Podium Girls

[AlaninWales]

Thing I get about sexism is how easy it is to brush aside the "small stuff" as nothing to bother about. The way some men, particularly from certain regions, use terms like "love" or "pet" towards complete strangers who are women is just one example. I've rarely heard a male equivalent reach as much prevalence.

This is brushed off by most as low level but often grates. It's too familiar and uses a word with possessive connotations that's not used for men. Rare examples of similar phrasing that's used for both genders include "me duck" in the Stoke/Staffordshire area IIRC. That's used towards men and women plus it's more harmless. Not possessive you see.

Whilst all "low level stuff" it's a good bellwether for the state of men's views and attitudes towards women. The society's attitude towards women as a whole. I personally feel women can be complicit in the sexist status quo as well as men.

This would be a good argument except ... that it is not true. The assumption here is that only men address women in these terms - or that it is onl when men address women with "love" or "pet" that it matters. Plenty of women (and a few men) call me "love" or "pet" and yes, it is more prevalent from Northeners. Ability to take offence at that lies with the individual.

[jayd]

Meic,


"the people who shout sexist in order to silence critics"

But, who are they, this collection of people? Has anyone attempted to stifle you so far? Has it worked, or are "they" a figment of your imagination; a convenient way to disparage another point of view?

[pwa]

If you don't come from an area where people address others as "love" you can misunderstand it and see it as patronising. It isn't. It is a sign of warmth and affection. It is more commonly used towards a member of the opposite sex to the speaker. Women use it towards men and boys. Men use it towards women and girls. Women (traditionally less repressed, perhaps) use it towards other females, sometimes. When someone addresses you with that word (at least, in the North) they are showing friendship and a willingness to help you.

I'm not sure if addressing someone as "love" means something else when uttered by people not from the North, but that is another matter.

[meic]

JayD:
This was the post that made me make that comment.

This made me giggle. Coming from where it comes from.

Basically the problem is people like Freddie here who are so far into their own world view they cannot understand that their actions/viewpoints as the very root of the problem. You are never going to win against them as they cannot see their view as wrong.

There have been other comments about misogynistic bile directed at another poster.

Now Freddie was not actually called a sexist and I did not actually say that anybody on this forum had called "sexist sexist" but sails were very close to the wind.

So it was a general comment about how the debate goes outside of this forum and previous threads on this forum. Triggered by something getting close.
My comment was not hoping to be a "convenient way to disparage another point of view?" but a comment to steer comment towards the issue rather than towards an individual for the views they hold.

[jan19]

If you don't come from an area where people address others as "love" you can misunderstand it and see it as patronising. It isn't. It is a sign of warmth and affection. It is more commonly used towards a member of the opposite sex to the speaker. Women use it towards men and boys. Men use it towards women and girls. When someone addresses you with that word (at least, in the North) they are showing friendship and a willingness to help you.

I'm not sure if addressing someone as "love" means something else when uttered by people not from the North, but that is another matter.

I agree, what's common in some areas isn't in others. You might get an older person using "love" around here in a friendly way, but its not very common and the young certainly don't use it that way.

So when I have " come on love, get your [expletive] legs going" (what one young man shouted at me from the passenger seat of a car on Monday as I was cycling back home from work being halfway up a hill) its not meant in a friendly way. As I said in an earlier post, "love" gets used quite a lot in these circumstances. I dismissed the idea that I felt belittled, but looking back I think that's actually the sense (or else its patronising) in which its used.

That sort of comment is pretty common by the way.....

Jan

[karlt]

Quite, the "everyday sexism" website is a belittlement of real sex based oppression and sex specific violence that non-western women have to face. Everyday solipsism would be a more accurate name for much of the postings there.

Yeah. Stop moaning. It's worse elsewhere. [slap] stop your whining; in Saudi Arabia I could use a stick.

You have exaggerated to a level which isnt actually present, in order to create a false image.

Not really. "It's worse elsewhere" is never an excuse for anything, regardless of how much or how little worse it is. It's just whataboutery.

[meic]

Yes but you have actually introduced physical violence in the slap and countered it with a stick in Saudi Arabia as being worse.
My impression of the everyday sexism is that it isnt full of physical violence so much as comments about people's dress or hair. That most of it is of a level that would be seen as petty in comparison to the day to day problems of the majority of the UK's population, male and female.

[old_windbag]

This would be a good argument except ... that it is not true. The assumption here is that only men address women in these terms - or that it is onl when men address women with "love" or "pet" that it matters. Plenty of women (and a few men) call me "love" or "pet" and yes, it is more prevalent from Northeners. Ability to take offence at that lies with the individual.

