men that they cannot trust themselves to control their own lust. I'm having a hard time articulating this thought. It just seems that the men are doing themselves a disservice (not to mention the horrible way the girls and women are treated) as well.

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Originally posted by idontandwontevergolf:
With the restrictions on clothing ephemeral has mentioned, I've often wondered if isn't partly an admission by men that they cannot trust themselves to control their own lust. I'm having a hard time articulating this thought. It just seems that the men are doing themselves a disservice (not to mention the horrible way the girls and women are treated) as well.

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The male position that men are circumstantially incapable of controlling their lust and may easily be helplessly driven to amoral action by their inherently uncontrollable primal urges strikes me as the greatest of all cop-outs in the book of moral cop-outs. I consider it effectively the heterosexual equivalent to the Gay Panic Defense.

Pleading unalterable, helpless stupidity is in my opinion the most annoying habit of all, within the traditional misogynist arsenal. And it's especially worrisome when it's combined with a culture which, by process of elimination, assigns blame to women for actions which might 'lead on' or 'provoke' those clearly uncontrollable male urges: the male's circumstantial incapacity for rational behaviour removes any fault from his shoulders, after all.

Like the Gay Panic Defense, it places blame on the victim by denying the perpetrators ability to act rationally, and therefore puts all responsibility for defusing the situation on the individual afflicted.

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Originally posted by jrootham:
Anybody who thinks that Homer Simpson is designed to be a positive role model is too confused to walk down the street.

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Originally posted by jrootham:
Well I certainly agree with the logic. However conflating Fred Flintstone with Homer Simpson speaks to some difficulty in media analysis. Fred was modeled after Ralph Kramden (sp?) on the Honeymooners so you are looking at close to 50 years ago there.

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Yes, I'm generalising this phenomenon as one which has existed for a long time and which remains prevalent. I don't see why you consider further examples to be a 'difficulty'. Ralph is even closer to the heart of the matter, in that he famously serves as a platform for openly making light of spousal abuse (I don't know about you, but I didn't get the impression "to the moon, Alice" was supposed to provoke concern and serious critique of the problem of domestic violence amongst the audience).

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Originally posted by jrootham:
Anybody who thinks that Homer Simpson is designed to be a positive role model is too confused to walk down the street.

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That this is an unacceptable artistic approach?

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Originally posted by jrootham:
So you think a character designed to be a negative role model is a bad thing?

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****

idontandwontevergolf

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But then the women (mothers telling their daughters what to wear and how to act chastely) are in collusion with the men, aren't they?

I'm just back from the hair salon and had and interesting conversation with the cutter. I'm pregnant and am having a boy and the cutter said he would be afraid of having a girl because of what could happen to her out in the world. He (jokingly?) said that he would have to lock her up until she was married to keep her safe. I told him that I feel a great responsibility as an almost parent of a boy, in that I want to teach him to be respectful of women etc. The hair cutter had nothing else to say. My conclusion is that the men acknowledge the terrible things that can happen to girls and women just because of their gender but their answer is to essentially punish the girls with isolation rather than teach the boys to behave better.

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I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. About the mothers, I wouldn't necessarily say they're colluding with the men, that's a bit harsh. Perhaps they went through the same experiences when they were small, and feel resigned to what they perceive as an inescapable reality. They've grown to accept it all their lives, and subconciously associate any deviation with a high risk of pain.

As for the hairdresser, he sounds like a bit of a buffoon. I'd love to raise both a daughter(s) and a son(s), to see and enjoy the differences. It seems like common sense to me that locking up a girl means she won't know what to do and how to handle things when she finally walks out.

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With the restrictions on clothing ephemeral has mentioned, I've often wondered if isn't partly an admission by men that they cannot trust themselves to control their own lust. I'm having a hard time articulating this thought. It just seems that the men are doing themselves a disservice (not to mention the horrible way the girls and women are treated) as well.

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Dear Brittania Preschool Sensitivity Administrators,

We were gratified by your newsletter’s kind inclusion of Canadians among the identifiable groups whose exotic – but valid! Completely valid! -- holiday traditions are to be explained to the children this fall. Seeing “Canadian Thanksgiving” nestled in there with Rosh Hashanah, Ramadan and this Iroquois Harvest cannot help but give citizens that warm, unoffended feeling. That said, we have regrettably detected a certain element of non-progressivity in your programme.

Now, consider it understood that other levels of government have shockingly underfunded Brittania; and that therefore your staff of 17 only has a few child hours per week (CHPW) to inculcate all possible cultural understandings into the Callums and Kaylas of modern East End tykehood. Take that as read, friends. You have still shockingly – even offensively – failed to meet Ministry guidelines in this matter of diversity.

As you know or should know, under the “Numbers and Colours” provisions of the Infant Lifestyle Sensitivity Act, only qualified holiday-demonstrating staff at subsidised pre-schools may present materials of a religious nature. And yet we have reliable reports that a Greek-Canadian trainee at your establishment helped contruct a dreamcatcher for a student of Celtic/Italian background! I hope you understand the gravity of the offense this kind of insensitivity may cause. Appreciating diversity, colleagues, doesn’t mean we have to be ridiculous.

More seriously, your holiday-expounding protocols show a marked departure from the census demographics of your designated catchment area. Viz., while your action item regarding the prohibition of snacks during pre-school Ramadan is a good one, we strongly suggest the immediate commencement of uninterrupted reading from the Guru Granth Sahib, or Sikh holy book, for however many CHPWs this may take. It may also be a good idea to have the children construct dioramas representing the Towers of Silence, as a large-ish family which follows the prophet Zoroaster has just opened a rather nice restaurant north of Charles Street. Also, to make your area’s children of Wiccan parents (1.2%) feel more included, we suggest that making up something to do with fall’s earth spirits would be valid. But please ensure that no cultures are appropriated during any Wiccan unit.

For our next inspection of your practices, we ask that you prepare feedback on our proposal for the upcoming review of holiday-interpretation rules. Viz., we recommend removal of the “giving” portion from the title of the fall gratitude activity celebrated by many in our jurisdiction (or “country.”) The policy rationale is that “giving” implies the existence of a deity of a religious nature, and we should instead each fall just give a big old Canadian Thanks.

Inclusively Yours,

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Originally posted by babblerwannabe:
I always think being a woman would be much more fun and free. Theres so many fashion choice for women, i found that male clothings are oppressive. Its interesting to read this, because i do feel that women have it better, in terms of personal freedom. I know theres restriction for women , but I think theres more restriction on men maybe thats because i 've been living as a male all these years. Meh.

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oh, jeesus keeryst, if you don't have anything constructive to say, stfu. seriously. you just totally ignored the ONE thing i asked for:

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my only request is that people refrain from making judgements and denials and their own interpretations of other people's experiences, or claiming that their experiences are harsher or more valuable than others'.

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i really don't care if you, as a man, have had it worse than most women. we've already been down that road with other men, hokay? go back and read a few older threads.

posted by idontandwontevergolf:

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But then the women (mothers telling their daughters what to wear and how to act chastely) are in collusion with the men, aren't they?

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i like fast_twitch_neuron's response to this. what i've got to say: the victims play their part. not everybody is a rebel. not everybody can be a rebel. rebelling exhausted me. i had to leave because i didn't have the strength to do it anymore. to change an entire poisonous culture of sexist attitudes all by myself. i remember talking to a few good female friends of mine, both from high school and college (btw, we didn't distinguish between college and university like it's done in canada). my friends said something like it's a shame they don't have the freedom to choose who they're gonna marry, the freedom to go out in public by themselves as girls without being accompanied by an older person (usually mum or dad). i said to them, why don't you fight for your rights? you know you have the right to do that.

one answer they gave me was they have been conditioned since childhood to accept the societal norms they had been born into. they believed that, as girls, they are indeed the weaker sex, they are more chaste and need protection from fathers and husbands. unfortunately, this "protection" turns into a very ugly, oppressive, controlling thing. so, yes, many girls believed and accepted what the men told them.

another answer they gave me (similar to the one above in attitude) is how awful it would be for a girl to rebel and disrespect the authorities (parents and teachers and other adults). that would be tomboyish. oh, the shame. boys can always do that sort of thing easily, and get away with it, but not girls.

another answer: these girls had good relationships with their fathers. the fathers genuinely loved their daughters and treated them good in many ways, but they were a sexist bunch conforming to their society's general sexist attitudes. for a girl to disobey a loving, but sexist father could potentially mean breaking ties with someone she's loved and trusted from the time she was born. that is never an easy thing to do. it's hard even when you dislike your father! maybe a discussion on this should have its own thread. it's quite the complicated, heavy issue.

sexism is not just against the female sex, right?
Its okay if you dont want me to post on this thread though.
babblerwannabe ]

[ 14 October 2005: Message edited by: babblerwannabe ]

toward the end of high school, one of the reasons girls were encouraged forced to go into the sciences is because the sciences is more time-consuming than the arts. the attitude was that a girl should not go into the arts field so she would not have all that extra time to flirt with boys. cause you know women only tempt, taunt and tease as they have only sex on their minds. !!! this line of thinking is just too bizarre for me to understand. so, our career choices were also influenced by sexist attitudes.

in the uae, women were treated only slightly better. they were treated by men as pure, almost holy objects that needed protection all the time. it is a little like chivalry, i suppose. i said before, the protection becomes excessive and controlling. i wish men would understand that women wouldn't need protection from men if 1. men didn't keep harassing women, and 2. men didn't think (maybe subconsciously) that women are weaker beings unable to speak up for themselves. i say 'subconsciously' because it might be an attitude that has been conditioned from childhood by media and already existing sexist attitudes.