Well putting aside I'm a mysogynist , I regularly get called "pet" and "luv". Not from anyone in any way related but from checkout girls in major name supermarkets. Some have got to know me over time, others have never seen me, they're just using friendly terms to address me...... and you know something I find it very pleasant indeed and take no offence or feel belittled. I also regularly get called "mate" by males in various employment and have ben called "john" a few times as in the southern style generic addressing of a man.
It's entertaining to be called "son" by someone you know is much younger . Perhaps as a friendly northerner I have a less PC view of such terms of address. Regarding shane sutton telling jess varnish "to go away and have a baby", well I've heard several people get told to "go and boil there head" but insulting though it may be they did not take it literally. When in a fit of peak, or in an argument, people use terms to cause wilful hurt or anger.... isn't that what arguments tend to be, they're not a time for happy, smiley joviality. We don't know the background to his reactions and the stresses that may have led to his responses. We all inhibit our true thoughts and feelings, in the heat of rage our underlying self may show itself.

I once infuriated someone by stating in a discussion of inclusivity and diversity, that we are all rascist..... but I said the term should be removed and replaced with discrimination( race is only a tiny part of what actually it is ). The bottom line is that each and everyone on here discriminates, whether that be bias towards people of specific backgrounds, age ,sex etc. We have a mental checklist when selecting friends, oh they like bikes, oh they vote tory, oh they hate dogs.... All the things we have as approved criteria for choosing a friend, but in the extremes where people have had life experiences to affect their decisions or are in a fight to survive, those tickpoints may end off in all the areas we class as racist, sexist, ageist...... discrimination. So we all naturally do it and to different extremes and social pressures/experiences. In times of crisis we it really kicks in to extreme levels for all. If the uk was in famine, northerners would stand against southerners, then each county would stand against the next, then city v city, street v street and finally family v family, all to fight for the right to survive. Thats when we see human nature and its inherent discrimination to the extreme.

[AlaninWales]

Not really. "It's worse elsewhere" is never an excuse for anything, regardless of how much or how little worse it is. It's just whataboutery.

What's worse? Someone else feeling they are better able to pick up chairs?

Some years ago, a female manager and I were walking to a meeting. I stepped ahead to open the door; Her immediate response was "How dare you walk ahead of me" and when I held the door "I don't need that holding": Nor did she, being nearly as tall as me (and I'm 6'6") and accustomed to showing other staff how to sling large boxes of paper around. Her assumption was that (a) I had walked ahead to arive first in the meeting (wrong, I was opening the door) and (b) that I was holding the door because she was female (wrong, I was holding the door because she was my manager).

Elsewhere of course, I wouldn't have had a female manager.

It was a different (ponytailed) female manager who decided my ponytail was unprofessional and needed me to have it cut off before she could employ me.

[pwa]

If you don't come from an area where people address others as "love" you can misunderstand it and see it as patronising. It isn't. It is a sign of warmth and affection. It is more commonly used towards a member of the opposite sex to the speaker. Women use it towards men and boys. Men use it towards women and girls. When someone addresses you with that word (at least, in the North) they are showing friendship and a willingness to help you.

I'm not sure if addressing someone as "love" means something else when uttered by people not from the North, but that is another matter.

I agree, what's common in some areas isn't in others. You might get an older person using "love" around here in a friendly way, but its not very common and the young certainly don't use it that way.

So when I have " come on love, get your [expletive] legs going" (what one young man shouted at me from the passenger seat of a car on Monday as I was cycling back home from work being halfway up a hill) its not meant in a friendly way. As I said in an earlier post, "love" gets used quite a lot in these circumstances. I dismissed the idea that I felt belittled, but looking back I think that's actually the sense (or else its patronising) in which its used.

That sort of comment is pretty common by the way.....

Jan

I share your anger at that. I honestly never get comments like that out of car windows. I don't think my Missus does, either. I don't think the "love" in that case added much to what was just a form of bullying.

[meic]

I have had comments from people as i ride but I mostly take them as banter, not always friendly.

" come on love, get your [expletive] legs going"

I have certainly had comments to this effect but without the "love" bit. I have been mock-clapped (applause not blows) and often given directions to the TdF or informed that is was not running today.
I have also been egged (hit by them not egged on) from a passing car.

On the other hand I have frequently heard calls of "nice bike" and encouragement along the line of "not far to go" and "you can do it" as I crawl up hills from fresh racers on expensive bikes, which is a bit condescending as I cycle up those hills regularly, know exactly how long they are and could do it even with a trailer on the back. However no matter how condescending they are from the back of their majestic steed, they actually meant well.