I do try to speak up when people cross the line (though it may be that I am more timid in some circumstances than others). Ditto racism. Inevitably I get rolled eyes (there goes _____ again...) and a grudging acknowledgement that 'yeah yeah, that's bad to say that'.

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Originally posted by babblerwannabe:
sexism is not just against the female sex, right?
Its okay if you dont want me to post on this thread though.
babblerwannabe ]

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no, it's okay. you can post. i just really don't want the comparisons. "men have it worse when it comes to this, women have it worse when it comes to that", type arguements. that gets a lot of people upset because you can never say that for sure. how can any of us decide that men have it worse because there are fewer fashion choices while women are judged badly for buying the various fashion choices available to them? i don't "own" this thread, but i would really like it to be peaceful. i want to see unity among and between the sexes.

i know a guy here who likes to wear skirts (he's not gay, he just really likes a certain style of skirts). well, he gets picked on for wearing skirts in public. he said one day that he gets beat up. (he laughed when he said that, so i'm not sure how serious he was). that to me, is sexism. guy wants to wear a skirt, let him. we shouldn't care so much about it, you know. it's odd just because it's not common.

men have waaay more fashion choices in india than they do here. just so you know, men's indian fashions are available in canada - in the big cities like toronto anyway.

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toward the end of high school, one of the reasons girls were encouraged forced to go into the sciences is because the sciences is more time-consuming than the arts. the attitude was that a girl should not go into the arts field so she would not have all that extra time to flirt with boys. cause you know women only tempt, taunt and tease as they have only sex on their minds. !!! this line of thinking is just too bizarre for me to understand. so, our career choices were also influenced by sexist attitudes.

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ephemeral, this is so startling for me, as a Western woman, to read, and yet I can see the logic at once.

As you must have noticed, in North America we still talk of the sciences as "non-traditional" routes for women, however much we try to encourage more young women to take those routes. When I was young, maybe because the sexist patriarchs were themselves so ignorant of what really goes on in the arts , about the only kind of intellectual pursuit that was generally approved for grils was the arts and humanities -- although even there, we weren't supposed to go too far, y'know?

Me: I went too far.

And let me tell you: your patriarchs were right. The arts really corrupt women, something awful!

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that to me, is sexism. guy wants to wear a skirt, let him. we shouldn't care so much about it, you know. it's odd just because it's not common.

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I'm not in any rush to wear a skirt or anything, but I do like to cook, and I'm happy enough to do housework, I can point out the vamp on a shoe, I can tell you what a "peplum" is and why you probably don't want one, and I've been known to have genuine opinions about draperies.

More damning than that, I don't drive, so I don't have a car to refer to in the feminine, I don't like to get "hammered" on crappy beer, and I have a profound disinterest in nearly all sports.

I'm certainly no "victim" of sexism, but I do sometimes look at the expectations that people place on me and my penis, and it does occassionally occur to me that as a "man", I'm failing at many of them.

I'm happy with my life, but occasionally I'll be in some social situation and the guys will be back-slappin' and talking about sports and I'll feel the need to say some non-committal thing like "think the Jays can bring it home this year?" just to fit in, when really, deep down, I'm at least twice as concerned about the airspeed of an unladen swallow or the average rainfall in the Amazon basin between 1968 and 1972.

The last tiny piece of personal fulfillment will come when I finally say "Why the fuck do you devote more of your concern to a bunch of men in tight pants than you do to your own emotional growth? Sports are your crutch, dude!"

And I concur magoo, as I also love cooking, disinterested in sports and actually like reading harlequins in the bathroom.

My wife is a sports fanatic, especially football and likes stuff like cars, and mechanics etc.

And we get comments about both, mostly questioning our sexual orientation

edited to add
Im going thru the latest cooking magazine I bought and yes I do have a good recipe for baklava

[ 14 October 2005: Message edited by: Bacchus ]

I find your use of the term 'girly' in reference to men who don't like sports very interesting though. I mean, it really doesn't harm my point any, eh?

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Originally posted by fern hill:
Umm, not to be pissy or anything, but doesn't it seem as though now we've got a bunch of guys on this thread slapping themselves on the back over how 'girly' they are?

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
Do either of you ever feign an interest in sports because it's easier than trying to explain that you are indeed red-blooded and that your penis hasn't been misplaced, but you just really, really don't care about a field full of grown adults chasing a ball?

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I just can't do it anymore. I appear to be mentally incapable of feigning interest in anything I'm not interested in. On the upside, it has lost me a lot of really boring friends. I usually say the same thing 'I don't speak sports' (also 'I don't speak car, when people start talking about cars, of all things).

I just don't know what to do. I guess it's because I hear about it after the fact, and it gives me time to think about it. It would be so much simpler if I could catch a lout red handed and I could act without my brain interfering so much.

They have to deal with too much crap. And part of growing up is learning how to deal with it. And they are. Fighting every battle for them isn't going to help them in the long run-- and in fact that's probably a form of sexism in itself.

But then, I think there's some stuff I would like to have been there to help with.

So I'm not patting myself on the back.

1) 'the heterosexual equivalent to the Gay Panic Defense,' and

I rebel in my own little way by wearing jeans every time I visit my father. He only comments (positively) on how I look when I am wearing a skirt, preferrably a slim fitting one.

In contrast to ephemeral's experience in the UAE and India (or was it Pakistan?), girls here sometimes take their freedom to wear what they dare to the other extreme.

As for sexism in my daily life, I mentioned on another thread that a couple of weeks ago my employer offered me a "settlement" to get out of their legal obligation to provide a job for me when my maternity leave is over. Other than unwelcome advances/looks and stuff like that, this is the first time in my life (that I'm aware of) that my gender has been an issue for me in a job. I was dumbfounded and now am very reluctant to return to work there even though I really need the job. Apart from not being able to foresee their future staffing needs, my direct boss (a woman) said that it will be hard for me as a new mom to work - what if the baby has colic, she said. (Of course, I didn't accept the settlement.)

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Originally posted by fern hill:
And chubbybear, poo to yoo too.

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Oddly enough, on another thread in this forum (the closed one), a woman spoke last night of her disappointments/fears -- which she admitted might be irrational -- when she thinks of male consciousness of the erotic. She didn't exactly say that male consciousness remains so much a mystery to her that it has become a barrier to her -- that is just my clumsy translation.

But she was making something of a mirror-image point, I thought.

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Originally posted by fern hill:
Umm, not to be pissy or anything, but doesn't it seem as though now we've got a bunch of guys on this thread slapping themselves on the back over how 'girly' they are? Jusk asking. . .Subject: sexism. Forum: feminism.

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it's just a tad funny. a thread is started in the feminism forum on sexism, and a bunch of guys jump in to talk about sports.

but seriously though, i admit i was a little disappointed that more women haven't got involved yet. and then, i thought to myself that it was presumptuous of me to think that anyone would want to share their personal experiences here. i did say anybody could post as long as they didn't judge other people's experiences. i still wish more women would get involved. it's in the feminism forum, and i would prefer to have the discussion more focused on sexism against women. but the thread is driven by everybody who participates, not just the person who started the thread.

i don't know, maybe our babble men have things they need to get off their chest, and haven't had an opportunity to do that in any other forum. it kind of makes me smile.

for a while, in the middle of the thread, it seemed like men were reflecting on their own behaviours and attitudes, and that warmed me.

p.s: i still don't know if it is okay to restrict threads by gender. as far as i know, audra hasn't weighed in on that yet.

[ 14 October 2005: Message edited by: ephemeral ]

[ 14 October 2005: Message edited by: writer ]

Thinking back on this, I've come to realize that I've been subject to sexism as long as I can remember. I thank the heavens I had parents who didn't shield me from it, but encouraged me to fight it. Sometimes it was hard, and I see now it was harder for them than for me. Like the time I came back from scout camp with 'female scum' still visible on my forehead (jiffy marker takes a long time to completely fade). This was back in the days when grrls were new and rare in scouting (which, thankfully, is changing, slowly, for the positive) and they encouraged me to join and 'do my best', but the looks on their faces that day are burned into my memory. Oy, the sheer force of will it must have taken them to let me go back the next year. But I did. And my sisters did. And, finally, one year my youngest sister was a director.

Sexism was also rampant in university. I'm sorry to have to say this, because I love my profession, but engineering is such a racist, sexist, elitist, old white man's club that I don't know if it has a glass ceiling; I'm still trying to get through the friggin glass door. (ok, maybe a little over the top, but that is my gut feeling on it) School was such an endless stream of anti-woman sexism, that I ended up having to block it out. I did end up making some great friends, male and female, that also weren't happy with the state of affairs, but we were too few, and often too busy, to do much other than stick together.