[jan19]

I

have had comments from people as i ride but I mostly take them as banter, not always friendly.



" come on love, get your [expletive] legs going"

I have certainly had comments to this effect but without the "love" bit. I have been mock-clapped (applause not blows) and often given directions to the TdF or informed that is was not running today.
I have also been egged (hit by them not egged on) from a passing car.

On the other hand I have frequently heard calls of "nice bike" and encouragement along the line of "not far to go" and "you can do it" as I crawl up hills from fresh racers on expensive bikes, which is a bit condescending as I cycle up those hills regularly, know exactly how long they are and could do it even with a trailer on the back. However no matter how condescending they are from the back of their majestic steed, they actually meant well.

The emphasis was on the expletive, so not friendly. As I said, quite common. Men - and I'm sorry, but it is always men - don't really seem to have inhibitions about shouting out as they pass a (relatively) slow-moving female. The abuse I can deal with - I'm well used to it, and these days don't react at all although it used to upset me when I first started cycling. Cars beeping their horns (less common, but still not infrequent) used to make me jump but that doesn't worry me now either.

I still haven't quite got used to having things thrown at me (sweet bag, the big sort you get in supermarkets one day last week. Sadly empty.) Not too frequent that one luckily. Trying to be pushed off the road has happened a few times (only once with real malice).

The worst deliberate things I've had were the man leaning out of the passenger side of a white van to squirt water into my face, and worst of all, having an air-gun let off at me (hubby was riding a bit behind me on that occasion and saw it poking out of the window. Plus heard the pop-pop. Luckily it missed).

Happens to hubby sometimes, but much less than me (although he has had someone lean out of a car and try to push him, which I've never had).

You're more tolerant than I am Meic about the "you can do it " remarks. I'm afraid they rather irritate me because I find them a bit patronising. Wouldn't say anything though - I just smile through gritted teeth.

And people wonder why I cycle......

Jan

[karlt]

Yes but you have actually introduced physical violence in the slap and countered it with a stick in Saudi Arabia as being worse.
My impression of the everyday sexism is that it isnt full of physical violence so much as comments about people's dress or hair. That most of it is of a level that would be seen as petty in comparison to the day to day problems of the majority of the UK's population, male and female.

Many of my female friends nevertheless object to it quite strongly, and it's not for me to tell them what they should and shouldn't be bothered by. Its acceptability stands or falls on its own merits or otherwise, not on comparison with other things that happen in the world.

[pjclinch]

You cannot stop people thinking sexist things (if we can ever get an objective definition), even if you punish free speech. We do already punish free speech in this country, but still sexist views exist, inside the heads of people.

In the short term, no, but in the long term you can. And the long term becomes the short term in time as long as you realise you have work to do and make a start.

If this were not the case we'd still own slaves, think it was all right to think of people with darker skin as only a step above monkeys, burn people with the wrong way of going to church at the stake and so on.
And in living memory there have been complete turnarounds of public attitude and thinking that have started with people saying "this isn't right". In my lifetime drink/driving has been a societally acceptable thing. Too bad if you got caught and lost your license, but it didn't make you a bad person. That has changed a great deal.

You can no more defeat sexism (or racism, for that matter) than you can defeat dragons, but we can say, with some objectivity, that the UK is one of the least sexist countries in the world; has no institutional sexism, that couldn't be countered in a court of law and that men here treat women far more fairly than around 95% of the globe.

The UK has made huge strides in changing its attitudes to the extent which clearly shows it is possible to defeat racism and sexism (100 years ago women couldn't even vote, is there any credible voice airing the same opposition to universal suffrage now?, a city with a bigger population than the whole of Scotland has just voted in Sadiq Khan as mayor). We'll never completely defeat it because you can't utterly eliminated knuckle-draggers, but we're heading in the right direction. But to think we've gone as far as we can go and anything further is impossible or not worth doing is just rationalising inaction and giving yourself a misplaced sense of complacency. We've got a long way to go and saying we're up there with the best won't get us any further along the way.

Pete.

[meic]

Yes but you have actually introduced physical violence in the slap and countered it with a stick in Saudi Arabia as being worse.
My impression of the everyday sexism is that it isnt full of physical violence so much as comments about people's dress or hair. That most of it is of a level that would be seen as petty in comparison to the day to day problems of the majority of the UK's population, male and female.

Many of my female friends nevertheless object to it quite strongly, and it's not for me to tell them what they should and shouldn't be bothered by. Its acceptability stands or falls on its own merits or otherwise, not on comparison with other things that happen in the world.

So why did you exaggerate it into physical violence? It appears that its merits didnt seem quite strong enough, so needed a bit of help.