I've also come to the self-realization that, at the time and now, there isn't a lot I _do_ to combat this. My attitude in the past has been very much head down, keep working, and prove them wrong by succeeding. There are times in my life when I wish I would have spoken up, but at the time I felt it was either not worth it, or too dangerous. Sometimes I got too caught up in trying to do the best I could that I let a lot of what was going around me slide. I would notice, but not say anything. I felt that speaking up would 'harm' my credibility, make me seem too 'sensitive', too 'girly', and alienate me from those I was trying to work with.

I am, by nature, a tomboy. But, I am also proudly a woman. And it bothers me that I have trouble at times reconciling those two facts, in my environment, in my actions and reactions, and in my own mind.

ok, enough rambling. I don't know if any of the above made sense, but I needed to say it. I think I need to say, and do, a lot more, but I'm still getting things sorted out. Now that I face less of this (sexism) in my life, I'm able to pull down the blinders and see what has been happening and what is hapening. It's just a lot of baggage to deal with, ya know?

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Then there are the cookbooks. At dinner parties, you see these men huddling around each other’s bookshelves checking out each other’s male cookbook collection. Cookery. God bless you, Anthony Bourdain. (I’ve noticed that these men aren’t averse to the cookbooks of domestic goddess Nigella Lawson whose beautiful and voluptuous image is pasted throughout.)

A male friend once told me he deals with stress by cooking up berry jams and jellies. When chaos is raining , he gets a big pot of strawberries bubbling away on the stove.

Another one of these Kitchen He-Men told me he bought a blowtorch to put those nice finishes on his crème brûlée. (I’m not kidding.)

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I was working in a small non-profit, as a maternity-leave fill-in. I had been a volunteer there for a couple of years, so it made sense. The head of the outfit was a gay guy, 'Robert'. There were four or five office workers, all except the gay guy female, and three drivers, all male. The receptionist, 'Jane', was a 'man's woman', didn't like women, had no time for them. She always wore the whole feminine outfit -- skirt, heels, make-up, jewellery, even an ankle-bracelet. She flirted with all the men, even Robert, actually especially Robert. Which amused him for a while then started to irritate him. Jane was pretty stupid. She didn't realize he was gay.

Because it was a poor non-profit, we had shitty old computers, incompatible with each other and they'd break down a lot. Every time I needed a mailing list of some sort, I'd have to go to Jane because it was on her computer. I'd ask nicely, and wait a couple of days, then ask again. Well, she'd been too busy. Repeat over and over and over with various increasinly transparent excuses. She couldn't help smirking a little as she tortured me. Drove me right round the bend. Finally, I'd have to go to Robert to get him to ask her. He saw all this; it happened right outside his office.

Jane took a lot of sick days too. One day, Robert was out at some meeting or other and called the office. I answered the phone. Two of the drivers were hanging out by my desk and listened to my end of the conversation, which went something like this: No, she's sick today. No, I didn't talk to her, she called before the office opened and left a message on the machine. Yes, way more convenient that way. Well, maybe she broke a nail and had to go to St. Mike's for emergency nail replacement.. . . Maybe a little more like that and yeah, the tone was sarcastic.

So I hung up and looked up. The two guys were absolutely enraged. How dare I speak about Jane like that? Who did I think I was? Poor Jane was sick and I was slagging her. And so on. I'd never seen these guys angry before. They were kinda large guys too. I wasn't too worried, but I was getting tired of it and so stood up. Well, that apparently was the signal to start playing Mountain Gorillas in the Office. The two of them backed me up against the fabric cubicle separator, continuing to huff and puff at me and kinda leaning in on me. Now, I was scared but damned if I'd let them know it. I called over to a co-worker: 'Hey, you got these guys' schedules ready? They've gotta get out of here.'

They backed off -- I swear -- snarling like dogs, and left. I was shaking.

So, how's that for a nice little stew of sexism, anti-sexism, and intimidation in the workplace?

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These men want their new gas ranges to put out and look good too. Their women refer to these stoves as trophy ranges or mistresses.

Not long ago I heard a man declare he’d found his perfect midlife crisis gas range. (The little red convertible is so yesterday to these males.)

...

Now don’t get me wrong. These are not girlie men. We’re talking self-confident alpha males here. If they were gorillas, they’d be silverbacks.

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Oh, Sharon, that is priceless.

That has been done to me too, the supposedly man-friendly woman galvanizing all the men to spring to her defence against the independent bitch.

It is a really maddening situation because we don't want to believe, in the first place, that women will do that to one another, although well-socialized women do it all the time; and then we don't want to believe that men are going to be such suckers.

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toward the end of high school, one of the reasons girls were encouraged forced to go into the sciences is because the sciences is more time-consuming than the arts. the attitude was that a girl should not go into the arts field so she would not have all that extra time to flirt with boys. cause you know women only tempt, taunt and tease as they have only sex on their minds. !!! this line of thinking is just too bizarre for me to understand. so, our career choices were also influenced by sexist attitudes.

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But I never really thought of it that way. Because almost all of the men in my family also get scientific and engineering educations. I assumed it was just a South Asian thing: the arts are frowned on. My mother got an IR/Poli-Sci degree or something---an exception. Her best friend became a computer scientist... Aside from that, I have an uncle in the most technical of humanities professions: the law.

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I'm more than a little pyrophobic, see.

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Drat. There I was assuming that I must know at least one big strong brave man who was not afraid to set the dreaded things alight, and now you're telling me you're pyrophobic, guy?!?

Seriously, Mandos, you and ephemeral have got me thinking. It is very very recent in Canada that middle-class people would have been happy to see their daughters pursuing any kind of scientific or technical education at all.

As I read you, I realize suddenly how deeply primitive and strange that has been of us. Even in Europe -- I'm thinking now of Thorfinn's family in Scotland, the generation coming of age in the forties and fifties -- the pressure was already on young women to turn away from the arts, to become doctors or science teachers, for reasons I still need to research.

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Originally posted by fern hill:

I thought about it for quite a while then decided, hell yes, I'm telling on them. Turned into a big kerfuffle that Jane enjoyed immensely.

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I've seen that sort of thing in a couple of my workplaces. It's pretty foul in all cases, and especially if it turns into that sort fo threatening behaviour. I hope I haven't done anything like that myself, even in a small way.

When I finished high school (1989), I worked in a factory outside Edmonton for a couple of years. It took me awhile to realize that, of the 100+ employees in the place, all of two were women (the receptionist and the secretary).

Every single human being doing any of the work in the actual factory (as opposed to clerical) was a man. I then realized that there was not even a women's washroom in the employee area. The showers were attached to the lunch room - we would walk naked from our lockers to the shower. When I asked about why there were no women there, the question was basically brushed off - 'never happen', 'the work's too hard'. Any women who applied for a job likely had their resumes trashed immediately.

At the time, I was relatively unconscious of gender issues (and most other issues - small town Alberta is not exactly a good place to build social awareness, except through personal experience). But even then, I thought it was a pretty outdated idea. Now I think it was appalling - this was a small appendage of a global company that traded on the NYSE, but flat out refused (in practice if not on paper) to hire women or make any effort to improve their hiring practices.

Now, the job was a dangerous, low-paying, piss-testing, toxic chemical infested, rotating shiftwork shithole - I wanted out something awful myself, and eventually escaped to college. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, male or female, but there was a significant recession at the time, and I have no doubt there were a lot of women who could have used the work, and done it a hell of a lot better than many of the knuckleheads I had the misfortune of working with.

In retrospect, it becomes more awkward to realize that I indirectly benefited from institutionalized sexism. At the time, I just needed a job. Most of the women I knew at the time worked in restaurants (some still do). What appals me about this story is that I have no doubt many of the men I worked with, and many I grew up with, still live in that same worldview and environment. I'd be astonished if the company has improved their hiring practices in any meaningful way.

[ 14 October 2005: Message edited by: arborman ]

If boys pay a serious social price for being "nerdy" at a young age, do you think girls, who pay the added price of being girls, are going to want to pay the geek price too? I suffered from Last Pick syndrome since early elementary school, and for no other reason that I can tell than either *maybe* racism or the fact that I was a computer geek and math nerd since I was seven. It basically soured me on physical activity, in particular team sports, for decades. But my self-esteem was hardly crushed because I had supportive teachers and my South Asian parents who were pleased as punch that I was so good at these things.

Now as to why that happened in North America, I have a few theories. But the gender disparity is because boys already pay a price for it, and girls rationally don't want to pay an additional price for it... The irony of this is that one of the reasons why geeks pay this social price at a young age is partly because geekdoom is tinged with a sense of effeminateness.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Seriously, Mandos, you and ephemeral have got me thinking. It is very very recent in Canada that middle-class people would have been happy to see their daughters pursuing any kind of scientific or technical education at all.

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I was wondering about this too, and it made me reflect on the value of insider information. The kind of information that you don't (necessarily) learn in a classroom, that's dispensed in an oral tradition kind of way, and that in some professions (I can only relate to my own, however) makes a big difference in the way you approach a situation or a problem. For a long time, and I'm sure it's still the case in many places, the insider info was only available to the boys' club.

I had more than one spectacular experience as a large animal vet that involved insider information. A colleague (a woman) told me once: if you have to give an epidural (to anesthetize the back end of a cow without making it sit down) to a really wild and dangerous cow, use a tiny drop of tranquilizer in the epidural syringe, and she'll quiet down.

The first time I had the opportunity to use that was when I was called to a barn where four guys, two in their twenties and two in their fifties, had been struggling for about two hours with a wild cow that had a prolapsed uterus (she had just calved and had pushed her uterus out so it was hanging right down to the ground. My job was to get it back in.) So when I arrived, they had these mixed feelings of disbelief and hope that I'd be able to do something. (They weren't expecting a guy vet, since there were only women vets at our clinic.) I used the tranquilizer in the epidural and everything went really smoothly and quickly. I was out of there in a half an hour or so.

I always thought afterwards that if I hadn't had that insider information, I would've failed miserably, and the tonnes of admiration I got could've so easily turned into scorn.

Because of automation and other factors, mass hireings are fewer in established factories. Even if women are hired in an egalitarian way-- or even if they are given preferential hireing to try to even up the score, it will be decades before work places like mine have a gender demographic that mirrors society.

Not only that, but the women that are in the workplace are not progressing to semi-skilled and skilled positions. They lack the seniority, of course, and no one is making it easy or encouraging them to over come this cultural barrier into this aspect of non traditional jobs for women.

But there is a golden oportunity unfolding before us.

There will be a shortage of skilled trades people in Canada in the next five to seven years. That means if high school aged women are encouraged now, perhaps they can take advantage. On the political level, feminist groups need to be lobbying government and getting trade union leaders on board to emphasize a 60% or better female entry into apprenticeships.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
As you must have noticed, in North America we still talk of the sciences as "non-traditional" routes for women, however much we try to encourage more young women to take those routes.

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skdadl, i was thinking of this as i was typing my post yesterday. and it had occurred to me before. mandos explained it really well. definitely, there is a bigger emphasis on science in india. everybody has just GOT to grow up to be a doctor or engineer. it's the only way to earn and save lots of money and lead a comfortable life. obviously, these feelings stem from the way the economy works in the country. but the attitude behind why girls should go into the sciences is twisted.

My sister is bright, tough, perceptive and kind. She has a wacky sense of humour. Her personality is bigger then she is(and she's a tall woman!)

He could have said anything to her.
They could have talked about the weather. He could have asked her where she came from. Hell, they could have even chatted about her shoes. Instead this man, who didn't know her at all, decided to compliment her on her toes?

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Now as to why that happened in North America, I have a few theories. But the gender disparity is because boys already pay a price for it, and girls rationally don't want to pay an additional price for it...

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The 'additional price' paid is the hard time women have being accepted within the 'nerd/geek' culture. So, on one hand, you are considered by society to be a part of that geek culture, but you are not considerd by other geeks to be their peer. I should say that is not always the case, as many of my friends (and husband) are geeks, but it is common enough that it would be painfully obvious to any woman attempting to enter this field. You have to really love the work, because the conditions are less than ideal. And the sciences work much the same way, I think. Although I have no personal experience with the pure sciences, the trials of my female friends there mirror my own.

[ 15 October 2005: Message edited by: Sleeping Sun ]

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It's a silly question. Homer Simpson, Fred Flintstone and Peter Griffin were not designed to serve as role models at all, negative or positive, which is part of the problem.

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I think it's pretty clear that Homer Simpson is designed to be a parodic negative role model and Fred Flinstone is not. Don't know Peter Griffin.

With respect to the geek question.

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Of course, I I don't know how these professions are regarded in other cultures generally, but as for here and now, I get the feeling that as more women enter scientific, medical and technical professions, the social status of the professions themselves becomes more egalitarian. This might be just a coincidence, with the rise of information technology that becomes available more at large; but I still think there's an impact due to more women.

Unfortunately, and unfairly, I think it has a negative impact on salaries, in addition to the fact that women still make less money even when doing the same work.

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One gets that uncomfortable feeling, does one not? There is always the threat of the so-called pink ghetto effect: as large numbers of women enter any field, the status of the entire field itself may be redefined ... downwards.

That has happened before. A century ago, many clerking jobs -- in banks, eg -- were all-male occupations and accorded modestly professional status. As soon as women began to fill those positions, the glass ceiling slid into place; salaries ceased to keep pace; and the way that people generally thought of that work began to change.

You're right that technological changes have played a role in making many fields more "egalitarian," but prejudice has played a part in the past too. If a woman can do it, after all, how hard can it be? Or: a woman doesn't need as much pay as a man, does she?

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Originally posted by jrootham:
30+ years ago there were NO positive geek role models in the mainstream culture, at least that leaked down to high school. Anybody who thought that scientists and engineers were cool was just weird.

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Personally, I seem to be meeting more and more parents who have these over-protective/controlling attitudes towards their daughters. Both mothers and fathers. And as YST says, it's always blamed on the boys, as if their behaviour is natural and therefore beyond control. At the same time, I find myself a bit disturbed to see pre-pubescent girls wearing clothing that I think of as overly sexualized...perhaps that's my problem, rather than theirs, though.

I had a perfectly intelligent woman tell me that, although she's enrolled her son in judo classes, she couldn't see doing the same for a daughter (it somehow 'just seemed wrong'). Others (self-identified feminists, even) describe expecting different behaviour from their female and male children, expecting boys to be rough-and-tumble and girls to be better behaved. I don't have any, but aren't kids just kids? Girls can play rough...boys can be quiet...I don't have any reason to expect differences among the wee ones.

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And the general loss in real wages against increases in living costs has, of course, something to do with changed assumptions about women's work, why women should work, why anyone should work. It's not an altogether inspiring story, although a very complex one.

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What about the Mission Control guys at NASA? I grew up in the 70s, and we all thought they were pretty cool.

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Well I thought the whole space thing was pretty cool too. My memory of the general attitudes of the dominant cultural stream in high school in the late sixties didn't include that. They liked the spectacle but didn't clue in much on the technology. The astronauts were the early heroes in the space game.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:
Do either of you ever feign an interest in sports because it's easier than trying to explain that you are indeed red-blooded and that your penis hasn't been misplaced, but you just really, really don't care about a field full of grown adults chasing a ball?

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Originally posted by jrootham:

I think it's pretty clear that Homer Simpson is designed to be a parodic negative role model and Fred Flinstone is not. Don't know Peter Griffin.

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Yst's point was that these role models are used as pop cultural excuses for men not to live up to any higher standard - the ol' "men just can't help it" argument. A very good example of sexism. It's also, in my opinion, a way for heterosexual relationship to continue to function socially in the face of many serious dysfunctions that have been pointed out by feminism in the last thirty or forty years (healthy, socially-aware heterosexual relationships notwithstanding ) ie; it must be exhausting being a feminist in everyday life, and it's exhausting for men too - feminist and non-feminist. I am interested in how pop culture represents heterosexual men (the 'average joe shmoe') in the face of this reality.

I was also fascinated by some of the comments about socially-enforced sports spectatorship. I have always wondered why men participate in this to the degree that they do. In my opinion sports spectatorship, especially that of team sports, should be on the decline, but it seems to me that it's being propped up by massive and heavy marketing offensives, (even to the point of influencing civic projects to build new and massive sports arenas, some of which are actually redundant in their communities).

One would hope that that many men would not be participating merely because they're expected to and have no other outlets in their lives, but on the other hand, if it's some biologically-based behaviour, that's pretty depressing too.

[ 17 October 2005: Message edited by: jas ]

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Originally posted by brebis noire:
You do get the feeling that as soon as you get access to the same playground, the game moves somewhere else - but there are overall economic factors that make the whole wage issue very blurry.

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this reminded of something thwap posted on babble about the health profession (in russia?) being dominated by women, but it's not generally regarded as a respectable profession. lemme see if i can find it. oh good. here we are. thwap's post isn't very far down if you want to read more about it.

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Yst's point was that these role models are used as pop cultural excuses for men not to live up to any higher standard - the ol' "men just can't help it" argument. A very good example of sexism. It's also, in my opinion, a way for heterosexual relationship to continue to function socially in the face of many serious dysfunctions that have been pointed out by feminism in the last thirty or forty years (healthy, socially-aware heterosexual relationships notwithstanding ) ie; it must be exhausting being a feminist in everyday life, and it's exhausting for men too - feminist and non-feminist. I am interested in how pop culture represents heterosexual men (the 'average joe shmoe') in the face of this reality.

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I am not saying that bad examples don't exist in the media, just that Homer Simpson is a bad example of a bad example.

Well, I had a nasty brain cramp when I described Homer as parodic, the word I was looking for was satire. If people use satirical art as an excuse for their behaviour we are in a lot of trouble.